The process of building an app, whether it’s a web app, a mobile app, or even a desktop app, can be hard, long and tedious. However, if you add the ability to use reusable components, the process becomes easier and more efficient.
What is Needed
Firstly, is to use a framework that has the capability of using reusable components. They may offer in-built components that you can use or modify in your app. There might be libraries, packages or plugins available made by other developers that consist of components that you can use.
Secondly, is to change your mindset and the way you code. Look at the app as a whole. Let’s say you are building an app that has many screens with multiple components. You are currently writing code to create the user interface (UI) of a screen. Consider this: Will this UI be used anywhere else? Is the UI consistent throughout the app? If so, instead of copy and pasting the code for every screen, extract the code and turn it into a reusable component. Then, you would just have to include a reference to that UI component on each screen.
For a component to be reusable, it has to take in data or data sets of some kind, and output the itself that reflects what was inputted. For example, your app has a screen that displays the profile of all registered users. Each profile is shown on a card. That card is your reusable component. The component needs to be able to accept a user’s information and display it.
You may be new to this concept, do not worry, you can learn and improve by practising. If you are an experienced developer, more practice would not hurt. “Practice makes perfect”.
Benefits of Using Reusable Components
Efficiency
If you are able to build components that can be reused, you are slowly becoming a more efficient developer. You will be able to save time, effort, and money. That means getting the app done faster and for less cost. If the components you have built are generic enough, you can even bring them over to another app and use it there as well.
Consistency
Using reusable components will help give your app a consistent style and functionality throughout the app. Instead of wasting effort in making sure every instance of a component looks and function same at different areas of the code, you just have to focus on the code of the reusable component. It will also give users a more consistent experience while using the app.
Easier to Make Changes When Needed
By using reusable components, when changes are needs, you would only have to modify the component, rather than having to find and make changes in several areas in the code.
Frameworks with Reusable Components
Below are frameworks that have the capability of using reusable components to build different kinds of apps. You should consider using these frameworks if you want to efficiently build apps.
For Web Apps
React
React is a JavaScript library for building interactive UIs. When your data changes, React will efficiently update and render just the affected components. Since it build components using JavaScript, you can easily pass rich data to it using props, and get output you want.
Read more about React here.
Vue
Vue is a progressive framework. Its main focus is building UIs. It is very each to integrate Vue with any other backend framework. Vue uses templates rather than components. Though working with Vue may be a bit different, the concept of reusable components is the same. Vue has the ability to copy and store the DOM to its state, allowing it to update an element without reloading the entire DOM.
Read more about Vue here.
For Mobile Apps
React Native
React Native is a JavaScript framework for writing real, natively rendering mobile applications for iOS and Android. Its components work similarly to those of React in theory. Using them is a bit different however, as it needs to build mobile apps for different platforms rather than a web app.
Read more about React Native here.
Flutter
Flutter is Google’s open-source user interface (UI) software development kit (SDK). It builds beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop apps. Flutter provides a wide range of pre-built and pre-designed UI elements in the form of widgets which developers can use to create good user interfaces.
Read more about Flutter here.
Your App
If you have a great idea for an app but do not have the know-how to get it up and running. We at FONSEKA can do it for you. We will help you build and maintain your app.
Contact us now to innovate with us! We are here to support you!