React Native Clicking on a Text Hyperlink to Open It in The Browser Using Linking

Text Hyperlink

The example React Native Clicking on a Text Hyperlink to open it in the Browser will show you how to click on a link / URL to open it in the default browser. Clicking on a link and open it in the browser can be done using a React Native component called Linking.

While writing a text paragraph we some time needs the user to visit the reference website or in order to describe something we need to redirect the user to the reference website. To do this we can provide the copy to clipboard feature so that the user can copy the web URL and can visit by pasting that URL in the browser or we can provide click to open in browser facility which will be a good impression on the user.

To Import Linking in Code

import { Linking} from 'react-native'

Linking Can be Used as

Linking.openURL('https://aboutreact.com');

In this example, we will open a Web URL in the browser Using the React Native Linking component. So let’s get started.

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 the react-native-cli command line utility. Open the terminal and go to the workspace and run

npm install -g react-native-cli

Run the following commands to create a new React Native project

react-native init ProjectName

If you want to start a new project with a specific React Native version, you can use the --version argument:

react-native init ProjectName --version X.XX.X

react-native init ProjectName --version react-native@next

This will make a project structure with an index file named App.js in your project directory.

Code for Text Hyperlink

Now Open App.js in any code editor and replace the code with the following code

App.js

//This is an example of React Native click on a text link to open it in browser// 
import React, { Component } from 'react';
//import react in our code. 
import { View, StyleSheet, Text, Linking } from 'react-native';
//import all the components we are going to use.

export default class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Text
          onPress={() => {
            //on clicking we are going to open the URL using Linking
            Linking.openURL('https://aboutreact.com');
          }}>
          Click Here https://aboutreact.com
        </Text>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    paddingTop: 30,
    backgroundColor: '#ecf0f1',
  },
});

To Run the React Native App

Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.

cd ProjectName

To run the project on an Android Virtual Device or on real debugging device

react-native run-android

or on the iOS Simulator by running

react-native run-ios (macOS only).

Output Screenshots

   

Output in Online Emulator

That was the React Native Linking Component. If you have any doubts or you want to share something about the topic you can comment below or contact us here. The remaining components will be covered in the next article. Stay tuned!

Hope you liked it. 🙂