A More Elegant Way to Conditionally Render Components in React Native

Discover smarter methods to conditionally render components in React Native, enhancing your app's navigation with a cleaner code structure.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/65978600/ asked by the user 'Mike' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/2521234/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/65979797/ provided by the user 'bas' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/9098350/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Improving Conditional Rendering in React Native

When developing an application with React Native, handling page transitions and component rendering can become cumbersome, especially as the number of pages increases. This guide will address the question, "Is there a better or more elegant way to conditionally render different components in React Native?" We’ll explore streamlined approaches to tackle rendering multiple components without the repetition of code and maintain ease of navigation in your app.

The Problem Explained

In a typical React Native application, you might start with a state that determines which page is being displayed. For example, you have a custom navigation bar that, when clicked, switches between different components, such as DicePage and ItemsPage. However, as you introduce more pages – say four or five in total – managing this state can lead to lengthy and repetitive code.

Let’s take a look at a basic example of switching between two components using state variables:

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This approach works but doesn't scale well with the addition of new pages. Repetitive checks and state variables can clutter your code and are prone to errors.

Solution: Cleaner Code for Conditional Rendering

Instead of handling each page with separate state variables, we can leverage a more elegant solution using objects or arrays to dynamically render components based on the current state.

First Approach: Using an Object for Pages

One effective method is to create a mapping of pages using an object. Each key in the object corresponds to a page identifier, and the value is the component to be rendered. Here's how you can structure it:

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In your NavBar, you’ll simply trigger the pagePress() method with the selected page as the argument:

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Second Approach: Using an Array for Pages

Alternatively, you can structure pages as an array of objects. This provides added flexibility for adding elements and modifying the navigation bar without redundant code.

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Conclusion

By using these structured approaches, not only do you simplify your code, but you also enhance the maintainability of your application. Managing conditional rendering and navigation becomes much more straightforward as you scale up your app. You can add new pages simply by updating your pages object or array without having to modify extensive parts of your existing code.

Whether you choose the object-based or array-based solution, both approaches will help you achieve a cleaner, more elegant solution for rendering components conditionally in React Native.

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