Build Your First Ionic App: Photo Gallery (Ionic React and Capacitor)

Get started with Ionic by building a photo gallery app that runs on iOS, Android, and the web - with just one codebase. This is the complete project referenced in the "Your First App: React" guide. Follow along to create a complete CRUD (create-read-update-delete) experience.

Powered by Ionic React (web app) and Capacitor (native app runtime).

How It Works

After the user navigates to Tab 2 (Photos), they can tap/click on the camera button to open up the device's camera. After taking or selecting a photo, it's stored permanently into the device's filesystem. When the user reopens the app at a later time, the photo images are loaded from the filesystem and displayed again in the gallery. The user can tap on a photo to be presented with the option to remove the photo.

Feature Overview

• App framework: React
• UI components: Ionic Framework
  • Camera button: Floating Action Button (FAB)
  • Photo Gallery display: Grid
  • Delete Photo dialog: Action Sheet
• Native runtime: Capacitor
  • Taking photos: Camera API
  • Writing photo to the filesystem: Filesystem API
  • Storing photo gallery metadata: Preferences API

Project Structure

• Tab2 (Photos) (src/pages/Tab2.tsx): Photo Gallery UI and basic logic.
• usePhotoGallery Hook (src/hooks/usePhotoGallery.ts): Logic encapsulating Capacitor APIs, including Camera, Filesystem, and Preferences.

How to Run

Note: It's highly recommended to follow along with the tutorial guide, which goes into more depth, but this is the fastest way to run the app.

0. Install Ionic if needed: npm install -g @ionic/cli.
1. Clone this repository.
2. In a terminal, change directory into the repo: cd photo-gallery-capacitor-react.
3. Install all packages: npm install.
4. Run on the web: ionic serve.
5. Run on iOS or Android: See here.