jetc.dev Newsletter Issue #196

Published: 2024-01-02

Welcome to 2024!

It was a quiet week in the Compose world, but we still learn a bit about rememberUpdatedState() and semantics(), explore immutability and infinity, and peek at libraries for atomic design and cross-platform drag-and-drop.

One Off the Stack, One Off the Slack

You’ve got questions. That’s understandable!

Why Does My `onTap` Lambda Not See Updated State?

If you have a lambda expression that lives for an extended period, such as onTap for detectTapGestures(), consider using rememberUpdatedState() for tracking state referenced inside that lambda, instead of assuming that referenced values will change on recomposition. See an example of the problem and the solution in this week’s highlighted Stack Overflow question.

How Can We Use Platform-Specific State with Non-Compose State Holders?

Not all Kotlin Multiplatform projects use Compose Multiplatform. Such projects aim to avoid platform-specific constructs in their state holders, such as the TextFieldState for what is now known as BasicTextField2(). Yet, sometimes those constructs are necessary, such as for proper cursor management in BasicTextField2(). Walk through the problem and see some approaches, such as expect/actual, in this week’s highlighted Kotlinlang #compose Slack thread.

Composable Commentary

Posts, videos, and other new information related to Jetpack Compose!

Medium: Stable and Immutable in Jetpack Compose

Kaushal Vasava walks us through the impacts of mutable data on recompositions, the definitions and impacts of “skippable” and “restartable” composables, and the use of @Immutable and @Stable annotations.

Medium: Pragmatic UI testing in Jetpack Compose

Nicola Gallazzi explains how to use the semantics() modifier both for accessibility and for helping to identify composables for automated UI tests.

The State of Compose 2023

Alex Styl is running a survey “to get a better understanding of the Compose ecosystem and raise awareness of the different APIs available to developers, along with the community resources that people use”. The survey is open through the end of January, with the results slated to be published in February.

Medium: Creating an Animated Infinity Loader with Jetpack Compose: Exploring Path Animation

Medium user Kappdev wanted a loading indicator in the shape of the infinity symbol (∞), with the shape being traced and un-traced by a glow highlight. The resulting InfinityLoader() composable uses an infinite transition to determine what part of the symbol’s path should be highlighted, with that path being drawn to a Canvas.

Resource Roundup

100% pure code!

GitHub: mrmans0n / compose-rules

Twitter had published a library of ktlint/Detekt static checks for Compose code. However, none of the maintainers remain at that firm, so Nacho Lopez (one of the original maintainers) forked it and has published it under new Maven coordinates.

GitHub: Tweener / c-zan

Vivien Mahé published a wrapper around the Material3 theme for Compose that follows the Atomic Design system.

GitHub: MohamedRejeb / compose-dnd

Mohamed Rejeb released a library with a Compose Multiplatform implementation of drag-and-drop support, along with dedicated support for reorderable lists.

GitHub: furkanayaz / Slippy-Bottom-Bar

GitHub user furkanayaz created a bottom nav bar implementation, with animated effects as the user selects different bottom nav items.

Notable Releases

Coil, as of its 3.0.0-alpha01 release now supports Compose Multiplatform. There are new Maven coordinates and artifact names to allow Coil 3 to work alongside Coil 2 without conflicts. This upgrade guide provides additional details.

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