Support for React Native Windows Apps
B
Brandon Biggs
I would like to develop native WPF and UWP apps for Windows, which is my main operating system. React Native for Windows has been out for almost two years now and should be stable enough for Expo.
t
trajano
Has anyone tried to do a
prebuild
and somehow build a Windows app?shaogong
Is this already 5 years ago
T
Tech Student
We NEED this. Why has it been so long :(
Henrique Teles
2023, waiting for it
Michael Wood
Henrique Teles: I just noticed this: https://github.com/EvanBacon/config-plugins-for-any-platform/commit/00d3f1d2f80ef4ef069c504d62e3361e3b015cec
So there might be some hope
Henrique Teles
Michael Wood: You've tried with expo-router ?
Michael Wood
Henrique Teles: No, I haven't teied expo-router yet
Alen Toma
Is there no update on this. This really usefull, as if I want to support react-native-windows I would really need to remove expo.
John Johansen
2023: Any plans yet?
Michael Wood
According to the new "Prebuild" documentation:
"In the future, we would like to support additional platforms, such as react-native-macos and react-native-windows, but this is not currently a priority."
Tony Beretini
Any update on this? Did anyone develop a plug-in or something by any chance?
Michael Wood
Maciej Wiatr
This definitely should be considered by expo team. Current windows market share is 30% and this would be huge for the whole expo ecosystem.
Michael Wood
Maciej Wiatr: I suspect Microsoft will come up with something similar to this before the Expo team has time for it.
But I am not a member of the Expo team, so this is just my guess.
Aron
Michael Wood: I think the first thing the expo team needs to do is that
compatible
with react-native-windows and macOS. Do not stop our steps with React Native, keep invisible on the platform that expo do not supportMichael Wood
Aron: I'm pretty sure that the Expo team wouldn't intentionally make Expo incompatible with React Native Windows. But is there some specific incompatibility that you know of?
Aron
Michael Wood: I tried add
react-native-macos
support to my expo project last time. I got errors and the app could not be launched. I remember that the error messages is about expo. So i don't know is expo compatible or notMichael Wood
Aron: OK, so I gave this a quick try. The problem is that (unsurprisingly, I suppose)
npx react-native-macos-init
installs a macos
directory with native code (similar to android
and ios
directories in a normal React Native project.) So this is not going to work in the Expo managed workflow unless someone puts in the work to make it work. But I don't see how the Expo team could be blamed for it not working. It's not like they are deliberately making Expo incompatible.Given the new config plugins etc., I think this would be a lot easier to do these days than it would have been a few months ago, though.
Aron
Michael Wood: Haha of course! So i said that Expo should be invisible, clear errors about macOS or Windows. For example, if we are going to make a macOS app, then we have to drop Expo...
Michael Wood
Aron: react-native-macos is incompatible with Expo. For them to work together, one or both of them would have to change. This is not a matter of "just being invisible". Somebody has to do the work.
Based on my outsider's perspective it seems to me that the Expo team is focused on supporting Android, iOS and Web well. They've done a huge amount of work recently to drastically improve the Android/iOS workflows (EAS, Custom Dev Clients etc.) and they are still busy improving that, so it seems unlikely to me that Expo would take on this work now.
Also, Microsoft seems to have a project to do something similar to what you want, while the Expo team has not, as far as I know, said anything about react-native-macos, so it seems to me that Microsoft is more likely to implement something like this before the Expo team is.
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