NativeBase- An Odyssey Through 10,000 Stars
NativeBase Community, take a bow! This one’s for you!
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A huge thank you to the entire React Native and the NativeBase community. 10,000 Github stars is no easy feat. We at GeekyAnts are utterly delighted to reach this milestone with the help of the community. We owe you a debt of gratitude for all you have done for us.
With 10K stars, NativeBase has also reached a monthly download of ~125,000 which makes it “the most downloaded UI library of React Native”.
Like every success story ever, this journey has not been a walk in the park, to say the least, but it is also one worth sharing. It has taken us on a rollercoaster ride where we thought that our hearts would explode but also enjoyed every second of the thrill, and on this occasion, we want to share the legacy that we, the people, created.
The Beginning- October,2015
React Native was in its early stages and we were experimenting on it like mad scientists. Being one of the earliest adopters of React Native, we were left with minimum documentation and a lot to learn. With time, we went on to create our very first product in React Native called ‘Native Starter Pro’, and made our very first sale at ‘strapmobile.com’ (Now market.nativebase.io) for $25. Rewriting every basic component from scratch, over and over again was exhausting and it was only then we realised that it wasn’t as complete as we hoped it would be. There were major gaps that needed bridging and we thought to ourselves, ‘why the heck not?’
Little did we know that this experience would open gates for us, which we didn’t even know existed!
NativeBase- The Arrival — April, 2016.
Post- Development of Native Starter Pro, we concurred that all the generic code that is used during development can be isolated, generalised and made into components that can be used over and over again without actually writing the code repeatedly. This eureka moment led to the birth of NativeBase 0.1.0 on April 15th, 2016. Users could now expedite their development process drastically and all it would take is a few clicks. It was exciting for us, emotional rather. The attention we received in the coming time was overwhelming and the product was rising to the surface quite steadily. Maybe a market was required to be put in place for developers and customers alike. (Another notion?)
Open Source & The Makeover — April, 2016 to February, 2017
NativeBase was destined to be a raging success, but there were quite some things that needed our attention. We knew that given the versatility of the product, we could never fully furnish it by ourselves.
It was time to let everybody in on it.
NativeBase was released as an open-source experiment on 15th April, 2016 . Almost instantly, we started receiving feedbacks, applauses and comments on how the product could be improved and taken forward. It’s safe to say that the community had our backs as we proceeded with NativeBase from that point forward.
To bring this very community together, we launched a Q&A forum for NativeBase on July 21st, 2016. The forum welcomed all kinds of queries, feedbacks and discussions on NativeBase, its functionality and how it must evolve.
It attracted quite a lot of people who pooled in their knowledge and made comprehension a child’s play, but we knew that we could do more than this.
So, on December 16th, 2016, we created a Slack Community for the global manforce that had involved itself in our expedition (you can find it here!) People were joining the group in gigantic numbers and it was amazing to see the same enthusiasm in them, as we had for NativeBase. As of today, 1946 members have joined the slack community from across the globe). React Native had officially been revolutionized by NativeBase by opening avenues for people across the globe to try things that they never thought they would.
The next step in the evolution was to make it compliant.
As the need of the hour went, we had to revisit NativeBase and make amends to make it compliant with platform guidelines set by Apple and Google.
On February 6th, 2017, NativeBase 2.0 signed up for greatness. With a completely re-written core, alongside the team at Shoutem (We’re grateful!), NativeBase 2.0 was everything NativeBase originally stood to be and more. It blurred most of the lines between iOS and Android UI presentation and made it seamless and relatable. Along with this, we announced a market place focused on custom solutions and premium products made using NativeBase components.
The marketplace we had sought after for so long was soon to unveil itself.
The Bazaar & The Seed — February, 2017 — September,2017
It had been on our roadmap for the longest time and it’s time had come. On March 27th, 2017, the NativeBase Marketplace was finally launched. The aim of this marketplace was not just to showcase premium products made using NativeBase and put them up for sale, but it was also a means to encourage people to create their own products and sell them on it, and it delivered. The NativeBase marketplace was a success and continues to be so even today. We urge you to check it out after you’re done with this article, or you can go now and come back. We’ll wait here, because we’re not done yet.
Oh, you’re back? Good. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. So, being neck deep into the product and the community, we realized that a lot of people were very particular about the technology that they wanted in their stack for the applications they were developing. It was troublesome to sort out the boilerplate for them and we were contacted quite frequently regarding this issue.
The solution? We gave people the power.
On September 20th, 2017, we introduced the world to React Native Seed. React Native Seed is a web-based starter kit generator that created custom starter kits for people who have specific taste in technology. We were highly praised for our solutions in the community and we hold much pride in that. Giving back to the community is what we’ve always worked for and that’s all that we did.
NativeBase Web, Customizer and Vue Native Support- The Current Scenario.
In the mix of everything happening around NativeBase, we sought out another solution to provide people with complete freedom in what they do. February 7th, 2018 was the day when we released our very first web UI customizer, called ‘NativeBase Customizer’, that lets you customize all NativeBase components visually.
The journey didn’t stop there. March 27th, 2018 marked another milestone for the team. NativeBase Version 2.4.0 now had complete web support, which meant that all NativeBase components could be imported to the web, which was a huge step for NativeBase and us.
The ladder of progress is a long one. We haven’t seen the end of it yet, and we’re rather happy about it.
What’s Next…
It is only through our zeal to climb up continuously and bring people with us, that we continue to deliver maximum effort in whatever we do.
First, we are going to continue the support and keep it going. And, we are having discussions about splitting the main repo into a core and add-ons as separate repos with namespaces. We are also having thoughts about branching out a complete separate version of NativeBase with more complete support of Google’s Material Design (API inspired by Flutter). But, nothing is definite so far!
We have been working on more projects at GeekyAnts to solve similar problems. One of which is BuilderX, an ambitious project to bring Designers and Developers on the same file.
One Final Note…
With all humility, we, at GeekyAnts want take this moment to thank all the supporters and the community that took time to invest in our venture and contributed into making it better.
We want to thank all our clients and customers, without whom this wouldn’t have even existed, and to all the people who ever came across our products and passed a compliment or left a review. It is your kindness that keeps us humble and dedicated towards our goals and dreams.
A special appreciation to our market authors, William Candillon and Victor Olowe. You guys deserve to share this with us.
Last but not in the very least, we want to thank each other. It is astounding to see how people who are so differently talented can come together and work as a single unit, because they believe in a common goal. Thank you for sticking together and making magic happen.
Now that we think about it, ‘Ants’ is actually a good analogy for us.
10,000 stars is a dream come true, but it is not the end. We will forever be hungry for more innovations and progress, and we shall work towards it with all our hearts and minds. We see the stars beyond the ones we’re on and we’re shooting again.
Here’s one to the future. 🥂
To celebrate NativeBase reaching 10,000 stars on GitHub, we are hosting a GIVEAWAY! You can find all the details about it by clicking on this link!
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