React Native Quickstart: A basic React Native app

In this Section, we provide an Android and iOS step-by-step guide to build your first Situm app using React Native. For more advanced use cases, take a look at our React Native sample app and at the Plugin Method Reference.

Pre-requisites: Installing React Native #

First, you need to setup react-native development environment. To get started please follow instructions under section React Native CLI Quickstart on this guide and finally execute the react-native cli:

$ npm uninstall -g react-native-cli @react-native-community/cli
$ npx @react-native-community/cli@latest init my_indoor_location_app

Installing Situm SDK for React Native #

Then, you may install Situm SDK for React Native by using npm or yarn (plus some dependencies that are needed):

# You may use yarn
$ yarn add @situm/react-native react-native-webview

# or you may also use npm
$ npm install --save @situm/react-native react-native-webview

Please note! We are using Cocoapods in order to manage iOS dependencies, which means you might need to run pod repo update when trying to compile your app after updating our plugin

Requesting permissions #

Starting in @situm/react-native@3.15.0 the SDK can automatically request the necessary permissions for positioning.

You can enable this powerful feature by simply calling the SitumSdk.enableUserHelper method:

SitumPlugin.init();
// ...
// Automatically manage positioning permissions and sensor issues:
SitumPlugin.enableUserHelper();

You can also customize the UI with your own color scheme by calling SitumPlugin.configureUserHelper(UserHelperOptions).

If you prefer, you can also choose to request permissions yourself using your preferred method (more info here).

Android #

Add the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission declaration to your AndroidManifest.xml (you can omit this step if you have configured Situm SDK not to use GPS):

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />

iOS #

You will also need to include the following permissions in your app’s Info.plist file (modify the permission’s informative texts as you wish):

<key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Location is required to find out where you are</string>
<key>NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Location is required to find out where you are</string>
<key>NSMotionUsageDescription</key>
<string>We use your phone sensors (giroscope, accelerometer and altimeter) to improve location quality</string>

Setup native projects #

iOS #

AppBoundDomains #

If you want the MapViewer (built-in Wayfinding UI) to work offline, you will need to add the underlying web application’s domain inside the entry WKAppBoundDomains, also on Info.plist as follows:

<key>WKAppBoundDomains</key>
<array>
  <string>map-viewer.situm.com</string>
</array>

Warning! If you have other Webviews in your app this might affect them. Learn more about this here.

Finally, execute these lines:

$ cd ios
$ pod install

Optional steps #

Sometimes, you may need to add a Header Search Path:

  $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/react-native-situm-plugin/lib/ios

Under some React Native versions, you might also need to remove the “use_frameworks!” directive in the Podfile of your iOS project, or else configure the Podfile. This is needed because Situm SDK is a static library

Run your first app! #

The following code contains a fully functional React Native app. You may copy & paste it in your App.tsx file (you may obtain your credentials as explained here, and your building ID as explained here):

import React, {useEffect} from 'react';
import {SafeAreaView, StyleSheet} from 'react-native';

// 1. Importing dependencies
import SitumPlugin, { MapView, SitumProvider } from '@situm/react-native';
// Modify this import according to your project structure:
import requestPermission from 'YOUR_PATH_TO/requestPermission';

// 2. Define Situm SDK credentials and building identifier
const SITUM_API_KEY = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
const SITUM_BUILDING_ID = 'YOUR_BUILDING';
const SITUM_PROFILE = 'YOUR_PROFILE';

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
  },
  mapview: {
    width: '100%',
    height: '100%',
  },
});

const Screen: React.FC = () => {
  // 3. Initialize the Situm SDK and start positioning
  useEffect(() => {

    // Initialize Situm and set credentials
    SitumPlugin.init();
    SitumPlugin.setApiKey(SITUM_API_KEY);
    // Automatically manage positioning permissions and sensor issues
    SitumPlugin.enableUserHelper();
    // Tell the Situm SDK to use the remote configuration
    SitumPlugin.setConfiguration({useRemoteConfig: true});
    // Listen for Location, LocationStatus and Error updates
    setLocationCallbacks();
    // Start positioning:
    SitumPlugin.requestLocationUpdates();

    // You may want to stop positioning when unmounting component
    return () => SitumPlugin.removeLocationUpdates();
  }, []);

  const setLocationCallbacks = () => {
    SitumPlugin.onLocationUpdate((location) => {
      console.log(`SitumPlugin> sdk> Location update: ${JSON.stringify(location)}`);
    })
    // The main errors and states will be handled automatically by the UserHelper, 
    // but in this example we show how to manually listen to these events.
    SitumPlugin.onLocationStatus((status) => {
      console.log(`SitumPlugin> sdk> Status: ${status.statusName}`);
    })
    SitumPlugin.onLocationError((error) => {
      console.log(`SitumPlugin> sdk> Error(${error.code}): ${error.message}`);
    })
  } 

  // 4. Show the building cartography
  return (
    <MapView
      style={{...styles.mapview}}
      configuration={{
        buildingIdentifier: SITUM_BUILDING_ID,
        situmApiKey: SITUM_API_KEY,
        profile: SITUM_PROFILE,
      }}
      onPoiSelected={poi => {
        console.log(`Situm > wayfinding > Poi selected: ${poi.identifier}`);
      }}
      onLoad={(event: any) => {
        console.log('Map is ready now' + JSON.stringify(event));
      }}
    />
  );
};

const App = () => (
  <SafeAreaView style={{...styles.container}}>
    <SitumProvider>
      <Screen />
    </SitumProvider>
  </SafeAreaView>
);

export default App;

And then run your app by executing the following terminal command:

# You may run your app in Android or iOS
$ yarn run android
# or iOS
$ yarn run ios

Note! In XCode: go to root/ios folder and open SitumRNGettingStarted.xcworkspace or run the command xed ios from the root directory.

You should see something like this:

Code explanation: step-by-step #

1. Importing dependencies #

The 1st thing the example does is importing the @situm/react-native package.

2. Setting credentials and building identifier #

Right after the import, we set:

• User credentials: APIKEY.
• Building identifier: identifier of the building whose cartography will be shown. It should be the same as the one where you’ll perform positioning.

You may obtain your credentials as explained here, and your building ID as explained here.

3. Initialize the SDK and start positioning #

You may initialize and start positioning by using the SDK API provided by our @situm/react-native plugin detailed in the example above. To do so, you may execute the following steps:

• Initialize the SDK with init.
• Optionally set up your session to use the remote configuration with setConfiguration.
• Request permissions manually, or use SitumPlugin.enableUserHelper() to automatically manage permission and sensor related issues.
• Starts positioning with Remote Configuration. Alternatively, you may define your positioning options when calling requestLocationUpdates.

4. Show the cartography using the MapView #

Then, the example shows the cartography of the selected building. You may see that the wayfinding library exposes two main classes to this extent:

• MapView. The React Native component that you can add to your view hierarchy.
• SitumProvider. This is a wrapper for your aplication that the Situm plugin uses to handle internal state. You must wrap the screen that uses Situm with this Provider or you can wrap your entire application with it as well.

More examples! Please take a look at our Example app, which contains different examples on how to perform several other actions using Situm.

Advanced configuration #

To further configure the user experience see our Advanced Topics section that explains additional capabilities of both Situm SDK and MapView as well as how to configure them on your projects. Topics you can be interested in are: battery efficiency, location cache, working offline with cached data, foreground & background execution, external provider locations, listen to geofences entries & exits, how to provide your iOS app’s privacy manifest, how to configure the MapView UX.

Expo Support #

This package is not available in the Expo Go app. However, you can integrate it by following the steps described below:

Install the necessary dependencies as outlined in this guide:
npx expo install @situm/react-native react-native-webview

Add Situm to your component as described in the example above.

Launch the application. Use the following command to run your project on Android or iOS:

npx expo run:android

npx expo run:ios

For Android, it is currently necessary to specify the repository in your project’s build.gradle file:

allprojects {
    repositories {
        maven {
            url "https://repo.situm.com/artifactory/libs-release-local"
        }
    }
}

That’s it! Your Expo project should now be set up with the Situm plugin.