Solito + NativeWind Example Monorepo 🕴

npx create-solito-app@latest my-solito-app -t with-tailwind

And just like that, you now have an Expo + Next.js app that is styled with Tailwind CSS.

⚡️ Instantly clone & deploy

🔦 About

This monorepo is a starter for an Expo + Next.js app using NativeWind for its styling & Solito for navigation.

👓 How NativeWind works with Solito

Fast on every platform

NativeWind lets you use Tailwind while reducing runtime work on every platform.

iOS and Android

Most approaches to using Tailwind in React Native do something like this at runtime:

const styles = props.className
  .split(' ')
  .map((className) => makeStyle(className))

return <View style={styles} />

This means that every component ends up parsing strings to construct predictable style objects.

NativeWind takes a new approach by doing this work upfront with a Babel plugin.

NativeWind turns className strings into cached StyleSheet.create objects at build time, avoiding the slow string parsing problem of libraries like styled-components/native.

Keep in mind that the Babel plugin will get used on iOS/Android only; on Web, we don't need the plugin since we are using className.

Web

On Web, NativeWind uses Next.js' PostCSS feature to output CSS StyleSheets.

Which means that on Web, you're using CSS class names.

Yes, that's right. We aren't parsing className strings into objects for React Native Web to use. Instead, we're actually forwarding CSS classnames to the DOM. That means you can get responsive styles, dark mode support, & pseudo-selectors with server-side rendering support.

This is finally possible with the release of React Native Web 0.18.

As a result, using NativeWind with React Native doesn't have significant overhead compared to plain old Tailwind CSS in a regular React app.

If you're planning on making a website with Tailwind, why not use Solito with NativeWind?

You might accidentally make a great native app when you thought you were just making a website.

Bringing it together

Components are written using the styled() higher-order component.

In your app's design system, you can start by building your own UI primitives:

// packages/app/design/typography
import { Text } from 'react-native'
import { styled } from 'nativewind'

export const P = styled(Text, 'text-base text-black my-4')

Notice that you can set base styles using the second argument of styled.

You can then use the className prop, just like regular Tailwind CSS:

<P className="dark:text-white">Solito + NativeWind</P>

Take a look at the packages/app/design folder to see how components are created with ease.

If you're reading the NativeWind docs, you might find that you can use className directly without using styled. Since this requires the Babel plugin for all platforms, it won't work with Solito. Be sure to always wrap your components with styled.

📦 Included packages

• solito for cross-platform navigation
• moti for animations
• nativewind for theming/design (you can bring your own, too)
• Expo SDK 49
• Next.js 13
• Expo Router 2

🗂 Folder layout

• apps entry points for each app

  • expo
  • app you'll be creating files inside of apps/expo/app to use file system routing on iOS and Android.
  • next

• packages shared packages across apps

  • app you'll be importing most files from app/
    • features (don't use a screens folder. organize by feature.)
    • provider (all the providers that wrap the app, and some no-ops for Web.)
    • design your app's design system. organize this as you please.
      • typography (components for all the different text styles)
      • layout (components for layouts)

You can add other folders inside of packages/ if you know what you're doing and have a good reason to.

🏁 Start the app

• Install dependencies: yarn

• Next.js local dev: yarn web

  • Runs yarn next

• Expo local dev:

  • First, build a dev client onto your device or simulator
    • cd apps/expo
    • Then, either expo run:ios, or eas build
  • After building the dev client, from the root of the monorepo...
    • yarn native (This runs expo start --dev-client)

🆕 Add new dependencies

Pure JS dependencies

If you're installing a JavaScript-only dependency that will be used across platforms, install it in packages/app:

cd packages/app
yarn add date-fns
cd ../..
yarn

Native dependencies

If you're installing a library with any native code, you must install it in apps/expo:

cd apps/expo
yarn add react-native-reanimated

cd ../..
yarn

You can also install the native library inside of packages/app if you want to get autoimport for that package inside of the app folder. However, you need to be careful and install the exact same version in both packages. If the versions mismatch at all, you'll potentially get terrible bugs. This is a classic monorepo issue. I use lerna-update-wizard to help with this (you don't need to use Lerna to use that lib).

🎙 About the creator

Fernando Rojo

Follow Fernando Rojo, creator of solito, on Twitter: @FernandoTheRojo

Mark Lawlor

Follow Mark Lawlor, creator of NativeWind, on Twitter: @mark__lawlor

🧐 Why use Expo + Next.js?

See my talk about this topic at Next.js Conf 2021: