This Week In React #166: Waku, React-Forget, React-Native, Expo, Million, Remotion, Next.js, Storybook, Remix...

Hi everyone!

This has been a quite exciting week in terms of news!

We had a few great React releases and articles. It's great to see React-Forget slowly being rolled out on Instagram. Remotion also started to demonstrate its full potential with the GitHub Unwrapped launch.

React-Native is on fire, with v0.73 stable, Expo SDK 50 and Expo Router v3 in beta and a few other great releases. What excites me most is Expo gradually unveiling its plan to support Universal React Server Components.

This week's issue is quite special for me: it's the very first time I'm not alone writing the content. Benedikt almost wrote the entire React-Native section. I haven't used React-Native in production since 2020 😅 so it's nice to have someone using all the cutting edge libs help me provide relevant insights.

Don't forget to fill in the State of JavaScript and State of React-Native surveys. And if you could mention me at the end that's cool! Theo T3 shows you how 😄

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⚛️ React

Waku - Minimal React Framework that enhances React Server Component usage

We already featured this one, but the v0.18 rewrite is out, and includes a little introduction blog post.
Waku is a minimal React framework that allows us to explore the core RSC capabilities, free from the traditional SSG/SSR strategies. Technically it is a Vite-based bundler that outputs pure JS and supports deployment to edge runtimes. Now sponsored by Vercel.

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🍿 Remotion - GitHub Unwrapped 2023: this year Remotion partnered with GitHub to produce the GitHub Unwrapped video (here is mine). A great showcase for the type of videos that can be produced using React.
🐦 React hydration error diff demo: revival of interest for this much needed feature (new React PR).
🐦 Tanner Linsley about React concurrent model vs reactive model: on the difficulty to get the benefits of both models at once. Tanner finally migrated the upcoming TanStack Router to a reactive model (visual demo).
🐦 Next.js moving away from extending fetch(), adding new APIs like noStore()
📖 Next.js - Updated Server Actions docs - Includes how to use them outside forms, security recommendations, and best practices
📖 Next.js React Foundations updated with App Router and Server Components
📜 A Chain Reaction: Dan Abramov is back with great storytelling lesson through the implementation of a recursive function that renders JSX to platform elements.
📜 Next.js 14: Layouts vs Templates: templates are remounted on navigation and reset their state.
📜 Storybook for React Server Components: Storybook 8 is now in alpha. In includes experimental Next.js RSC support. In practice RSCs will run client-side and you have to mock networks and Node.js APIs.
📜 The anatomy of shadcn/ui: gives a great overview of the popular Radix + Tailwind l̶i̶b̶r̶a̶r̶y̶, and how it assembles various packages to provide a good DX.
📜 How to set up self-healing URLs in Next.js for better SEO: shows how to create Next.js urls that are both human-readable and include a stable id. You can change the article title/url without breaking old links.
📜 Remix - Submit a form without overwriting existing parameters: suggests to use a <ExistingSearchParams> to append existing params to the form.
📜 Polymorphism in React - 2 patterns you must know
📜 Lexical state updates
📦 React DevTools 5.0 - New React-Forget badge: new feature permits to see Meta's rollout of React-Forget in production on Instagram (ref).
📦 Million.js 3.0 - Overhauled version, faster drop-in replacement
📦 AuthKit - The world's best login box powered by WorkOS and Radix
📦 react-hook-form 7.49 - react-server bundle, reactive errors prop...
📦 Next-Admin 3.0 - App router support
📦 Epic Stack - Client Hints - Eliminate flashes of incorrect content

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📱 React-Native

📊 State of React-Native - Reminder to fill the survey!
🚧 RFC - Well-defined event loop processing model: proposal to bring the React Native event loop closer to the web specification.
🐦 POC of multi-window apps support in React Native
🐦 interpolate() in React Native Reanimated - visually understand extrapolation
📖 Expo introduces canary releases
📜 Expo EAS - Keep your cache close — It’s Faster!: Expo cuts pod installation time by caching popular pods directly on their build VMs.
📜 Integrate Firebase Analytics into Expo Router: unlike React-Navigation, Expo-Router is url-first, and you have to listen to pathname changes.
📜 Creating a macOS MenuBar app with React Native
📜 Epic Games vs Google - Trial Verdict, a Win for All Developers: might bring changes to the app stores rules regarding in-app-payment models and their 30% tax.
📦 React Native 0.73 with a new debugger intended to replace Flipper, stable Symlink support in Metro (important in monorepos) and a new Kotlin template for Android (+ Android 14 support).
📦 Expo SDK 50 beta: upgrades to React-Native 0.73, with a new Expo Dev Tools Plugin API, a complete rewrite of expo-sqlite, improved expo-camera, a new library to figure out compatibility between a JS bundle and a particular native build (@expo/fingerprint), expo-updates hooks API, EAS updates/rollouts and much more.
📦 Expo Router v3 beta: includes API routes, Bundle Splitting for web, and a ton of other new features. Universal React Server Components are coming to Expo!
📦 Reactotron 3.0: brings automatic tracking of all log messages, better Android device debugging, faster app launch time.
📦 React Native Skia - 3D transformations: William Candillon posted a 🐦 demo
📦 React-Native-Unistyles 2.0
📦 react-native-permissions 4.0 - iOS 17, Android 14 support
🎙️ Galaxies - Rocket Ship: recent React-Native focused podcast worth discovering