fix: BackHandler crash on RN 0.79+ — replace react-native-modal with core Modal

[shaiunterslak]

Fixes #52 (same crash as the accidentally-closed #53).

Problem

react-native-modal@13.0.1 still calls BackHandler.removeEventListener in componentWillUnmount. React Native deprecated it in 0.77 and has since removed it, so closing the widget crashes any app on RN 0.79+ / Expo SDK 53+:

TypeError: _reactNative.BackHandler.removeEventListener is not a function (it is undefined)

Today every consumer has to carry a patch-package fix for this (we run this widget in four production apps and each one needs the patch).

Why not bump react-native-modal

• 13.0.2 contains the fix but is deprecated on npm as "mistakenly released", which is exactly why the current ^13.0.1 range keeps resolving to the broken 13.0.1.
• 14.x only exists as release candidates (14.0.0-rc.1), and the library is in low-maintenance mode.

Fix

The widget only renders a full-screen modal and uses four props, all of which React Native's built-in Modal covers — so this drops the dependency entirely:

react-native-modal	core Modal
isVisible	visible
onBackButtonPress	onRequestClose (Android back)
default slideInUp/slideOutDown	animationType="slide"
coverScreen, backdropColor, margin: 0 style	unnecessary — core Modal is full-screen by default

onBackdropPress is dropped: with coverScreen + full-screen styling there is no visible backdrop to press, so it was dead code. Consumers also lose the react-native-modal + react-native-animatable subtree from their installs, and the patch-package workaround becomes unnecessary.

Example/ carries a vendored copy of the same component, so it gets the same change; its package-lock.json also picks up the pre-existing ^0.0.20 manifest sync.

Testing

• Render tests in a real RN 0.81 jest environment: widget mounts with the webview, onRequestClose fires closeModal, and unmounting no longer crashes (the old crash fired in componentWillUnmount).
• eslint clean on the changed files.
• We run this widget (with the equivalent behavior) in four production React Native apps (RN 0.81–0.85, Expo SDK 54–56).

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Add prop-types as a direct dependency

Removing the only runtime dependencies block also removes the transitive provider for prop-types, but the published entry path still imports prop-types from src/App.js and src/WebView.js. In a fresh consumer app that does not already install prop-types, Metro will fail to resolve the widget immediately after this package is imported; add prop-types as a direct dependency or remove those runtime imports.

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