Chapter 3. Styling and Layout in React Native

So far, we've covered the basics of React development. We understand how to work with props and state and how to compose smaller, reusable components to form more complex views. We've installed the necessary tools to get a React Native app off the ground and now have a working Hello World app running in the iOS Simulator. The React Native API comes with a large library of built-in components, which we'll explore in the next chapter. But before we dive into the various component APIs, it's important we understand how to style and layout these components, much like we would with CSS in the web world.

React Native's approach to style and layout is heavily inspired by the Web. Many of the properties used to decorate your app will feel very familiar to CSS. For layout, rather than relying on floats, the Facebook team has ported the powerful flexbox layout system to React Native enabling us to make declarative, flexible...