We all usually need a camera in our app and Wix has provided a very good library named react-native-camera-kit. Which is very easy to integrate into your app. So let’s get started.
As you want to use the native Camera API you need to do some additional changes in different files to access the camera.
To Make a React Native App
Getting started with React Native will help you to know more about the way you can make a React Native project. We are going to use react-native init to make our React Native App. Assuming that you have node installed, you can use npm to install thereact-native-cli command line utility. Open the terminal and go to the workspace and runInstallation of Dependency
To use <CameraKitCameraScreen /> we need to install react-native-camera-kit package. To install this
Open the terminal and jump into your project
1 | cd ProjectName |
Run the following command
1 | npm install react-native-camera-kit --save |
This command will copy all the dependencies into your node_module directory, You can find the directory in node_module the directory named react-native-camera-kit.
–save is optional, it is just to update the react-native-camera-kit dependancy in your package.json file.
Dependency Version for this Example Used is
1 | "react-native-camera-kit": "^6.2.4" |
Permission to use the camera and other configurations
We are using an Android Native API Camera so we need to add some permission to the AndroidManifest.xml file. On devices before SDK version 23, the permissions are automatically granted if they appear in the manifest but after SDK version 23 android applies new permissions model. For more about the permission, you can see this post.
So we are going to add the following permissions in the AndroidMnifest.xml
1 2 3 | <uses-permissionandroid:name="android.permission.CAMERA"/> <uses-permissionandroid:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/> <uses-permissionandroid:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/> |
| Permission | Purpose |
|---|---|
| CAMERA | To access the camera |
| WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE | To store the content in the SD card |
| READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE | To view the content of the SD card |
By adding permission in AndroidManifest.xml you are able to work with the CAMERA and EXTERNAL_STORAGE in devices which are lower than API 23. But if you want to access the CAMERA in higher level devices you also need to ask for the runtime permission.
For this example, we also need to add some additional libraries and lines to do a suitable configuration. Please do check your compileSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion is above or equal 23. Go to the CameraExample > android > app > build.gradle.
For the example, I am using this configuration. With the extra line multiDexEnabled true which is to solve the problem of multidex faced many times.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | compileSdkVersion 26 defaultConfig { applicationId "com.cameraexample" minSdkVersion 16 targetSdkVersion 26 versionCode 1 versionName "1.0" ndk { abiFilters "armeabi-v7a", "x86" } multiDexEnabled true } |
After that scroll down and add the following dependencies.
1 2 | compile project(":rncamerakit") compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.3' |
Open CameraExample > android > settings.gradle and add the following lines
1 2 | include ':rncamerakit' project(':rncamerakit').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/react-native-camera-kit/android/') |
Open CameraExample > android > app > src > main > java > com > cameraexample > MainApplication.java and add following lines in imports
1 | import com.wix.RNCameraKit.RNCameraKitPackage; |
and in getPackages after new MainReactPackage() add a comma(,) and add
1 | new RNCameraKitPackage() |
Open App.js in any code editor and replace the code with the following code.
App.js
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 | //This is an example code for the camera// import React from 'react'; //import react in our code. import { StyleSheet, Text, View, Alert, ActivityIndicator, PermissionsAndroid } from 'react-native'; //import all the basic components we are going to use. import { CameraKitCameraScreen } from 'react-native-camera-kit'; //import CameraKitCameraScreen we are going to use. export default class App extends React.Component { state = {isPermitted:false} constructor(props) { super(props); var that=this; async function requestCameraPermission() { try { const granted = await PermissionsAndroid.request( PermissionsAndroid.PERMISSIONS.CAMERA,{ 'title': 'CameraExample App Camera Permission', 'message': 'CameraExample App needs access to your camera ' } ) if (granted === PermissionsAndroid.RESULTS.GRANTED) { //If CAMERA Permission is granted //Calling the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission function requestExternalWritePermission(); } else { alert("CAMERA permission denied"); } } catch (err) { alert("Camera permission err",err); console.warn(err) } } async function requestExternalWritePermission() { try { const granted = await PermissionsAndroid.request( PermissionsAndroid.PERMISSIONS.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,{ 'title': 'CameraExample App External Storage Write Permission', 'message': 'CameraExample App needs access to Storage data in your SD Card ' } ) if (granted === PermissionsAndroid.RESULTS.GRANTED) { //If WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE Permission is granted //Calling the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission function requestExternalReadPermission(); } else { alert("WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission denied"); } } catch (err) { alert("Write permission err",err); console.warn(err) } } async function requestExternalReadPermission() { try { const granted = await PermissionsAndroid.request( PermissionsAndroid.PERMISSIONS.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,{ 'title': 'CameraExample App Read Storage Write Permission', 'message': 'CameraExample App needs access to your SD Card ' } ) if (granted === PermissionsAndroid.RESULTS.GRANTED) { //If READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE Permission is granted //changing the state to re-render and open the camera //in place of activity indicator that.setState({isPermitted:true}) } else { alert("READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission denied"); } } catch (err) { alert("Read permission err",err); console.warn(err) } } //Calling the camera permission function requestCameraPermission(); } onBottomButtonPressed(event) { const captureImages = JSON.stringify(event.captureImages); Alert.alert( event.type, captureImages, [{ text: 'OK', onPress: () => console.log('OK Pressed') }], { cancelable: false } ); } render() { if(this.state.isPermitted){ return ( <CameraKitCameraScreen // Buttons to perform action done and cancel actions={{ rightButtonText: 'Done', leftButtonText: 'Cancel' }} onBottomButtonPressed={event => this.onBottomButtonPressed(event)} flashImages={{ // Flash button images on: require('./assets/flashon.png'), off: require('./assets/flashoff.png'), auto: require('./assets/flashauto.png'), }} cameraFlipImage={require('./assets/flip.png')} captureButtonImage={require('./assets/capture.png')} /> ); }else{ return ( <ActivityIndicator /> ) } } } const styles = StyleSheet.create({ container: { flex: 1, backgroundColor: '#fff', alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'center', }, }); |
Before running the app you need to make a directory called “assets ” to keep the images that we have used. Download and put all the images in assets as shown
To Run the React Native App
Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.
That was the React Native Camera. If you have any doubt or you want to share something about the topic you can comment below or contact us here. There will be more posts coming soon. Stay tuned!
Hope you liked it. 🙂
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The code works fine on android but does not work properly on IOS. It seems the permission functions are only for android so the code keeps getting stuck in the try catch. Any ideas?
Hello,
I have tried it on IOS also but let me confirm if there is any update in it..
We will confirm you soon.
Mean while if you found the problem and solution for that please comment to help others..
in this package. in the galleryScreen. if i tap on image the image url is only appended to the state.
how can i append the full image object with all the attributes i.e filename, size, url etc
onTapImage(event) {
const uri = event.nativeEvent.selected;
if (this.state.images[uri]) {
delete this.state.images[uri];
} else {
this.state.images[uri] = true;
}
this.setState({ images: {…this.state.images }})
}