Using "ViewState" in RxSwift/MVVM - swift

This question is very broad but I'm not sure which aspect of it I should focus on. I have a goal to abstract away the recurring patterns of my screens such as errors, loading, empty data. The views that represent these states will not change much between the many screens I have. Perhaps they could be parameterized to allow that flexibility (e.g. showError(message: "404")).
I liked this article as a method of encapsulating the reusable UI aspects of this.
But it appears to work in an imperative context. So I have an API call and I can showError and in the response I can hideError. Thats all fine.
Now I use an RxSwift/MVVM approach where each screen binds to inputs and outputs. And I like to simplify the state my screen knows about by using a "View State" concept.
As you can see in this snippet, I can reduce a lot of logic a single Observable that the view renders.
let getFoos: (String) -> Observable<FooViewStateState> = { query in
fooService.perform(query)
.map { results in
if results.isEmpty {
return ViewState.noResults(query: query)
} else {
return ViewState.matches(query: query, results: results.map { $0.name })
}
}
.startWith(ViewState.searching(query))
}
The problem is that by using an enum ViewState its now unclear to me how to use the imperative API from before "showLoading / hideLoading ... showError / hideError, etc..." when I'm switching on the cases of this enum. If the ViewState Observable emits .loading I'd have to hide the error screen, hide the empty screen, etc..

Related

How to get data from an API only once (on app creation, outside component or view) in Vue3 SPA, with Pinia store

Is it possible and is it a good practice to avoid fetching data from an API every time the router view is loaded or the component is Mounted?
The thing is that some data rarely changes (like a dropdown options list, imagine allowed animal picks for my app) and it's logical not to send a request every time to a server, instead on app creation would be sufficient.
Tried in App.vue, is that a common thing?
IN APP.vue
import { computed, onMounted, onUpdated, ref } from 'vue';
onMounted(()=>{
axios.get('/data')....
.then((res)=>{
store.property = res.data
...
})
})
I think having it on mount in the App.vue component is acceptable since the App component would not be remounted.
The ideal setup, however, depends on some other parameters like size of application and size of team that's maintaining it. In a large applications you might want to organize things in amore structured and consistent way so you and other folks working on the code know where to find things.
You could consider moving the API call into the pinia action.
store.loadMyData()
// instead of
axios.get('/data')
.then((res)=>{
store.property = res.data;
})
That way you have fewer lines of code in the component. Having "lean" components and moving "business logic" out of components usually makes for better organization which makes it easier to maintain.
Within the action, you can track the state of the API
const STATES = {
INIT: 0,
DONE: 1,
WIP: 2,
ERROR: 3
}
export const useMyApiStore = defineStore('myapi', {
state: () => ({
faves: [],
favesState: STATES.INIT
}),
actions: {
loadMyData() {
this.store.favesState = STATES.WIP;
axios.get('/data')
.then((res) => {
this.store.property = res.data;
this.store.favesState = STATES.DONE;
})
.catch((e) => {
this.store.favesState = STATES.ERROR;
})
},
},
getters: {
isLoaded(){
return this.store.favesState === STATES.DONE;
}
isLoading(){
return this.store.favesState === STATES.WIP;
}
}
})
This is, obviously, more verbose, but allows for the components to be smaller and contain less logic. Then, for example, in your component you can use the getter isLoading to display a loading indicator, or use isLoaded inside another component to determine whether to show it.
Yes, this is a oft used way to load some data into the Vue App.
You could also load data before the Mounting in beforeMount() or created() Lifecycle Hooks (see Vue Lifecycle Diagram) to prevent unnecessary HTML updates.

Redux conform Bindable for SwiftUI 2.0

I've been implementing Redux in my SwiftUI Project successfully but struggle when it comes to handling bindings properly. I want to use the binding functionality of SwiftUI while also storing the information in the Redux State.
As you see this kind of contradicts itself since the state can't be bound two-way.
This is my current code
#State var tab: Tab = .tab1
TabView(selection: $tab) { ... }
Ideally it should be comfortably usable like this if it's possible. I am also open to other ideas, that's just what i initially came up with - it's far from perfect.
#State var store = ReduxStore(...)
TabView(selection: $store.state.tab) { ... }
I figured out how to handle such cases. The solution for me is a Binding like:
let tabBinding = Binding<Tab> (
get: { self.store.state.currentTab }, // return the value from the state
set: { self.store.dispatch(action: NavigationAction.updateTab(tab: $0)) } // send the action here
)
Although this probably could be beautified it works, is pretty straight forward and solves the problem of working with Bindings in Redux.

Custom "list" view

In SwiftUI, a List will automatically format the sub views you pass it, so something like this:
List {
Text("A")
Text("B")
}
Will result in both text views being correctly placed, with separators between them etc...
Additionally, it is also possible to mix static and dynamically generated data, like this:
List {
Text("A")
ForEach(foo) { fooElement in CustomView(fooElement) }
Text("B")
ForEach(bar) { barElement in CustomView(barElement) }
}
My goal is to write my own custom type that would allow this kind of use by its users (ie: a view that lets the users provide views using the new function builder DSL, without requiring them to write their own modifiers to place them on the screen), but I don't know at all what to put in the initialiser of my custom view.
The native SwiftUI views are making use of #ViewBuilder and receive a generic type conforming to View, but the way they are able to extract elements (from, say, a ForEach view) is mysterious and I'm pretty sure it's not even possible.
Maybe I missed something, so I'm curious to know your opinion about this?
EDIT:
An example might be clearer. Many of you must have seen the nice examples online with cards arranged on top of each other using a ZSack, so what if I want to create a CardStack type that would allow my users to write code like this?
CardStack {
SomeView()
AnotherView()
ForEach(1...10) { i in
NumberView(i)
}
}
This would result in 12 cards stacked on top of each other, note that the types are not homogenous and that we used ForEach.
The first part of your challenge is figuring out ViewBuilder. As for the flow of data from children to ancestors, please read on:
By using preferences (check my article https://swiftui-lab.com/communicating-with-the-view-tree-part-1/), you can make information flow from children to ancestors.
Once you fully understand preferences and get them to work, you can try making the implementation more clean and transparent, so that the end user of your Stack doesn't even realize he is using preferences. To do so, you could use some View extensions. The final code could look something like this:
CardStack {
SomeView().card(title: "", border: .red)
AnotherView().card(title: "", border: .green)
ForEach(items) { item in
NumberView(item).card(item.name, border: .blue)
}
}
And your .card() implementation may be something like this:
extension View {
func card(title: String, border: Color) -> CardCustomizer<Self> {
return CardCustomizer(viewContent: self, title: title, border: border)
}
}
struct CardCustomizer<Content: View>: View {
public let viewContent: Content
public let title: String
public let border: Color
var body: some View {
viewContent.preference(MyCardPref.self, value: ...)
}
}
I think it is best if you try first to make it work without the View extensions, so you get one thing right. Then proceed to encapsulate the preference logic with extensions. Otherwise there are too many new things to deal with.

How do I render different shapes on each row of a SAPUI5 Gantt chart?

In my application, I have to render Projects, Tasks and Milestones. Projects and Tasks are differently coloured bars, and the Milestone is a Diamond (I'm using BaseRectangle and BaseDiamond respectively).
Since some items in my hierarchy are Projects, Some Tasks and Some Milestones, how can I render differing shapes on each row?
My first thought was to use the common "visible" property, but shapes don't have that, conversely "opacity" makes things invisible, but they still respond to mouse position.
I then tried using an Aggregation factory function, but although my chart renders correctly on first display, it doesn't recalculate the shapes on expanding or collapsing branches.
It seems to me that the factory function should work, but something is breaking in the chart that doesn't throw errors to console.
At the moment in my XML template, I have the following:
rowSettingTemplate has shapes1={path: factory:} and no shapes1 element.
Each of my BaseShapes is in a different fragment which are attached to my TreeTable as dependents.
Example Shape Fragment - Project.fragment.xml
<core:FragmentDefinition xmlns:core="sap.ui.core" xmlns="sap.m" xmlns:gnt2="sap.gantt.simple">
<gnt2:BaseRectangle id="shapeProject"
shapeId="{plandata>id}" countInBirdEye="true"
time="{plandata>start_date}" endTime="{plandata>end_date}"
resizable="true" selectable="true" draggable= "true" connectable="true"
title="{plandata>text}" showTitle="true"
tooltip=""
fill="#0c1" />
</core:FragmentDefinition>
Factory function:
shapeFactory: function(sId, oContext) {
var parentId = (/(.*)-\d+$/.exec(sId))[1];
var rowSettings = sap.ui.getCore().byId(parentId);
var node: Project.Node = oContext.getProperty();
if (String(node.id) == rowSettings.getProperty("rowId")) {
switch (node.type) {
case "project":
return this.byId('shapeProject').clone(sId);
case "task":
return this.byId('shapeTask').clone(sId);
case "milestone":
return this.byId('shapeMilestone').clone(sId);
default:
return this.byId('shapeErr').clone(sId);
}
} else {
return this.byId('shapeEmpty').clone(sId);
}
}
My empty shape is a BaseGroup - note that SAPUI5 crashes if I return a null from factory, so something has to be returned when I actually want nothing.
I also tried wrapping all my shapes in BaseGroup so that the chart always sees the same control type, but that doesn't work. Note also that if I return a clone of Empty each time without any special logic, then the chart works correctly.
I'm hoping that this is a settings or something to ensure that the aggregation works properly each time. My SAPUI5 version is 1.61.2 — I'll try 1.63.1 when I get some time, but I think that this issue is fairly deep down.
If anybody has any ideas or sample code, it would be greatly appreciated.
I have come up with a workaround for this, that may save somebody several hours. Basically instead of defining the shapes1 aggregation via a factory function, I have used the <shapes1> tag instead. My Shapes1 tag contains a reference to my own custom shape which derives from BaseRectangle. My custom shape can then render whatever SVG it requires based on the bound object context. Now my tree can expand and collapse whilst rendering whatever shapes are required.
My renderer now looks like this:
CustomChartShape.prototype.renderElementRectangle = BaseRectangle.prototype.renderElement;
CustomChartShape.prototype.renderElementDiamond = BaseDiamond.prototype.renderElement;
CustomChartShape.prototype.renderElement = function(oRm, oElement) {
// There is possibilities that x is invalid number.
// for instance wrong timestamp binded to time property
if (this.bHasInvalidPropValue) { return; }
var Node = this.getBindingInfo('endTime').binding.getContext().getProperty();
if (Node.type == "milestone") {
this.renderElementDiamond(oRm, oElement);
} else {
this.renderElementRectangle(oRm, oElement);
}
}
I had to provide a 'getD' function that has a fixed width, and I'll have o go through and rewrite several functions, but I think that this will work for me.

Is it fine to mutate attributes of React-controlled DOM elements directly?

I'd like to use headroom.js with React. Headroom.js docs say:
At it's most basic headroom.js simply adds and removes CSS classes from an element in response to a scroll event.
Would it be fine to use it directly with elements controlled by React? I know that React fails badly when the DOM structure is mutated, but modifying just attributes should be fine. Is this really so? Could you show me some place in official documentation saying that it's recommended or not?
Side note: I know about react-headroom, but I'd like to use the original headroom.js instead.
EDIT: I just tried it, and it seems to work. I still don't know if it will be a good idea on the long run.
If React tries to reconcile any of the attributes you change, things will break. Here's an example:
class Application extends React.Component {
constructor() {
super();
this.state = {
classes: ["blue", "bold"]
}
}
componentDidMount() {
setTimeout(() => {
console.log("modifying state");
this.setState({
classes: this.state.classes.concat(["big"])
});
}, 2000)
}
render() {
return (
<div id="test" className={this.state.classes.join(" ")}>Hello!</div>
)
}
}
ReactDOM.render(<Application />, document.getElementById("app"), () => {
setTimeout(() => {
console.log("Adding a class manually");
const el = document.getElementById("test");
if (el.classList)
el.classList.add("grayBg");
else
el.className += ' grayBg';
}, 1000)
});
And here's the demo: https://jsbin.com/fadubo/edit?js,output
We start off with a component that has the classes blue and bold based on its state. After a second, we add the grayBg class without using React. After another second, the component sets its state so that the component has the classes blue, bold, and big, and the grayBg class is lost.
Since the DOM reconciliation strategy is a black box, it's difficult to say, "Okay, my use case will work as long as React doesn't define any classes." For example, React might decide it's better to use innerHTML to apply a large list of changes rather than setting attributes individually.
In general, if you need to do manual DOM manipulation of a React component, the best strategy is to wrap the manual operation or plugin in its own component that it can 100% control. See this post on Wrapping DOM Libs for one such example.