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 command line interface to make our React Native App.

If you have previously installed a global react-native-cli package, please remove it as it may cause unexpected issues:

npm uninstall -g react-native-cli @react-native-community/cli

Run the following commands to create a new React Native project

npx react-native init ProjectName

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

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

Note If the above command is failing, you may have old version of react-native or react-native-cli installed globally on your pc. Try uninstalling the cli and run the cli using npx.

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

// React Native Clicking on a Text Hyperlink to Open It in The Browser Using Linking
// https://aboutreact.com/react-native-clicking-on-a-text-link-to-open-it-in-the-browser-using-linking/

// import React in our code
import React from 'react';

// import all the components we are going to use
import {
  SafeAreaView,
  View,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  Linking
} from 'react-native';

const App = () => {
  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{flex: 1}}>
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Text style={styles.titleStyle}>
          React Native Hyperlink
          To Open It in The Browser Using Linking
        </Text>
        <Text style={styles.textStyle}>
          Hi welcome to{' '}
          <Text
            style={styles.hyperlinkStyle}
            onPress={() => {
              Linking.openURL('https://aboutreact.com');
            }}>
            AboutReact
          </Text>
          . About React is the online tutorial website.
          You can find the Example code related to React Native.
          We are trying our best to provide you the quality content
        </Text>
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

export default App;

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    backgroundColor: 'white',
  },
  textStyle: {
    margin: 10,
  },
  hyperlinkStyle: {
    color: 'blue',
  },
  titleStyle: {
    fontSize: 20,
    margin: 10,
  },
});

To Run the React Native App

Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.

cd ProjectName

1. Start Metro Bundler

First, you will need to start Metro, the JavaScript bundler that ships with React Native. To start Metro bundler run following command

npx react-native start

Once you start Metro Bundler it will run forever on your terminal until you close it. Let Metro Bundler run in its own terminal. Open a new terminal and run the application.

2. Start React Native Application

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

npx react-native run-android

or on the iOS Simulator by running (macOS only)

npx react-native run-ios

Download Source Code

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. 🙂