expo-dev-launcher

What is expo-dev-launcher?

The expo-dev-launcher package is a development tool for Expo applications that allows developers to launch and test their apps in a development environment. It provides functionalities to reload the app, open the developer menu, and handle deep links, among other features.

What are expo-dev-launcher's main functionalities?

Reload the App

This feature allows developers to programmatically reload the application, which is useful for testing changes without manually restarting the app.

import { reloadAsync } from 'expo-dev-launcher';

async function reloadApp() {
  await reloadAsync();
}

Open Developer Menu

This feature enables developers to open the developer menu programmatically, providing quick access to development tools and options.

import { openMenu } from 'expo-dev-launcher';

function openDevMenu() {
  openMenu();
}

Handle Deep Links

This feature allows the app to handle deep links, making it easier to test and debug deep linking functionality during development.

import { addDeepLinkListener } from 'expo-dev-launcher';

addDeepLinkListener((url) => {
  console.log('Deep link received:', url);
});

Other packages similar to expo-dev-launcher

react-native-restart

The react-native-restart package provides a simple way to programmatically restart a React Native application. While it focuses solely on restarting the app, it lacks the broader set of development tools provided by expo-dev-launcher.

react-native-deep-link

The react-native-deep-link package is designed to handle deep linking in React Native applications. It offers similar deep link handling capabilities as expo-dev-launcher but does not include other development tools like reloading the app or opening the developer menu.

react-native-dev-menu

The react-native-dev-menu package allows developers to customize and open the developer menu in React Native applications. It provides similar functionality to the developer menu feature in expo-dev-launcher but does not include other features like reloading the app or handling deep links.

README

expo-dev-launcher

expo-dev-launcher is an npm package installable in any Expo or React Native project. Once installed, any Debug builds of your application will gain the ability to load projects from Expo CLI. Release builds of your application will not change other than the addition of a few header files. This package is intended to be included in your project through expo-dev-client.

Documentation

You can find the documentation under https://docs.expo.dev/clients/introduction.