jetc.dev Newsletter Issue #258

Published: 2025-03-25

We got our first 1.8-series beta for Compose Multiplatform, so we peek at it!

In addition, we look at accessibility, hot reload, and BringIntoViewSpec. Plus, we explore a blurhash implementation and hierarchical animations.

Ooooo… What Did We Get?

Reviewing the release notes for the latest Jetpack Compose update!

JetBrains has released Compose Multiplatform 1.8.0-beta01! Mostly, this contains bug fixes, but it also supports iOS trackpad input, improves iOS behavior when the view controller leaves the hierarchy, and adds @Composable to the actual implementation of WindowInsets.Companion functions.

Also, androidx.media3:media3-ui-compose is up to 1.6.0-rc02.

One Off the Stack, One Off the Slack

You’ve got questions. That’s understandable!

How Can I Pop Up an Instructions Box?

You may have encounter a UI pattern for fields for creating passwords, where a box of rules for valid passwords pops up once the field gains the focus. The best solution is to get rid of the rules, as most password-validity rules (other than minimum length) are no longer recommended. But, if you need to display something like this, a properly-positioned Popup() can work, as we see in this week’s highlighted Stack Overflow question.

How Can I Access Screen Density in a ViewModel?

The answer is “please don’t”. When multiple Compose experts steer you away from an approach, this should be a clue that what you are doing is inadvisable. Learn more in this week’s highlighted Kotlinlang #compose Slack thread.

Composable Commentary

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

Medium: Composing with Accessibility in Mind: Because Every User Matters! — Part 2

Bhoomi Vaghasiya Gadhiya continues a series of posts on accessibility in Compose UI. This time, Bhoomi explores mergeDescendants (consolidating semantic guidance for related composables), custom actions (to eliminate redundancy), stateDescription, and more!

Medium: Compose Hot Reload is Now Available

Suhyeon Kim walks us through the work-in-progress implementation of “hot reload” for Compose for Desktop, to speed up UI previews.

Medium: BringIntoViewSpec — introduction

Karol Ksionek points out the loss of TvLazyColumn() and TvLazyRow() from TV Compose and explains their role in a non-touchscreen environment like a TV. Karol then explains how BringIntoViewSpec and LocalBringIntoViewSpec can give us similar functionality using a regular LazyColumn() or LazyRow().

Exploring Jetpack Compose: SearchBar

Joe Birch (Mastodon) takes a look at Compose Material3’s SearchBar() and its feature set, including presenting suggestions, single-click clearing of the current search text, and more.

Resource Roundup

100% pure code!

GitHub: ngallazzi / KMP-Places-Autocomplete

Nicola Gallazzi built a series of auto-complete composables for collecting addresses, cities, and countries, using Google Places as the data source. This is built on Compose Multiplatform, supporting Android and iOS at present.

GitHub: brys0 / compose-blurhash

Blurhash is a way to create short strings that can be decoded into a custom image placeholder. GitHub user brys0 is working on a Compose Multiplatform renderer for such hashes, presently supporting desktop, iOS, and Web/Wasm platforms.

GitHub: pauloaapereira / AnimatedSequence

Paulo Pereira created a framework for implementing chained or hierarchical sequences of animated effects.

GitHub: zt64 / compose-pipette

GitHub user zt64 brings us a trio of Compose Multiplatform color picker widgets, in circle, square, and ring configurations.

Notable Releases

Horologist came out with 0.7.11-alpha and 0.7.12-alpha releases in rapid succession, updating dependencies and fixing some bugs.

Similarly, Maps for Compose shipped 6.5.1 and 6.5.2 back to back, both seemingly reverting code from 6.5.0.

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