Social Knowledge

SitePen created a lightweight mobile application for Social Knowledge using the React Native framework. This allowed SitePen to develop iOS and Android apps simultaneously using the same maintainable codebase with web technologies. Changes get made to both app derivatives simultaneously, providing a much faster feature rollout time compared to separate native app code bases.

SitePen also selected the Expo platform as a starting point for the RV Retailer application. It provides a streamlined process for development and for deploying to devices for testing via the expo client. Development speed for this application was critical to Social Knowledge as it is to most organizations! Expo allows easy over-the-air updates to applications, providing new features and bug fixes to test users much quicker than traditional approaches via app stores.

Working with TypeScript allowed SitePen to quickly and efficiently collaborate with a distributed team allowing for interfaces and the Typescript type system ensures compatibility between components and APIs.

Jest was selected for the testing framework due to its compatibility with React Native. Jest allows developers to write unit rests that exercise component APIs and snapshot tests, ensuring components get rendered as expected. Combined these tests are both efficient to create and maintain, and also vastly improve product confidence when making changes, minimizing downtime caused by future mistakes.

Social Knowledge expressed an interest in adding end-to-end tests to the application so SitePen set up an approach utilizing Cavy as the test runner. Cavy provides compatibility with the Expo platform and both Android and iOS out of the box. This enabled us to deliver functional tests along with the application with full OS coverage and allows Social Knowledge to continue adding tests as application functionality grows in the future.