Adrian Hall

Adrian Hall

Microsoft Program Manager by day; Mobile Developer by night

Recent posts

Early return from GraphQL Resolvers with AWS AppSync

January 03, 2019  3 minute read  

I am currently developing a “reviews” app, written in React Native and using a suite of services surrounding AWS AppSync for the data backend. Yesterday, I ran into a problem. This is how I solved that problem. First, let’s take a look at the problem. I have a query that is submitted like this: { me { id name locations { totalCount } reviews { totalCount } favorites { totalCount } } } The query is used to generate a header on a “My Information” page. Eventually, I’...

Handling File Uploads with AWS AppSync

December 18, 2018  9 minute read  

GraphQL does not handle files. It may seem an obvious statement, but it needs to be said. GraphQL does not handle files. It handles structured data. Which isn’t to say that GraphQL does not have a role to play within file handling — just that the upload and download of files needs to be done outside the confines of GraphQL. In this article, I’m going to present one way that you can handle the upload and download of files whereby the URL of the files are presented via GraphQL using AWS AppSy...

Bootstrapping a React Native App: A Comparison

December 10, 2018  7 minute read  

It’s been a while since I have worked on a React Native app. In that time, create-react-native-app (CRNA) has been deprecated, and expo-cli has taken its place as the advised route. There is still react-native init, and Infinite Red has ignite. That is four different ways of bootstrapping a React Native app. Before I continue, let me be clear on what I want: I want to use “best practices” in my app architecture - for state, communication with my AWS-based backend, navigation, and so on. ...

Authentication with AWS Amplify and Android: Fraud Protection and Analytics

November 05, 2018  4 minute read  

This will be an in-depth series on authentication with AWS Amplify. Here are the topics I am going to cover, and I will update each blog with the links as I complete the articles. The basics - a username/password system. Customizing the UI. Authenticating with Facebook. Authenticating with Google. Using third-party authentication providers. Using Time-based One-time passwords (TOTP). Using Biometric authentication. Doing fraud protection and analytics. Over the last seven ...

Authentication with AWS Amplify and Android: Integrating Biometrics

October 29, 2018  8 minute read  

This will be an in-depth series on authentication with [AWS Amplify]. Here are the topics I am going to cover, and I will update each blog with the links as I complete the articles. The basics - a username/password system. Customizing the UI. Authenticating with Facebook. Authenticating with Google. Using third-party authentication providers. Using Time-based One-time passwords (TOTP). Using Biometric authentication. Doing fraud protection and analytics. This is the sevent...