Deep linking in React Native | Hacker News Reader

Deep linking in React Native

arsfutura.co

37 pointseMaeL7 comments

I always thought “deep linking” was the dumbest phrase, definitely for websites, maybe less so for SPAs.

It’s just “linking”!! And it should be trivial to implement.

"Linking" is already used to describe both object file linking (which is unrelated to deep linking) and html anchor linking (which is related to but different from mobile app deep linking). If you want a generic term, one can of course use the word linking to refer to deep linking, but it's often valuable to have a more specialized term that distinguishes links to functionality in mobile apps from links to anchors in web pages.

In HTML, "linking" is a contraction of "hyperlinking". I guess deep linking and hyperlinking have a significant cross-over, maybe to the point where it's not a useful distinction?

Flat head screws and pan head screws have similar cross-over in that both are screws. To someone who thinks assembling IKEA cabinets counts as woodworking, the term screw is enough. To someone involved in actual manufacturing, the more specialized terminology remains important. Specialists will always have reason to use more precise language than generalists.

Deep linking isn't "linking" between websites or SPAs, which is why you are having a hard time understanding it.

Deep linking refers to linking between a website, into a specific location of a native mobile application, or linking between two mobile applications.

It requires more than a static http link between sites

Very cryptic rejection of Universal Links in the final paragraph here... anyone know what they're talking about?

> However, I would not really recommend implementing support for this in your React Native app. It can bring potential complications and not-so-many benefits for a React Native app.

There are a few reasons I would recommend deep linking over implementing support for universal link into your app. Firstly, universal links are somewhat more complicated to set up than classic deep links and might make the development process more difficult. Their functionality is also somewhat similar to deep links. Secondly, they only work for iOS which cuts the number of viable users by a significant amount. Generally speaking, I would recommend implementing universal links after your system of deep links is constructed, in case you want to invest extra effort into your iOS application. Overall, it is definitely not an unuseful feature, I would just prefer deep linking for React Native.

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