2026-08-06 · #38
React Native Weekly #38 backgroundImage Goes Stable in RN 0.87, react-native-workers Public Alpha, React Native Plain Text and more
backgroundImage Goes Stable in React Native 0.87.x, with Native Linear/Radial Gradient Support#
backgroundImage has officially been marked stable in React Native 0.87.x.
Linear and radial gradients now work out of the box with zero third-party dependencies, so react-native-linear-gradient is no longer needed.
Being able to drop an external library just for gradients is a welcome simplification.
🎨 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚐𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝙸𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚎 is officially stable in #ReactNative 𝟬.𝟴𝟳.𝘅! 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗿 and 𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗹 gradients now work out of the box with zero third-party dependencies. Goodbye 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚝-𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎-𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚛-𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚝 👋🚀 t.co/cvBMRywAIb
react-native-workers Public Alpha Brings Real Background Threads to RN with a Web Worker–Style API#
Ammar Ahmed released the public alpha of react-native-workers, which brings real background threads to React Native.
The API is modeled after Web Workers, letting you move heavy work such as parsing big payloads, hashing files, and filtering images off the UI runtime.
React Native is fundamentally single-threaded, so this looks like a good option for avoiding dropped frames when heavy processing gets in the way of UI rendering.
React Native is single-threaded where it matters most. Parse a big payload, hash a file, filter an image — it all competes with your UI for the same runtime. react-native-workers brings real background threads to RN, behind the Web Worker API Public alpha today🧵 t.co/hoXYlbgdii
React Native Plain Text: A Faster, Lower-Memory Alternative to <Text>#
Software Mansion’s Maciej Jastrzębski introduced “React Native Plain Text”, a faster, lower-memory alternative to React Native’s <Text> for simple text views.
It renders directly to UILabel / TextViews while avoiding heavy prop processing.
For the props and styles it supports, the API is said to be 100% compatible with RN Text, making it a plausible drop-in for existing <Text> usages.
Introducing 🎉 React Native Plain Text! 🎉 A faster, lower-memory React Native <Text> alternative for simple text views. It renders directly to UILabel/TextViews while avoiding heavy prop processing. For supported props & styles is 100% API compatible with RN Text, and so far t.co/26TwtMYYJO
VisionCamera 5.2.0 Released with New SkiaCamera Features#
Marc Rousavy released react-native-vision-camera 5.2.0.
<SkiaCamera> gains new features including zoom, exposure, torchMode, controller, and targetResolution, and the Vulkan/Metal GPU Resizer now supports stretch.
The release also includes crash and bug fixes.
Just released VisionCamera 5.2.0! 👉 New features for <𝚂𝚔𝚒𝚊𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚊> such as 𝚣𝚘𝚘𝚖, 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎, 𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚑𝙼𝚘𝚍𝚎, 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛 and 𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚁𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 👉 Adds '𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚌𝚑' to the Vulkan/Metal GPU Resizer 👉 Crash/Bug-fixes
react-native-reanimated-carousel v5.0.0 Ships with a Full API Redesign#
Caspian finally shipped react-native-reanimated-carousel v5.0.0 after nearly a year of the project being stalled.
Over the last two weeks he essentially lived in the project, delivering a full API redesign, far fewer confusing props, proper RTL support, and a unified API in this major release.
finally shipped react-native-reanimated-carousel v5.0.0 🎉 this one was stuck for almost a year. i went quiet on this project for way too long, then spent the last two weeks basically living in it — full api redesign, way fewer confusing props, proper rtl support, one unified t.co/81UNYvR3lp
Gesture Handler 3 Lets You Attach Gestures to Inline Text Fragments#
Software Mansion posted a reminder that with React Native Gesture Handler 3, you can easily attach gestures to Text components and inline fragments.
Wrap the target fragment in VirtualGestureDetector and the parent Text in InterceptingGestureDetector, and you get gestures on a single word or inline element.
It is a handy setup when you want to react to a specific word or inline element instead of the whole sentence.
Just a quick reminder that with RN Gesture Handler 3, you can easily attach gestures to Text components and inline fragments. 🚀 Wrap the fragment in a VirtualGestureDetector, put an InterceptingGestureDetector around the parent Text, and you get gestures on a single word or
Touchable Renders About 300ms Faster Than Pressable, Coming Soon#
Software Mansion shared that they have been working on making React Native Gesture Handler’s Touchable even faster. In one benchmark using a list of 1,000 buttons, Touchable rendered about 300ms faster than React Native’s Pressable, measured from button release to list render.
The improvement is teased as “Coming soon”, so it should land in an upcoming release.
We've been working on making Touchable in React Native Gesture Handler even faster. ⚡ In one of our benchmarks (1000 buttons in a list), Touchable rendered ~300 ms faster than React Native's Pressable (measured from button release to list render). Coming soon; stay tuned 👀
React Native Testing Library v14 Adoption Is Rapidly Growing#
According to Maciej Jastrzębski, React Native Testing Library v14 has quickly grown to be the number two most-used version just two months after release. It is a big update that includes fundamental changes such as a new test renderer and an async API, and the combination of AI agents and codemods was cited as making it easier than ever to keep up with new versions.
React Native Testing Library v14 is quickly increasing user adoption. Two months after release it's no. 2 most popular ver 🎉 Happy to see it, as it's a big one with fundamental changes: new test renderer and async API. Agents + codemods make keeping up to date much easier 🙌 t.co/bkkWlTxLLl
Generate E2E Tests Automatically from Recorded Interactions with Argent#
Software Mansion announced that Argent can now automatically generate E2E tests from recorded interaction sequences called Flows. Because a recorded Flow can be replayed later, UI regression detection can be built directly into the regular development loop.
You can try it today via the /argent-create-flow skill.
E2E tests can be generated automatically now. Argent lets you record Flows (sequences of interactions) and replay them later. Generating tests becomes part of the loop, making sure UI regressions never happen. 🛡️ Try it out now with the /argent-create-flow skill!
react-native-enriched-html 1.1.0 Marks Web Support as Stable#
react-native-enriched-html 1.1.0 was released with Web support now marked stable.
It offers full feature parity with iOS and Android, and 1.1.0 is presented as the baseline for teams that had been waiting to adopt it on the Web.
react-native-enriched-html v1.1.0 is out! 🎉 Web support is now stable, with full feature parity with iOS and Android. If you've been waiting to adopt it on the web, 1.1.0 is the baseline to start from 🚀
Expo Continues to Improve Brownfield App Adoption#
Expo explained that recent SDKs have made it easier to add Expo to existing brownfield apps. Teams have been using Expo for years to ship new screens and features into existing apps, and Expo is working to reduce the management complexity that came with that approach.
In recent SDKs we've made it easier for existing apps (brownfield apps) to add Expo. For years teams have been using Expo as a way to introduce a new screen or feature to an existing app. It made feature development fast but it required adding some complexity to manage.
Native Blur Views for React Native + Expo#
rit3zh released native blur views for React Native and Expo. The project is available on GitHub and looks well-suited for simple use cases where you need a native blur effect.
❄️ Native blur views for React Native + Expo. 🔗 Github: t.co/Lrh4OV3P0J t.co/AJZgpoJoAz
Speed Up Native Builds with RNRepo and Three-Layer Caching#
Beyond build cache, Software Mansion’s RNRepo was highlighted as a way to speed up React Native native builds themselves.
The approach reduces build targets by using precompiled libraries, and layering buildCacheProvider → RNRepo → ccache is said to speed up every stage of the build.
build cache以外に、RNネイティブビルド自体を高速化する方法としておすすめなのはRNRepo。 事前にコンパイル済みのライブラリを使用することでビルド対象を減らすアプローチ buildCacheProvider -> RNRepo -> ccacheと3レイヤーでキャッシュすると全工程でビルド早くなる github.com/software-mansion/rn…
One More Thing#
It’s great to see backgroundImage become natively supported in React Native 0.87.x this week!
Being able to attach gestures to inline text elements with React Native Gesture Handler 3 also looks handy for cases like turning just part of a sentence into a link.