Share Facebook Post with URL from React Native App

Share any post on Facebook from React Native App

This is an example to Share Facebook Post with URL from React Native App. Facebook share feature can be very helpful for you if you want to marketize your application’s content. One-click facebook share provides a great user experience to share your application’s content.

If you have seen our last post on React Native Share API to Share TextInput message you will see it provides all the possible solutions available in the device to share the input text but what if you just want to share the content on Facebook then this example will help you to share the content on Facebook.

In this example, you will also see how to share the URL with the content as well. If you are thinking about what’s new with URL sharing then let me tell you when you are sharing any URL in a Facebook post it takes the metadata from the URL page and shows the thumbnail of the URL for a better representation of the post.

We are going to use the deep linking property which will open Facebook App if it is available else it will open Facebook in the browser. We are using Linking component provided by the React Native core library.

You can also see:

1. React Native Share API to Share TextInput message
2. Send WhatsApp Message from React Native App
3. Tweet on Twitter with URL from React Native App
4. Send Text SMS on Button Click in React Native

To Share Facebook Post with URL from React Native App

const postOnFacebook = () => {
  let facebookParameters = [];
  if (facebookShareURL)
    facebookParameters.push('u=' + encodeURI(facebookShareURL));
  if (postContent)
    facebookParameters.push('quote=' + encodeURI(postContent));
  const url =
    'https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?' +
    facebookParameters.join('&');

  Linking.openURL(url)
    .then((data) => {
      alert('Facebook Opened');
    })
    .catch(() => {
      alert('Something went wrong');
    });
};

In this example, we are taking the Facebook post content and facebook URL as input from the user, and on the press of the “Share on Facebook” button w will share the post on Facebook. 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 to Share Facebook Post

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

App.js

// Share Facebook Post with URL from React Native App
// https://aboutreact.com/react-native-facebook-share/

// import React in our code
import React, {useState} from 'react';

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

const App = () => {
  const [facebookShareURL, setFacebookShareURL] = useState(
    'https://aboutreact.com',
  );
  const [postContent, setPostContent] = useState(
    'Hello Guys, This is a testing of facebook share example',
  );

  const postOnFacebook = () => {
    let facebookParameters = [];
    if (facebookShareURL)
      facebookParameters.push('u=' + encodeURI(facebookShareURL));
    if (postContent)
      facebookParameters.push('quote=' + encodeURI(postContent));
    const url =
      'https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?'
       + facebookParameters.join('&');

    Linking.openURL(url)
      .then((data) => {
        alert('Facebook Opened');
      })
      .catch(() => {
        alert('Something went wrong');
      });
  };

  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={styles.container}>
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Text style={styles.titleText}>
          Share Facebook Post with URL from React Native App
        </Text>
        <Text style={styles.titleTextsmall}>
          Enter Post Content
        </Text>
        <TextInput
          value={postContent}
          onChangeText={
            (postContent) => setPostContent(postContent)
          }
          placeholder={'Enter Facebook Post Content'}
          style={styles.textInput}
        />
        <Text style={styles.titleTextsmall}>
          Enter URL to Share
        </Text>
        <TextInput
          value={facebookShareURL}
          onChangeText={(facebookShareURL) =>
            setFacebookShareURL(facebookShareURL)
          }
          placeholder={'Enter URL to Share'}
          style={styles.textInput}
        />
        <TouchableOpacity
          activeOpacity={0.7}
          style={styles.buttonStyle}
          onPress={postOnFacebook}>
          <Text style={styles.buttonTextStyle}>
            Share on Facebook
          </Text>
        </TouchableOpacity>
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

export default App;

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    backgroundColor: 'white',
    padding: 10,
    textAlign: 'center',
  },
  titleText: {
    fontSize: 22,
    textAlign: 'center',
    fontWeight: 'bold',
  },
  titleTextsmall: {
    marginVertical: 8,
    fontSize: 16,
  },
  buttonStyle: {
    justifyContent: 'center',
    marginTop: 15,
    padding: 10,
    backgroundColor: '#8ad24e',
    marginRight: 2,
    marginLeft: 2,
  },
  buttonTextStyle: {
    color: '#fff',
    textAlign: 'center',
  },
  textInput: {
    height: 40,
    borderColor: 'gray',
    borderWidth: 1,
    width: '100%',
    paddingHorizontal: 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

Output Screenshots

 

This is how you can Share Facebook Post with URL from React Native App. If you have any doubts or 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. 🙂