Currently, my research centers around digital marketing and user experience. In order to gather the necessary data for this study, I must collect event logs from all components within a UI to create datasets on usability patterns.
In a web interface, such as using JavaScript, this process is straightforward.
window.addEventListener("someEvent", (e) => {//do something with the data});
The e element provides me with the required information, and if I want to monitor all window events, I can iterate through the window object events and add an event listener to each one. However, when it comes to mobile development, I encounter a challenge. For cross-application purposes, I am utilizing React Native to attempt to achieve a similar effect as window.addEventListener in mobile applications.
This marks my first venture into using React Native. After some investigation, I have learned that React Native does not feature a window object (at least not in the conventional JavaScript sense) and instead translates to platform-native components, rendering document.getElementBy... ineffective.
My solution involves using refs. By simply adding a reference to the top component App, here's what I have managed to accomplish:
export default function App() {
const viewRef = useRef();
useEffect(() => {
//Utilize ref here to iterate through all View events and
//attach event listeners to them
}, [viewRef]);
return (
<View
ref={viewRef}
style={styles.container}
onTouchEnd={(e) => {
console.log(e.target);
}}
>
<DummyComponent />
</View>
);
}
The onTouchEnd event is linked to the top-level component, allowing access to its child elements. With the useEffect function, I can replicate the functionality of JavaScript's window.
This method seems effective; however, for my research, I aim to streamline event logging for any React Native app. Ideally, I would develop a dependency that automatically logs all events upon installation. Therefore, how can I navigate through a React Native application to identify Views and attach their events without adding anything directly to the components themselves?
In JavaScript terms, this would resemble something along the lines of:
document.getElementsByTagName("View").map((view) => {//bind view events});