Installation

Before installing Open Native, make sure that you are on NativeScript 8.4.0 or newer. You can install Open Native in your NativeScript project via npm or yarn:

npm install @open-native/core

yarn add @open-native/core

Android Setup

Android requires two more steps before you start using installing native modules in your NativeScript app.

Installing open-native.gradle plugin

Create App_Resources/Android/before-plugins.gradle and install open-native.gradle plugin by pasting the following contents.

apply from: new File(["node", "--print", "require.resolve('@open-native/core/package.json')"].execute(null, rootDir).text.trim(), "../scripts/open-native.gradle");

If you are planning to install a react native module that would make network requests, it’s best to also enable okHttp in App_Resources/Android/before-plugins.gradle.

ext {
  okHttpVersion = "4.9.2"
}

Installing native_modules.gradle plugin

Create App_Resources/Android/settings.gradle and install native_modules.gradle plugin by pasting the following contents.

apply from: new File(["node", "--print", "require.resolve('@open-native/core/package.json')"].execute(null, rootDir).text.trim(), "../scripts/native_modules.gradle");

Finally we will run our app to confirm everything is running normally.

ns run android

ns run ios

As your app builds, you will see logs like below:

Awesome! Open Native is working.

Confirm that Open Native is functional at runtime

Once you have installed Open Native, you must want to know whether everything is setup correctly without installing any native modules. To do that, we are going to invoke a method from one of the core Linking module.

import { Linking } from 'react-native'; // react-native?? yes we alias react-native with open-native so don't worry, you have not installed react-native :P

// Invoke the method on Linking module to open a URL.
Linking.openURL('https://github.com/OpenNative/open-native');

This should open up Open Native github in your mobile/emulator browser.

I hope the installation was simple. Your project is now ready to install of react-native modules.

What’s next

Let’s install a native module in your NativeScript app.