Context
So, I don't know if any of you has ever gone through the same situation but I've recently taken over an app and we have this RecyclerView on the main screen - because of an NDA I'll change a few things - that shows a list of apartments that you can rent - picture the AirBnB app - and if you tap on one of these apartment items you go to the apartment detail, where you have a bit more of functionality and features.
The thing is that we have way too many moving parts on the apartment list. For example, on each apartment ViewHolder you can:
Use a checkmark to specify if you are going to bring any pets with you.
A few UI items to specify how long are you going to stay.
An EditText to set how may people are going to come.
A Rent button that turns itself into a spinner and sends an API call.
A More Options button that expands the ViewHolder, showing a LinearLayout with yet more UI.
Picture something like this
This is actually a simpler example of what I really have. Let me tell you that it looks as if each ViewHolder could be a Fragment because of all the functionality that we have on each.
Now what's the problem here?
Recycling issues. If you scroll off, and scroll back to the same position you are supposed to keep the same state that you had on that ViewHolder, right? If you had checked a CheckButton that's supposed to be check. If you had written something on an EditText, that's supposed to be there. If you had expanded the More Options section, that's supposed to be expanded. You see where I'm going at?
What am I asking here?
Well, about feedback for a possible solution or improvement. I know what most of you would tell me here - because it is the same thing I thought at first - just move all that functionality into the apartment detail, keep that list as simple as possible. But it is not as simple, we have a large user base who is already used to this UI. Changing things so abruptly is not an option.
What do I have right now?
In my RecyclerView adapter I keep a collection of "State" objects which I use to save/restore the ViewHolder states, but it is getting way too big and way too complex. This may sound crazy, but it is there such thing as having a RecyclerList of Fragments? I just don't want to worry/bother about keeping the states of these ViewHolder anymore.
Notes
Sorry I haven't provided any code, but there's not much to show actually, as you may imagine the onBindViewHolder is just a humongous piece of code that sets the views with the data I fetch from the API plus the data that I store in these "State" objects. I save these "State" objects via the onViewDetachedFromWindows() hook from the adapter class that gets triggered when a ViewHolder scrolls off from screen. I wipe out these "State" objects when I fetch a new API response.
Any feedback is appreciated,
Thanks!🙇
Your post is vague in it's high-level description but I'll try to comment in a similar manner that may guide you towards solutions.
First, as was already mentioned Epoxy is a thing. As is adapter delegates. You may find those useful. However, you don't need a library to solve you problem - you need separation of concerns and architecture.
The thing is that we have way too many moving parts on the apartment list.
OK, so first suggestion is to stop having too many moving parts in the list. Each thing you listed could / should be it's own (custom) view that is driven by it's own ViewModel. A recycler view / view holder / adapter should be as stupid as possible. All those things should be doing is filling in boilerplate that Android requires. Actual logic should exist elsewhere.
If you scroll off, and scroll back to the same position you are supposed to keep the same state that you had on that ViewHolder, right?
No. Your ViewHolder should not maintain state. A ViewHolder holds views so Android doesn't have to re-inflate stuff over and over. It should not keep track of its state - it should be told what its current state is.
You should have a list of data objects (view models) that represent the current state of each item in the list. When you scroll off and back to the same position, you are supposed to re-bind the item that should be at that position to the view that represents it. Saving and clearing "state" objects should not be necessary - you should always have the current state on hand because it's the underlying data model driving your whole UI.
In my RecyclerView adapter I keep a collection of "State" objects which I use to save/restore the ViewHolder states, but it is getting way too big and way too complex
If something is too big and complex, break it down. Instead of having one giant-ass state object for each item, use composition. Make this item state have properties that represent pieces of the UI - PetModel, DateRangeModel, etc.
This may sound crazy, but it is there such thing as having a RecyclerList of Fragments? I just don't want to worry/bother about keeping the states of these ViewHolder anymore.
That does sound crazy because not only would this not solve your problem, you would probably actually make it significantly worse. You don't want to manage the state of a bunch of ViewHolders but you want to manage the states of a bunch of Fragments!? Bruh.
as you may imagine the onBindViewHolder is just a humongous piece of code that sets the views with the data I fetch from the API plus the data that I store in these "State" objects.
Again, break that up. You should not be slapping "data I fetched from the API" directly onto views. Invariably you will need to massage and transform raw data from an API before you display it. This should be handled by a dedicated object (again, ViewModel or some other structure). Again, views should be dumb. Tell them their state and that's it - don't do logic at this level.
Please read the Android Architecture Guide.
Also Google around for "Clean Architecture" - that seems to be all the range in Android these days.
And finally - here's some very rough pseudocode of how you could structure this to be more testable and maintainable.
From the bottom up:
ApiClient - responsible for just fetching the raw data from the API
endpoint or reporting an error.
ApiResponseModel - language-specific object representation
of the data you'll get from the API. Has info on the pet, dates,
guest count, etc. May contain submodels.
ItemDomainModel - client side representation of your data after transforming the data you'll get from the API.
Repository - uses the ApiClient to fetch the data as ApiResponseModel and transforms it into a ItemDomainModel object that makes more sense for your app.
ItemViewModel - Represents the UI state of a single item in the RecyclerView. Takes a ItemDomainModel instance and exposes the state of the UI based on the state of that model. This can be broken down if it's too complex (PetStateViewModel, DateRangeViewModel, GuestCountViewModel, etc)
ListViewModel - The top-level Android ViewModel that represents the state of the screen. Uses the Repository to fetch the data then constructs a list of ItemViewModels to feed into the RecyclerViewAdapter.
If you get those pieces in place, your view binding in the adapter should be stupid dumb:
override fun onBindViewHolder(viewHolder: ViewHolder, position: Int) {
// The adapter list should be a list of view models populated by the
// fragment after the ListViewModel returns a list of them from the fetch
val itemViewModel = itemViewModels[position]
// Populating this item view should just be a one-to-one mapping of the view model
// state - NO LOGIC. Dumb. Stupid. Tonto.
viewHolder.bringingPets.isChecked = itemViewModel.isBringingPets
viewHolder.guestCount.text = itemViewModel.guestCount
// ... etc, etc (if you use databinding this is a one-liner and even stupider)
// Set up your event listeners so interacting with this specific item in the list
// updates the state of the underlying data model
viewHolder.bringingPets.setOnCheckChanged { itemViewModel.isBringingPets = it.isChecked }
viewHolder.rentButton.onClickListener { itemViewModel.rentThis() }
// ... etc, etc
}
The goal is to do as little as possible here. Just update the state and wire up your callbacks that just delegate back to the ViewModel. Then, those UI states are driven by the logic in the view model. This is where you do business logic that determines how the UI should look.
class ItemViewModel(private val dataModel: ItemDomainModel) {
var isBringingPets: Boolean
get() = /* some business logic that determines if the checkbox is checked */
set(value) /* update underlying state and notify of changes */
// ... etc, etc, for guest count and other properties
fun rentThis() {
// Fire an event or update live data or invoke a callback that
// the fragment can use to respond
}
// ... etc, etc, for other functions that respond to UI events
}
In Summary
Refactor your code to break down the huge and complex logic into dedicated components that each have a simpler, specific focus, then compose them together to get the behavior you want. Good luck.
Related
I am doing a side project of making an app (with Java since I already know it). I have a recyclerview which loads some data via the room database library. The elements of the recyclerview are clickable.
My problem is I want the user to be able to sort the recyclerview so that the most recently accessed items go to the top.
My original idea was to assign the entities to have two variables - a String list_name which also serves as the id, and an Int order_of_access. Also, in my ViewModel I have a getAllLists method which returns a livedata list. I have an onChanged listener in the fragment activity which nicely updates the recyclerview when data is added/removed.
When the user adds a new list, it is assigned an order_of_access of the listsize (+1). But when the user deletes a group of lists, or clicks on a list, I want to update the order_of_access, say with an updateOrderAccess method.
Do you think this is the best way of doing what I want?
Where should I place updateOrderAccess and how would you recommend it be written? Since the method getAllLists returns livedata, it is tempting to put updateOrderAccess in an observer in the fragment (in onChanged) - but this will obviously create an infinite loop. It seems more in the correct philosophy to put it in the ViewModel, but then how would you suggest the updateOrderAccess method to be written? I'm having some trouble conceptualising what I need.
I hope the question is not too vague - I will update it if you need more details.
Where should I place updateOrderAccess and how would you recommend it
be written?
I am so sure that you must write it in the view model, as long as updateOrderAccess() is editing the list which is observable then you have andexpose by that the ui state then you have to put it in view model, and the observers will be notified ( in this case it is recycle view) and it will redraw the list in the order you offered.
note: do not you ever update the state(ui data) outside the state holder so you implement UDF (unidirectional Data Flow) pattern.
see the references below to read more about UDF so you never get confused where to declare your functions by letting the architicture lead you:
Guide to app architecture
ui layer
state holders and ui state
Do you think this is the best way of doing what I want?
i am not very sure that i got exactly what your app do, but it seems like you want to re-order the elements of recycle view depending on the ui event (click) or data change (deleting or adding new element), now you have two choices:
if the order is very importnat to you that much you want to keep it even if the app has been destroyed
then you have to add a field in the room entity represent the ordering (let us call it order) and whenever the user click on the recycle view you have to update the rooms field "order" which is "flow" or "liveData" or any observable type, that will tell the view model that there is a changing in the data, now the view model have to re-order the new data by the field "order" and pass it to the recycle view to show it.
if your app do not have to save the order changes after the app been destroyed
then you can simply do that:
create list which is called "orderedList" you will put the list items in it by the right order, and another list called "unorderlist" which have getAllLists
for the first case where the ordering is being changed by user click, you
can declare a function in viewModel then use it in the ui
controller (your activity or fragment), so whenever the list item is
clicked this function just re-order the orderedList elements ( which
is observable, so the changes reflect on the ui ) just by change the
clicked item position to the front of the list.
for the second case where the ordering changes by data changes like
add or delet a list item in the database, then you have to compare
the legnth of orderlist and unorderlist legnth, if unorderList is
longer then it is an add situation else it is a delete situation, in
adding case just add the last item of unorderList to the orderList,
else you have to check the deleted item and delete it from
orderList.
I've been messing around with Jetpack Compose and currently looking at different ways of creating/managing/updating State.
The full code I'm referencing is on my github
I have made a list a piece of state 3 different ways and noticed differences in behavior. When the first list button is pressed, it causes all 3 buttons to be recomposed. When either of the other 2 lists are clicked though they log that the list has changed size, update their UI but trigger no recompose of the buttons ?
To clarify my question, why is that when I press the button for the firsList I get the following log messages, along with size updates:
Drawing first DO list button
Drawing List button
Drawing second DO list button
Drawing List button
Drawing third DO list button
Drawing List button
But when I press the buttons for the other 2 lists I only get the size update log messages ?
Size of list is now: 2
Size of list is now: 2
var firstList by remember{mutableStateOf(listOf("a"))}
val secondList: SnapshotStateList<String> = remember{ mutableStateListOf("a") }
val thirdList: MutableList<String> = remember{mutableStateListOf("a")}
Row(...) {
println("Drawing first DO list button")
ListButton(list = firstList){
firstList = firstList.plus("b")
}
println("Drawing second DO list button")
ListButton(list = secondList){
secondList.add("b")
}
println("Drawing third DO list button")
ListButton(list = thirdList){
thirdList.add("b")
}
}
When I click the button, it adds to the list and displays a value. I log what is being re-composed to help see what is happening.
#Composable
fun ListButton(modifier: Modifier = Modifier,list: List<String>, add: () -> Unit) {
println("Drawing List button")
Button(...,
onClick = {
add()
println("Size of list is now: ${list.size}")
}) {
Column(...) {
Text(text = "List button !")
Text(text = AllAboutStateUtil.alphabet[list.size-1])
}
}
}
I'd appreciate if someone could point me at the right area to look so I can understand this. Thank you for taking the time.
I'm no expert (Well,), but this clearly related to the mutability of the lists in concern. You see, Kotlin treats mutable and immutable lists differently (the reason why ListOf<T> offers no add/delete methods), which means they fundamentally differ in their functionality.
In your first case, your are using the immutable listOf(), which once created, cannot be modified. So, the plus must technically be creating a new list under the hood.
Now, since you are declaring the immutable list in the scope of the parent Composable, when you call plus on it, a new list is created, triggering recompositions in the entire Composable. This is because, as mentioned earlier, you are reading the variable inside the parent Composable's scope, which makes Compose figure that the entire Composable needs to reflect changes in that list object. Hence, the recompositions.
On the other hand, the type of list you use in the other two approaches is a SnapshotStateList<T>, specifically designed for list operations in Compose. Now, when you call its add, or other methods that alter its contents, a new object is not created, but a recomposition signal is sent out (this is not literal, just a way for you to understand). The way internals of recomposition work, SnapshotStateList<T> is designed to only trigger recompositions when an actual content-altering operation takes place, AND when some Composable is reading it's content. Hence, the only place where it triggered a recomposition was the list button that was reading the list size, for logging purposes.
In short, first approach triggers complete recompositions since it uses an immutable list which is re-created upon modification and hence the entire Composable is notified that something it is reading has changed. On the other hand, the other two approaches use the "correct" type of lists, making them behave as expected, i.e., only the direct readers of their CONTENT are notified, and that too, when the content (elements of the list) actually changes.
Clear?
EDIT:
EXPLANATION/CORRECTION OF BELOW PROPOSED THEORIES:
You didn't mention MutableListDos in your code, but I'm guessing it is the direct parent of the code you provided. So, no, your theory is not entirely correct, as in the immutable list is not being read in the lambda (only), but the moment and the exact scope where you are declaring it, you send the message that this value is being read then and there. Hence, even if you removed the lambda (and modified it from somewhere else somehow), it will still trigger the recompositions. The Row still does have a Composable scope, i.e., it is well able to undergo independent recompositions, but the variable itself is being declared (and hence read) in the parent Composable, outside the scope of the Row, it causes a recomp on the entire parent, not just the Row Composable.
I hope we're clear now.
I'm making an API call getData(forPage: Int): Response which returns a page-worth of data (10 items max) and thereIsMoreData: Boolean.
The recyclerView is implemented that by scrolling, the scroll listener automatically fetches more data using that API call:
val scrollListener = object : MyScrollListener() {
override fun loadMoreItems() {
apiFunctionForLoading(currentPage + 1)
}
}
The problem is that with longer screen devices that have more space for items (let's say 20), the RV receives 10 items and then doesn't allow scrolling, because there's no more items to scroll to. Without scrolling, more data cannot be loaded.
My naive solution:
load first set of data
if thereIsMoreData == true I load another page of data
now I have more data than the screen can display at once hence allowing scroll
Is there a more ellegant solution?
Android has this Paging Library now which is about displaying chunks of data and fetching more when needed. I haven't used it and it looks like it might be a bit of work, but maybe it's worth a look?
Codepath has a tutorial on using it and I think their stuff is pretty good and easy to follow, so maybe check that out too. They also have this older tutorial that's closer to what you're doing (handling it yourself) so there's that too.
I guess in general, you'd want your adapter to return an "infinite" number for getItemCount() (like Integer.MAX_VALUE). And then in your onBindViewHolder(holder, position) method you'd either set the item at position, or if you don't have that item yet you load in the next page until you get it.
That way your initial page will always have the right amount of content, because it will be full of ViewHolders that have asked for data - if there's more than 10, then item 11 will have triggered the API call. But actually handling the callback and all the updating is the tricky part! If you have that working already then great, but it's what the Paging library was built to take care of for you (or at least make it easier!)
An elegant way would be to check whether the view can actually scroll down:
recyclerView.canScrollVertically(1)
1 means downwards -> returns true if it is possible tro scroll down.
So if it returns false, your page is not fully filled yet.
If aViewHolder's itemViewhassetActivated(.)called, that information is carried on after the view is recycled (i.e. the next will also be activated if the previous was).
Where would be a good place to save and store this information per item in the adapter rather than per itemView in the recycler; make items in the adapter a separate holder with an item and a boolean and then save it inonViewRecycled(.)as well as conditionally callsetActivated(.)again inonBind(.)?
Or are there better approaches altogether? (I was thinkingListViewmight be more intuitively, but unlessRecyclerViewis strongly discouraged for this typ of task, I'd prefer to use it.)
Well, I ended up creating a small local and private class that holds the status as well as the object. For now the status only includes a boolean isSelected, but I suppose it could be expanded and turned into a full fledged class in its own, when needed.
I'm trying to bind a MvxBindableListView in TwoWay mode, for it to update in the View when I Set it's value in the ViewModel (through a Buttons's Click command).
Currently it only updates when the layout is fully loaded at start/tabchange...
The ViewModel is:
public List<MyType> TestList
{
get { return _testList; }
set
{
_testList = value;
FirePropertyChanged("TestList");
}
}
The .axml in the View is:
<Mvx.MvxBindableListView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
local:MvxBind="{'ItemsSource':{'Path':'TestList','Mode':'TwoWay'}}"
local:MvxItemTemplate="#layout/my_item_layout" />
The way data-binding works is through an interface called INotifyPropertyChanged
What happens in this interface is that the ViewModel sends the View a message whenever a property changes - e.g.
FirePropertyChanged("TestList");
With a list, this doesn't help if the contents of the list itself change - e.g. when the list has an item added or removed.
To solve this, the .Net Mvvm implementation includes another interface INotifyCollectionChanged.
A collection - such as a list - can implement INotifyCollectionChanged in order to let the View know when the contents of the collection change.
For example, the collection might fire events containing hints such as:
everything has changed - NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset
an item has been added - NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add
an item has been removed - NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove
...
There's a short introduction into this interface about 12:30 into the MvvmCross Xaminar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdiu_dH3z5k
To use this interface for a small in-memory list - e.g. less than 1000 'small' objects - all you have to do is to change your List<T> for an ObservableCollection<T> - the ObservableCollection is a class from the core .Net libraries (from Microsoft or Mono) and it will fire the correct events when you Add/Remove list items.
You can see the source for the Mono ObservableCollection implementation in: https://github.com/mosa/Mono-Class-Libraries/blob/master/mcs/class/System/System.Collections.ObjectModel/ObservableCollection.cs - it is worth taking some time to look at this implementation so that you can understand a bit more about how Mvvm works with INotifyCollectionChanged.
If you use the ObservableCollection class, then your code will become:
private ObservableCollection<MyType> _testList;
public ObservableCollection<MyType> TestList
{
get { return _testList; }
set
{
_testList = value;
FirePropertyChanged("TestList");
// in vNext use RaisePropertyChanged(() => TestList);
}
}
with:
<Mvx.MvxBindableListView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
local:MvxBind="{'ItemsSource':{'Path':'TestList'}}"
local:MvxItemTemplate="#layout/my_item_layout" />
Note:
that the binding is OneWay - this means that binding is still only going from ViewModel to View - there are no updates going from View to ViewModel.
that ObservableCollection is designed to be single-threaded - so make sure all changes to the collection are done on the UI thread - not on a worker thread. If you need to, you can marshall work back onto the UI thread using InvokeOnMainThread(() => { /* do work here */ }) in a ViewModel.
that in Android, the way lists work (through the base AdapterView) means that every time you call any update on the ObservableCollection then the UI List will ignore the action hint (Add, Remove, etc) - it will treat every change as a Reset and this will cause the entire list to redraw.
For larger collections - where you don't want all the items in memory at the same time - you may need to implement some data-store backed list yourself.
There is a brief example of one simple sqlite data-backed store in https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross/blob/vnext/Sample%20-%20SimpleDialogBinding/SimpleDroidSql.Core/DatabaseBackedObservableCollection.cs
This virtualizing of collection data is common in WP and WPF apps - e.g. see questions and answers like Is listbox virtualized by default in WP7 Mango?
We just found a workaround for this that works for us!!
NOTE: Adding and removing from the list updates the view with the new/removed item. However any changes to the state of the existing items were not reflected.
SOLUTION: We cleared our list and re-added the items to the ViewModel property with the updated state. Calling raisepropertychanged then mimics a two-way bind behavior. Essentially it was removing all values and re-adding all values.