Can you access a ViewModel from a custom class (non-activity/fragment) - android

I am creating a Listener class that a couple instances of a custom button in different Activities/Fragments are using. This class has listener methods that will update the respective ViewModel for that Activity/Fragment.
How do you define a ViewModel in a non-activity/fragment class? The documentation says to implement ViewModelStoreOwner, but I'm not really sure on how and what I should be implementing. I'm assuming if I don't implement it correctly, I'll have some sort of memory leak...
public class Listeners implements View.OnClickListener, ViewModelStoreOwner {
#NonNull
#org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull
#Override
public ViewModelStore getViewModelStore() {
return // what do I do here, and how do I tell it to close the scope appropriately
// when the context is destroyed?
}
// Implement OnClick...
}
Am I just trying to abstract too much here? Does Android really just revolve around Activities and Fragments thus requiring me to have annoyingly long files? The above class is my attempt to reduce redundant implementations of a button listener between two activity/fragments
EDIT:
Is it wrong to just pass the store owner of the activity that this listener instance will eventually reside in? For example:
// Custom class constructor
public Listeners(ViewModelStoreOwner storeOwner) {
mModel = new ViewModelProvider(storeOwner).get(Model.class);
}
// Calling/parent activity/fragment/context
Listeners listeners = new Listeners(this);
mButton.setOnClickListener(listeners);

Unless someone posts an answer to this that says otherwise (and that this is a bad idea), I ended up utilizing the latter solution I updated my question with.
I passed the store owner into the custom Listener class as a parameter, then used this value to initialize my ViewModelProvider inside the custom class.
I believe this is safe, since the class is instantiated within the scope of that parent Fragment/Activity anyway.
So for instance, if you were calling this class from an activity/fragment:
// Calling from Activity
Listeners listeners = new Listeners(this);
// Calling from Fragment
Listeners listeners = new Listeners(requireActivity());
And the relevant class definition:
public Listeners(ViewModelStoreOwner storeOwner) {
mModel = new ViewModelProvider(storeOwner).get(Model.class);
}

Related

Where to declare functions which are used in every activity? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How do I share common functions and data across many activities in a single android application
(4 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I call a function in onCreate function of an Activity to refactor my code. I wonder where to declare this function that is potentially used in every Activity of my app.
What I have done (it works fine) is to create a function class with a companion object where all my global functions are declared. But my question is: Is it a good way to do like that?
I call a function in onCreate function of an activity to factor my
code. I wonder where to declare this function that is potentially used
in every activity of my app.
I would create a BaseActivity and let all your Activities inherit from it.
abstract class BaseActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
private fun init() {
// your code
}
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
init()
}
}
In case your init function does not depend on anything which comes from the subclass, you can just invoke it in onCreate each time (as shown above), otherwise make it protected and call it from the subclass (with parameters).
What I have done (it works fine) is to create a Function class with a
companion object where all my global functions are declared. But my
question is : is it a good way to do like that ?
It depends on if you need global shared state or not. In the first case using an object or a companion object would not be a bad idea.
If you don't need global state, or what to pass in whatever state to the utility function itself, a top level function would be sufficient.
Utils.kt
fun someUtilityFunction(foo: Int) {
// ...
}
You can create some BaseActivity or YourAppNameActivity and call your function inside its onCreate. Then, every activity that extends BaseActivity as usually will call super.onCreate() and therefore the code you need
As long you do not have shared (mutable) state (as it can lead to side effects, there is nothing wrong in placing common code into companion object.
You can have a BaseActivity you extend your Activities from, but I would try to avoid inheritance in favor of composition.
If your method is touching the activity's view then BaseActivity approach would be fine. But if it doesn't move it to some singleton ActivityHelper class.
Like said, BaseActivity approach (inheritance) comes with a cost. You should be able to make good design choices by not putting everything inside it which will eventually makes it more coupled.
Follow composition pattern only if you find your code is interfering with its lifecycle. There are a few registerLifecycle callbacks for activity or fragment that can help you.
It's a good practice to move all that common code to a parent class and make each activiy heredate that parent class, by the way creating a companion object its a good option only if you want to create a singleton, a singleton it's needed when you want to instance that object only once.
For example a function in baseActivity (parent class) to create an intent filter or add code to onCreate function
public class BaseActivity extends Activity {
public static final String FINISH_ALL_ACTIVITIES = "somecode";
public final IntentFilter INTENT_FILTER = createIntentFilter();
private boolean _started;
private IntentFilter createIntentFilter() {
IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter();
filter.addAction(FINISH_ALL_ACTIVITIES_ACTIVITY);
return filter;
}
// region Blindaje de eventos ciclo de vida
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// inside your activity (if you did not enable transitions in your theme)
getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_CONTENT_TRANSITIONS);
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
try {
doOnPostCreate(savedInstanceState);
} catch (Throwable t) {
doOnErrorNoControlado(t);
}
}

How to pass complex, non serializable object to android fragments

Hello fellow Android developers,
I wanna know how do you guys pass complex non serializable (& non parcelable) object to fragments. (such as Listener, Api client, ...)
Let me explain my use case:
The use case
I'm building an Android application composed of one "host" activity and 3 fragments.
Currently I'm passing the object using a custom constructor on the fragment (bad practice I know).
The fragments constructors looks like the following:
/**
* Do not remove ever or you'll face RuntimeException
*/
public FirstFragment() {
}
public FirstFragment(Session session,
ApiClient apiClient,
FirebaseAnalytics firebaseAnalytics) {
mSession = session;
mApiClient = apiClient;
mFirebaseAnalytics = firebaseAnalytics;
}
And I'm using them in the host activity like this
private FirstFragment getFirstFragment() {
if (mFirstFragment == null) {
mFirstFragment = new FirstFragment(mSession, mApiClient, mFirebaseAnalytics);
}
return mHomeFragment;
}
[...]
private void loadFragment(Fragment fragment, String tag) {
FragmentTransaction transaction = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
transaction.replace(R.id.frame_container, fragment, tag);
transaction.commit();
}
[...]
private BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener mOnNavigationItemSelectedListener
= new BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {
#Override
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(#NonNull MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {
case FIRST_FRAGMENT_RES_ID:
toolbar.setTitle(R.string.first_fragment_title);
loadFragment(getFirstFragment(), "first_fragment");
return true;
[...]
}
return false;
}
};
This solution works well almost all the time. But sometimes (and I don't know when exactly) the default constructor is invoked and therefore all local members are null.
Possible solutions
To solve the problem I'm thinking about the following solutions:
Singletons, singletons everywhere
Most of the objects I'm passing are singletons therefore I can access them in the default constructor of the fragments:
public FirstFragment() {
mSession = Session.getInstance(getContext());
mApiClient = ApiClient.getInstance(getContext());
mFirebaseAnalytics = FirebaseAnalytics.getInstance(getContext());
}
Problems
However the above solution wouldn't work if I need to pass a callback or something. How can it be done like this then?
Access the objects using parent activity
I think it's one of the ugliest possible solutions because it will couple the Fragments to the parent activity. The idea is something like this
public FirstFragment() {
mSession = Session.getInstance(getContext());
mApiClient = ApiClient.getInstance(getContext());
mFirebaseAnalytics = FirebaseAnalytics.getInstance(getContext());
mListener = (Listener) getActivity(); // <- will works because parent activity implement the interface
}
Using broadcast & receiver
The idea is to keep passing singleton everywhere and use broadcast & receiver instead of listener.
How do you guys managed this scenario?
Thanks in advance !
You probably want to look into dependency injection (using a tool like Dagger or alternatives), especially for objects like an Api Client. Post the setup, you'd define, just once, how an Api Client instance could be constructed. And later you can use it pretty much everywhere with a one-line statement. The instance is guaranteed to be available upon the fragment instantiation. Further reading: https://dagger.dev/tutorial/
According to your use case, it might be easier to use a ViewModel and store your objects there. Your ViewModel will be shared across your fragments and your host
activity.
See https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/viewmodel
Have you considered using "Shared" ViewModel?
Essentially, a sub-class of ViewModel (which is class designed to store and manage UI-related data in a lifecycle conscious way for activities and fragments) can be created like below,
class SharedViewModel : ViewModel()
Inside this class you can have your custom objects with their correct state
Next, in your 1st Fragment you can obtain a handle to this SharedViewmodel like below,
class MasterFragment : Fragment() {
private lateinit var model: SharedViewModel
And obtain the handle to it using below code,
model = activity?.run {
ViewModelProviders.of(this)[SharedViewModel::class.java]
}
You can write your own logic/method/flow inside SharedViewModel to manipulate any custom object's states.
And once all this is done, In your 2nd Fragment, you can create the handle to SharedViewModel similar to above code and using SharedViewModel object you can retrieve the "modified" custom object from same SharedViewModel
It's been several months and I have now come up with a different solution.
For the UI related data
For the UI related stuff I'm now using the androidx livedata
For the complex non serializable data
My use case was to pass complex object to the fragment, such as manager, parent activity (trough a listener), etc... The approach I have taken is by injecting these data manually from the parent activity.
The first things to do was to remove the objects from the fragment constructor and use the default constructor instead, so that I won't face any instantiation errors.
Then I have created an inject() method on the fragment classes that look like this:
public void inject(BillingManager billingManager, Listener listener) {
mBillingManager = billingManager;
mListener = listener;
}
Each fragment will have their own inject method width the objects that should be injected as parameters.
In the parent activity I have override the onAttachFragment() method to handle the fragment attach process:
#Override
public void onAttachFragment(#NonNull Fragment fragment) {
super.onAttachFragment(fragment);
if (fragment.getClass().equals(FirstFragment.class)) {
((FirstFragment) fragment).inject(mBillingManager, this);
} else if (fragment.getClass().equals(HomeFragment.class)) {
((HomeFragment) fragment).inject(this);
}
}
Simple, and now everything work great.

Instantiate ViewModels directly, without making use of ViewModelProviders.of method

I have a ViewModel called RecipesViewModel. Usually, I instantiated it this way:
RecipesViewModel viewModel = ViewModelProviders.of(this, new ViewModelProvider.Factory() {
#Override
public <T extends ViewModel> T create(Class<T> modelClass) {
return (T) new RecipesViewModel(recipesRepository);
}
}).get(RecipesViewModel.class);
But now I'm using dagger2 and so I put a #Inject annotation on the constructor of this ViewModel, so I'm able to inject it directly in my fragment, using field injector.
My question is: do I lose something starting the viewmodel this way instead of ViewModelProviders.of way? My ViewModel is already Scoped, so only one instance is create in context.
Other option is to move only the factory instantiation to a dagger2 module, but if there is no problem I prefer the first aproach.
-- EDIT --
Reading the documentation android.arch.lifecycle.ViewModel, I'm a little more afraid. Whe use ViewModelProviders.of to provide a Scope (fragment or activity). If I instantiate it directly what will be the Scope?
ViewModel is a class that is responsible for preparing and managing
the data for an Activity or a Fragment. It also handles the
communication of the Activity / Fragment with the rest of the
application (e.g. calling the business logic classes).
A ViewModel is always created in association with a scope (an fragment
or an activity) and will be retained as long as the scope is alive.
E.g. if it is an Activity, until it is finished.
In other words, this means that a ViewModel will not be destroyed if
its owner is destroyed for a configuration change (e.g. rotation). The
new instance of the owner will just re-connected to the existing
ViewModel.
-- /EDIT --
The RecipesViewModel code is showing below:
#PerActivity
public class RecipesViewModel extends ViewModel {
private static final String TAG = "RecipesViewModel";
private final RecipesRepository recipesRepository;
private LiveData<List<Recipe>> recipes = null;
#Inject
public RecipesViewModel(RecipesRepository recipesRepository) {
this.recipesRepository = recipesRepository;
}
public final void loadAll() {
recipes = recipesRepository.getRecipes();
}
public LiveData<List<Recipe>> getRecipes() {
return recipes;
}
}
For me right now (and I need to research this), but injecting a view model instead of using the ViewModelProviders functionality means you lose some easy activity-fragment communication.
For example from the docs they provide an example of an activity hosting 2 fragments. If one fragment needs to talk to another, the previous method was to maintain an interface via the activity who also had to take care of the lifecycle of that interface. Instead now you can just fetch it from the the ViewModelProviders 'repo' whenever you need.

How to prevent calling all 'onEvent' methods in class hierarchy

I am struggling with preventing call all methods in class hierarchy chain.
Lets say i have a base class:
class BaseModel
{ /* Some basic fields goes here */ }
class ModelCompany extends BaseModel
{ /* Fields goes here */ }
Then I want to post two different events:
BaseModel oneEvent = new BaseModel();
ModelCompany otherEvent = new ModelCompany();
EventBus.getDefault().post(oneEvent);
EventBus.getDefault().post(otherEvent);
Somewhere in the activity:
onEvent(BaseModel ev1){}
onEvent(ModelCompany ev2){}
The thing is that both onEvent method will be executed in this case. How to prevent it and post message to exact method?
It is possible in EventBus 3 with EventBusBuilder.eventInheritance()

public Interface for Android

I need a little help with my Interface. I think that i doesn't understand them at all.
So i created this interface to notify every classes that implements it when a certain event occurs.
public interface OnColorsChangeListener {
void onColorsChangeListener(ColorsProp colorsProp);
}
My class that hold the interface:
private OnColorsChangeListener mCallback;
... // other code
// the event occurs here so i call:
mCallback.onColorsChangeListener(mProps);
// but of course here i get an NPE becouse this is undefined in this class.. well, with some replies here i'll understand better how to use that for reach my point
The class that implements it:
public class ClassTest implements OnColorsChangeListener {
... // other code
#Override
public void onColorsChangeListener(ColorsProp colorsProp) {
Log.d(TAG, "Color changed! " + colorsProp.color);
}
i put this in 4/5 classes to be notified in the same time for the color change. I'm quite sure the reason is that I didn't understand very well how them works, so can anyone point me to the right direction? Thank you!
Explanation by example:
You have to instantiate your callback, & it has to be an instance of your class
private OnColorsChangeListener mCallback;
mCallback = new ClassTest();
mCallback.onColorsChangeListener(mProps);
However if you want multiple callbacks you will need to use the Observer pattern.
Simple example:
private List<OnColorsChangeListener> mCallbacks = new ArrayList<OnColorsChangeListener>();
mCallbacks.add(new ClassTest());
mCallbacks.add(new OtherClass());
for(OnColorsChangeListener listener : mCallbacks) {
listener.onColorsChangeListener(mProps);
}
Obviously if you have the class, somewhere else you would not new it up, you would use that reference:
mCallbacks.add(mClassTest);
Observer Pattern Wikipedia
An interface is just a way to group together a bunch of related methods. Implementing this interface then requires you to implement all the methods grouped together by the interface.
The Java Tutorials has a good read on the subject:
What is an interface?
Here's a Stackoverflow thread regarding listener interfaces in android:
How to create our own Listener interface in android?
In short, you don't use the interface directly since it only specifies which methods implementing classes are supposed to implement.

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