React Native Web addon for Storybook

This addon configures @storybook/react to display React Native (RN) projects using React Native for Web (RNW)

• React Native Web addon for Storybook
  • Getting Started
  • Common issues
  • Config options
    • Untranspiled react native libraries
    • Aliasing react native web libraries
    • Adding babel plugins
  • Configuring popular libraries
  • Adding support for static assets and svgs
  • Node polyfills for webpack 5
  • Known limitations

See the FAQ for common questions.

You can read more about this package in this blog post.

To contribute see the contributing guide here

Heres a screen shot of how you could use this alongside storybook/react-native, the image is taken from the following starter code

Getting Started

Assuming you've got an existing RN project, run the following from the project root:

npx sb init --type react
yarn add react-dom react-native-web babel-plugin-react-native-web @storybook/addon-react-native-web @react-native/babel-preset --dev

Then edit your .storybook/main.js:

module.exports = {
  addons: [/*existing addons,*/ '@storybook/addon-react-native-web'],
};

From here, you should be able to write stories incorporating your RN components according to the Storybook for React instructions.

Common issues

Please see the FAQ for common issues like the "loader not found" error.

Config options

Most packages should work without extra changes however in some cases extra steps are needed. One common example is "reanimated" which requires some babel config and extra transpilation.

Options	Type	Description
modulesToTranspile	Array<string>	node_modules that need transpiling
modulesToAlias	{[key: string]: string}	node_modules that need aliasing
babelPlugins	Array<string | [string, Record<string, string>]>	Babel plugins you want to apply
projectRoot	string	Path to the root of your project, if in a mono repo you might need to set this.
babelPresets	Array<string | [string, Record<string, string>]>	Babel presets you want to apply
babelPresetReactOptions	Record<string, any>	Options to pass options to @babel/preset-react
babelPresetReactNativeOptions	Record<string, any>	Options to pass options to @react-native/babel-preset

Untranspiled react native libraries

Many react-native packages are shipped untranspiled and this doesn't work for the web platform. If you receive errors like "proper loader not found" after adding a package try adding it to the modulesToTranspile option for this addon.

You can do that like this:

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        modulesToTranspile: ['react-native-package-name'],
      },
    },
  ],
};

Aliasing react native web libraries

Some react-native packages recommend module aliasing as a means of importing and using the web variant of an existing package. If you need to add additional key:value pairs to webpack's config.resolve.alias, use the modulesToAlias option for this addon. You don't need to add react-native-web to this list as it is already included by default.

You can do that like this:

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        modulesToAlias: {
          'react-native-package-name': 'react-native-web-package-name',
        },
      },
    },
  ],
};

Replace react-native-package-name with the name of a real package.

Adding babel plugins

It's common to provide a babel plugin for certain packages in the react native eco system and you can pass a list of these to the addon.

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        babelPlugins: ['babel-plugin-name'],
      },
    },
  ],
};

Configuring popular libraries

Many libraries work without extra config, heres some examples of config required for some packages.

Note: react-native-vector-icons requires some extra steps due to fonts required and there will be a future addon with that config included.

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        modulesToTranspile: ['react-native-reanimated'],
        babelPlugins: [
          '@babel/plugin-proposal-export-namespace-from',
          'react-native-reanimated/plugin',
        ],
      },
    },
  ],
};

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        modulesToTranspile: ['react-native-vector-icons'],
      },
    },
  ],
};

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        modulesToTranspile: ['react-native-vector-icons'],
      },
    },
  ],
};

module.exports = {
  addons: [
    /*existing addons,*/
    {
      name: '@storybook/addon-react-native-web',
      options: {
        modulesToTranspile: [
          'react-native-reanimated',
          'nativewind',
          'react-native-css-interop',
        ],
        babelPresets: ['nativewind/babel'],
        babelPresetReactOptions: { jsxImportSource: 'nativewind' },
        babelPlugins: [
          'react-native-reanimated/plugin',
           [
            '@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx',
            {
              runtime: 'automatic',
              importSource: 'nativewind',
            },
          ],
         ],
      },
    },
  ],
};

Adding support for static assets and svgs

Install @svgr/webpack and url-loader

module.exports = {
  /*existing config*/
  // to provide a public export for assets
  staticDirs: ['<path_to_assets>'],
  webpackFinal: async (config) => {
    const fileLoaderRule = config.module.rules.find(
      (rule) => rule.test && rule.test.test('.svg'),
    );

    if (fileLoaderRule) {
      fileLoaderRule.exclude = /\.svg$/;
    }

    config.module.rules.push({
      test: /\.svg$/,
      use: ['@svgr/webpack', 'url-loader'],
    });

    return config;
  },
};

Node polyfills for webpack 5

install node-polyfill-webpack-plugin

const NodePolyfillPlugin = require('node-polyfill-webpack-plugin');

module.exports = {
  /*existing config*/
  core: {
    builder: 'webpack5',
  },
  webpackFinal: async (config) => {
    config.plugins.push(new NodePolyfillPlugin());

    return config;
  },
};

Known limitations

• Libraries that don't support react-native-web will not work
• Components will display on the web so may not be the same as a component on a mobile device since dom versions of those components may be used (like <div> and span)
  • when using primitives such as View/Text or other cross platform components then the difference should be minimal.