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Android navigation component view decision

I am using Android Navigation Component in my project. What I am not satisfied is the fragment making the decision to do fragment transition to next fragment transition i.e
In my LoginFragment I have this -
viewModel.onLoginPressed(email, password)
.observe(viewLifecycleOwner, Observer {
if (it.userLoggedIn) {
activity?.findNavController(R.id.nav_host_fragment)
?.navigate(R.id.action_loginFragment_to_productsFragment)
}
})
According to me, the view must be dummy and must not do any such decisions of what to do on loginSuccess for example. The viewModel must be responsible for this.
How do I use this navigation component inside viewModel?

The ViewModel doesn't need to know about navigation, but it knows about events and state.
The communication should be more like:
NavHostActivity -> Fragment -> ViewModel
Your Fragment has Views, and click listeners, and state. The user types a user/password and presses a button. This onClick listener will tell the view model -> (pseudo-code) onUserPressedTheLoginButtonWith(username, password)
The ViewModel in turn will receive this, do what it needs (like check if you're already logged or whatever, perhaps the final decision is to navigate to another fragment).
What the ViewModel will do is expose a LiveData like
val navigationEvent = LiveData<...>
So the viewModel will navigationEvent.postValue(...)
The Fragment should observe this viewModel.navigationEvent.observe(...) { }
And in THERE in the fragment it can either navigate directly or -if you have an Interface- use it like:
yourNavigator.navigateTo(...) //either your VM knows the destination or the yourNavitagor has a navigateToLogin() concrete method, this is all "it depends what you like/prefer/etc.".
In summary
Activity Host contains Nav code, irrelevant.
Fragment(s) can communicate to a NavDelegate created by you (and likely injected) or Fragments simply know the details and do it by themselves.
Fragment(s) observe the navigation state/event from the viewModel.
Fragment(s) push events from the UI (clicks, actions, etc.) to this viewModel
The ViewModel decides what to do and updates the "liveData"(s) (there can be more than one type of thing you want to observe, not only navigation).
The Fragment(s) react to this observation and act accordingly, either doing it themselves or delegating (step 2 ^).
That's how I'd do it.

How to have separate instance of ViewModel in each Fragment and have shared data as well between Viewmodels

I am working on Android TV app
And I have a Fragment(main Fragment) and inside fragment have side menu, each menu Item creates new fragment(menu Fragment).
I have Viewmodel and in ViewModel I have config livedata which I am loading when I main Fragment is created.
And Menu Fragment's data is based on data I am getting from API calls and from config data
I have created single instance of viewmodel with the activity lifecycle.
But the problem is when I am navigating from one fragment to another for example from 1-2 fragment and as 1 fragment has already loaded data the livedata is not empty and navigating to 2nd fragment before fetching the second fragment data it observes/displays the livedata from first fragment and then it's own after it fetches it's data
I think each fragment should have it's own instance ,but I also need data which should be shared (the config) between the each instance of viewmodel ?
How can I make this?
private val viewModel: HomeViewModel by lazyViewModelActivityScope()
viewModel.fetch()
viewModel.configData.observe(viewLifecycleOwner, Observer { it ->
loadData(it)
})
it is inside MenuFragment
private val viewModel: HomeViewModel by lazyViewModelActivityScope()
viewModel.fetchMenuPage(menuItem)
viewModel.carouselsWithAssetsData.observe(viewLifecycleOwner, Observer { carouselWithAssets ->
carouselWithAssets.forEach { carouselWithAsset ->
mRowsAdapter.add(createCardRow(carouselWithAsset))
}
})

I got the answer of my question and I want to share it with others
I think generally this is something you'd manage with DI (injecting the same config into both ViewModels)
Or each Fragment would need to pass the activity ViewModel's data to the Fragment's ViewModel. Or you could have a global LiveData that manages itself (loading data in onActive()) and skip the activity ViewModel entirely

how not to destroy fragment with androidX

now ,I try androidX's navigation and bottom-navigationbar,when I use it like below
supportFragmentManager = getSupportFragmentManager();
navHostFragment =(NavHostFragment)supportFragmentManager.findFragmentById(R.id.frag_nav);
navController = navHostFragment.getNavController();
NavigationUI.setupWithNavController(navigation, navController);
I found an issue,everytime switch the bottomNavigationBar,the fragment will be recreate,all network task in target fragment will be redo,how to keep fragment's state when it switch in androidX?

I also had the same issue. I'm using BottomNavigationView with navigation architecture components and every time fragment is recreated. This is intended behaviour as you can see in Google issue tracker (https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/109856764).
So the right way to approach this is to save current view state in ViewModel and observe that state in every newly created fragment. You need to do all your network tasks in ViewModel.
Also take care of the way you fetch ViewModel inside fragment. If you do it like this viewModel = ViewModelProviders.of(this, viewModelFactory).get(MyViewModel::class.java), ViewModel will get fragment scope(it will be destroyed when fragment gets destroyed). You have to get ViewModel with activity scope so it can survive switch between fragments. You can do it like this viewModel = ViewModelProviders.of(activity!!, viewModelFactory).get(MyViewModel::class.java)

Shared ViewModel to help communication between fragments and parent activity

While Navigation component of JetPack looks pretty promising I got to a place where I could not find a way to implement something I wanted.
Let's take a look at a sample app screen:
The app has one main activity, a top toolbar, a bottom toolbar with fab attached.
There are 2 challenges that I am facing and I want to make them the right way.
1. I need to implement fragment transactions in order to allow replacing the fragment on the screen, based on the user interaction.
There are three ways I can think of and have this implemented:
the callbacks way. Having a interface onFragmentAction callback in fragment and have activity implement it. So basically when user presses a button in FragmentA I can call onFragmentAction with params so the activity will trigger and start for example transaction to replace it with FragmentB
implement Navigation component from JetPack. While I've tried it and seems pretty straightforward, I had a problem by not being able to retrieve the current fragment.
Use a shared ViewModel between fragment and activity, update it from the fragment and observe it in the activity. This would be a "replacement" of the callbacks
2. Since the FAB is in the parent activity, when pressed, I need to be able to interact with the current visible fragment and do an action. For instance, add a new item in a recyclerview inside the fragment. So basically a way to communicate between the activity and fragment
There are two ways I can think of how to make this
If not using Navigation then I can use findFragmentById and retrieve the current fragment and run a public method to trigger the action.
Using a shared 'ViewMode' between fragment and activity, update it from activity and observe it in the fragment.
So, as you can see, the recommended way to do navigation would be to use the new 'Navigation' architecture component, however, at the moment it lacks a way to retrieve the current fragment instance so I don't know how to communicate between the activity and fragment.
This could be achieved with shared ViewModel but here I have a missing piece: I understand that fragment to fragment communication can be made with a shared ViewModel. I think that this makes sense when the fragments have something in common for this, like a Master/Detail scenarion and sharing the same viewmodel is very useful.
But, then talking between activity and ALL fragments, how could a shared ViewModel be used? Each fragment needs its own complex ViewModel. Could it be a GeneralViewModel which gets instantiated in the activity and in all fragments, together with the regular fragment viewmodel, so have 2 viewmodels in each fragment.
Being able to talk between fragments and activity with a viewmodel will make the finding of active fragment unneeded as the viewmodel will provide the needed mechanism and also would allow to use Navigation component.
Any information is gladly received.
Later edit. Here is some sample code based on the comment bellow. Is this a solution for my question? Can this handle both changes between fragments and parent activity and it's on the recommended side.
private class GlobalViewModel ():ViewModel(){
var eventFromActivity:MutableLiveData<Event>
var eventFromFragment:MutableLiveData<Event>
fun setEventFromActivity(event:Event){
eventFromActivity.value = event
}
fun setEventFromFragment(event:Event){
eventFromFragment.value = event
}
}
Then in my activity
class HomeActivity: AppCompatActivity(){
onCreate{
viewModel = ViewModelProviders.of(this, factory)
.get(GlobalViewModel::class.java)
viewModel.eventsFromFragment.observe(){
//based on the Event values, could update toolbar title, could start
// new fragment, could show a dialog or snackbar
....
}
//when need to update the fragment do
viewModel.setEventFromActivity(event)
}
}
Then in all fragments have something like this
class FragmentA:Fragment(){
onViewCreated(){
viewModel = ViewModelProviders.of(this, factory)
.get(GlobalViewModel::class.java)
viewModel.eventsFromActivity.observe(){
// based on Event value, trigger a fun from the fragment
....
}
viewModelFragment = ViewModelProviders.of(this, factory)
.get(FragmentAViewModel::class.java)
viewModelFragment.some.observe(){
....
}
//when need to update the activity do
viewModel.setEventFromFragment(event)
}
}

Fragment lifecycle overlap on navigate

I have a single Activity application with multiple Fragments that are being switched by using Navigation components. When I switch between two fragments their onCreate() and onDestroy() methods seem to overlap. Thus making it difficult for me to write initialization and clean up code for fragments when they access the same global objects.
Navigating from Framgent_A to Fragment_B has the following order of methods:
Fragment_B.onCreate()
Fragment_A.onDestroy()
In Fragment_A.onDestroy() I reverse the operations I do in Fragment_A.onCreate(). And in Fragment_B I expect things to be in a neutral state when onCreate() is called. However that is not the case since Fragment_A.onDestroy() has not yet been called.
Is the overlap normal on Android or did I configure something wrong in my Navigation components? Is there another way I could achieve what I am trying to do? I know I could couple both Fragments and make it work, but I don't want either Fragment to know about each other. To me it seems weird that Framgnet_A is still alive when Fragment_B is created, when Fragment_B is supposed to replace Fragment_A.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Edit:
After groing through the source code while debugging I have found out that in FragmentNavigator.navigate() FragmentTransaction.setReorderingAllowed() is called, which allows reordering of operations, even allowing onCreate() of a new fragment to be called before onDestroy() of the previous. The question still remains, how can I solve my problem of correctly cleaning up global state in one Fragment before initializing the same global state in the next Fragment.

The Android Fragment life-cycle is not really an appropriate callback host for your needs. The navigation controller will replace the two fragments with animation, so both are somehow visible the same time and eventually even onPause() of the exiting fragment is called after onResume() of the entering one.
Solution 1: Use OnDestinationChangedListener
The onDestinationChanged() callback is called before any of the life-cycle events. As a very simplified approach (look out for leaks) you could do the following:
findNavController().addOnDestinationChangedListener { _, destination, _ ->
if(shouldCleanupFor(destination)) cleanup()
}
Solution 2: Abstract the global changes away
Instead of having single navigation points change the global state, have a single point of truth for it. This could be another fragment independent of the navigation hierarchy. This then observes the navigation as before:
findNavController(R.id.nav_graph).addOnDestinationChangedListener { _, destination, _ ->
resetAll()
when(distination.id) {
R.id.fragment_a -> prepareForA()
R.id.fragment_b -> prepareForB()
else -> prepareDefault()
}
}
As an additional advantage you could implement the state changes idempotently as well.

Since you have an activity that controls the inflation of your Fragments you can manually control the lifecycles of the fragment that are being inflated. By calling into below methods you can control which fragment is ready to use global data. You will at this point have to, some how pass data back to Mainactivity to establish which fragment is active since your asking about how to inflate 2 fragment simultaneously which will share an object. Better approach would be to have the MainActivity implement FragmentA and FragmentB-detail with specific classes to do Stuff this way you have to treat your app like Tablet and determine 2 pane mode and which point you can use appropriate classes out of those fragments controlled by your Activity. The included link matches what your trying to accomplish
private void addCenterFragments(Fragment fragment) {
try {
removeActiveCenterFragments();
fragmentTransaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
fragmentTransaction.add(R.id.content_fragment, fragment);
fragmentTransaction.setTransition(FragmentTransaction.TRANSIT_FRAGMENT_OPEN);
activeCenterFragments.add(fragment);
fragmentTransaction.commit();
}catch (Exception e){
Crashlytics.logException(e);
}
}
private void removeActiveCenterFragments() {
if (activeCenterFragments.size() > 0) {
fragmentTransaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
for (Fragment activeFragment : activeCenterFragments) {
fragmentTransaction.remove(activeFragment);
}
activeCenterFragments.clear();
fragmentTransaction.commit();
}
}

Perhaps you could move some the code related to initialization where you assume a neutral state to that fragments onStart() or onCreateView() method. According to the developer documentation this is where initialization should take place.
Another option available is using an Observer /Observable pattern, where you could notify your Activity once onDestroy() in Fragment A is completed. The Activity would then notify Fragment B that it is safe to assume a cleaned up state and begin initialization.

My case was a little bit different, and I would like to share it in case anyone faced the same issue.
I wanted to do an action in onPause() of the current fragment, but not execute that code when one navigates from a fragment to another. What I had to do was to call isRemoving() method to check if the current fragment is being removed or not. It is set to true when NavController.navigate(...) method is called.
override fun onPause() {
super.onPause()
if (!isRemoving()) {
// Write your code here
}
}
Per Google's Fragment.isRemoving() documentation:
Return true if this fragment is currently being removed from its activity. This is not whether its activity is finishing, but rather whether it is in the process of being removed from its activity.