Add a README file for Nodes

Summary:
Add a README file explaining the purpose of Nodes and how to
enable it within an app.

Reviewed By: JoelMarcey, lacker

Differential Revision: D4349517

fbshipit-source-id: ec26ebb37039e7c23ecd2cf4b482fa21ca8beeda
This commit is contained in:
Ahmed El-Helw 2016-12-19 16:55:17 -08:00 committed by Facebook Github Bot
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# Nodes
Nodes is an experimental, alternate version of
[UIImplementation](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/ReactAndroid/src/main/java/com/facebook/react/uimanager/UIImplementation.java) for ReactNative on Android. It has two main advantages over the existing `UIImplementation`:
1. Support for `overflow:visible` on Android.
2. More efficient generation of view hierarchies.
The intention is to ultimately replace the existing `UIImplementation` on
Android with Nodes (after all the issues are ironed out).
## How to test
In a subclass of `ReactNativeHost`, add this:
```java
@Override
protected UIImplementationProvider getUIImplementationProvider() {
return new FlatUIImplementationProvider();
}
```
## How it Works
The existing
[UIImplementation](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/ReactAndroid/src/main/java/com/facebook/react/uimanager/UIImplementation.java) maps all non-layout tags to `View`s (resulting in an almost 1:1 mapping of tags
to Views, with the exception of some optimizations for layout only tags that
don't draw content). Nodes, on the other hand, maps react tags to a set of
`DrawCommand`s. In other words, an `<image>` tag will often be mapped to a
`Drawable` instead of an `ImageView` and a `<text>` tag will be mapped to a
`Layout` instead of a `TextView`. This helps flatten the resulting `View`
hierarchy.
There are situations where `DrawCommand`s are promoted to `View`s:
1. Existing Android components that are wrapped by React Native (for example,
`ViewPager`, `ScrollView`, etc).
2. When using a `View` is more optimal (for example, `opacity`, to avoid
unnecessary invalidations).
3. To facilitate the implementation of certain features (accessibility,
transforms, etc).
This means that existing custom `ViewManager`s should continue to work as they
did with the existing `UIImplementation`.
## Limitations and Known Issues
- `LayoutAnimation`s are not yet supported
- `zIndex` is not yet supported