
Show HN: SmartyPlants – my first iOS app, written entirely in React Native - jsh7
https://www.smartyplantsapp.com
======
jsh7
Happy to answer any questions. I really enjoyed working with React Native and
I can't wait to start my next RN app. I was also able to open source a couple
libraries I wrote while building this app:
[https://github.com/jshanson7/react-native-
swipeable](https://github.com/jshanson7/react-native-swipeable) and
[https://github.com/jshanson7/react-native-
interactions](https://github.com/jshanson7/react-native-interactions)

~~~
throwmenow_0140
Your app looks great! Thanks for open-sourcing your code, the swipeable
component looks promising, I hope I get the chance to use it.

I like that

\- you've made a video showing all the features

\- every interaction has nice animations (which library did you use?)

\- the goal of the app is simple but very useful

I can imagine that you can build many specialized todo apps using this as a
boilerplate.

Do you have any resources you've used for this project? -
[https://github.com/VctrySam/AirBnb](https://github.com/VctrySam/AirBnb) and
[https://github.com/fbsamples/f8app](https://github.com/fbsamples/f8app) were
very helpful for inspiration, do you have any recommendations?

~~~
jsh7
Thanks!! Using this as boilerplate for multiple specialized todo/reminder apps
was exactly my plan :)

For animations I just used Animated ([https://facebook.github.io/react-
native/docs/animated.html](https://facebook.github.io/react-
native/docs/animated.html)) and LayoutAnimation
([https://facebook.github.io/react-
native/docs/layoutanimation...](https://facebook.github.io/react-
native/docs/layoutanimation.html)) -- the latter makes things so easy I'll
probably end up overusing it.

One resource I looked at was [https://github.com/Thinkmill/react-conf-
app](https://github.com/Thinkmill/react-conf-app) \-- but your f8app looks
even better than that! I like going through the package.json of other RN apps
to learn about new tools. Some of my favorite packages so far are react-
native-code-push, react-native-google-analytics-bridge, react-native-image-
picker, react-native-smart-splash-screen, react-native-vector-icons, and
redux-persist.

------
thisischichi
A todo app for the greenfingered. Nice! Might get people talking if you had a
social share function... How easy was it to integrate the upload functionality
in React Native? And where do the pictures go? Amazon S3?

I posted my first thing to Hacker News today too:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13938994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13938994)

~~~
jsh7
Congrats on your launch! Your site is well-designed. And definitely, I'm
thinking that building in some social features should be my next step. One
idea I have is adding a timeline for each of your plants so you can see how
they've grown over time, and then letting you share those timelines with your
friends.

Regarding the photos -- for this MVP, I made it a point to not build any
server whatsoever. So for now, all pictures are stored on the device's file
system. For this I use [https://github.com/marcshilling/react-native-image-
picker](https://github.com/marcshilling/react-native-image-picker) to
take/choose the photos and then [https://github.com/johanneslumpe/react-
native-fs](https://github.com/johanneslumpe/react-native-fs) to manage them in
the application's storage.

~~~
thisischichi
Thanks for the kind words on the site. It is written in Elixir and runs on the
Phoenix framework. There's also a fair bit of React for the real-time
functionality, which is powered by Phoenix channels. Perhaps I should have
mentioned that in my post, seeing as this is Hacker News...!!

Thanks also for sharing the React Native libraries you used.

I think it will be wise in the long run to keep the pictures on device, and
maybe store details about the timeline instead, should you wish to add that
social feature. As mentioned by @throwmenow_0140 this could do really well
with similar, daily capture type apps. Maybe think of one for capturing a
selfie a day: [http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/23/man-takes-a-photo-of-
himself-e...](http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/23/man-takes-a-photo-of-himself-
every-single-day-for-30-year-selfie-project-6467454/)

In its current incarnation, this could go down a storm with allotment owners
in the UK though! And that's not something to be sniffed at :) Keep it up.
[http://www.allotment-garden.org/](http://www.allotment-garden.org/)

