Integration for molecule along with Android Architecure Components ViewModel

This is a library that was inspired from this discussion in the molecule repo about how to properly use molecule with Android's ViewModel. The code was something we have been using over at the Hedvig App for quite some time which has worked well for us

The core concept is that you use Molecule for your presenter, with one extra step, a lastState parameter coming in to your presenter's present function.

That lastState will initially be the initialState that was passed to the MoleculeViewModel. But importantly, if the a ViewModel which is still alive in-memory (for example was an entry in the backstack that you've come back to) starts having a new consumer again, since SharingStarted.WhileSubscribed(5.seconds) is used by default, the moleculeFlow will start emitting new values again, but this time the lastState will be exactly what the last emission was. This helps with scenarios where you come back into a view which was on the backstack, to immediatelly have the last state available to you, as opposed to starting from a Loading state and having to fetch everything from scratch, which often results in a more poor user experience.

Sample usage for a feature named "Dogs":

State, Event and Data

sealed interface DogsEvent {
  data object ReloadData : DogsEvent
}

sealed interface DogsUiState {
  data object Loading : DogsUiState
  data object Error : DogsUiState
  data class Success(
    val dogs: List<Dog>,
    val isRefreshing: Boolean,
  ) : DogsUiState
}

interface DogsRepository {
  suspend fun getDogs(): Either<SomeError, List<Dog>>
}

data class Dog(
  val name: String,
  val age: Int,
)

ViewModel

// ViewModel completely delegates to the MoleculePresenter, but we do need to pass in an initial state which shows when the ViewModel first is constructed
internal class DogsViewModel(
  dogsRepository: DogsRepository,
) : MoleculeViewModel<DogsEvent, DogsUiState>(
    initialState = DogsUiState.Loading,
    presenter = DogsPresenter(dogsRepository),
  )

Presenter

internal class DogsPresenter(
  private val dogsRepository: DogsRepository,
) : MoleculePresenter<DogsEvent, DogsUiState> {
  @Composable
  override fun MoleculePresenterScope<DogsEvent>.present(lastState: DogsUiState): DogsUiState {
    var loadIteration by remember { mutableIntStateOf(0) }
    // We need to make sure that we use our `lastState` object in our presenter in order to have the last known state immediatelly available to the user
    var currentState by remember { mutableStateOf(lastState) }

    // We get a convenience `CollectEvents` function where the lambda has the signature of `block: CoroutineScope.(Event) -> Unit`.
    // This allows us to react to the events in a non-blocking way, to not clog the event stream.
    // If we need to do some async action we can either asign the right parameters and use normal compose side effect APIs to handle our work, or use `launch {}` and do something else instead.
    CollectEvents { event: DogsEvent ->
      when (event) {
        DogsEvent.ReloadData -> loadIteration++
      }
    }

    LaunchedEffect(loadIteration) {
      // In the scenario where we come back to this screen and we have had a successful list from `lastState`, we can
      //  simply notify the UI that we are still refreshing the data, but we still keep the last known state available
      //  to the user.
      if (currentState is DogsUiState.Error) {
        currentState = DogsUiState.Loading
      } else if (currentState is DogsUiState.Success) {
        currentState = (currentState as DogsUiState.Success).copy(isRefreshing = true)
      }
      // If we do not need to refresh the data at all if we already had a Success state before, we could instead write:
      //  ```
      //  if (currentState is DogsUiState.Error) {
      //    currentState = DogsUiState.Loading
      //  } else if (currentState is DogsUiState.Success) {
      //    return@LaunchedEffect
      //  }
      //  ```

      // Or if we still want to be able to refresh the data even if we had a success state before, but we only do not
      //  want to automatically fetch again as soon as the presenter has come back online from being in the backstack
      //  we could write something like this:
      //  ```
      //  if (currentState is DogsUiState.Error) {
      //    currentState = DogsUiState.Loading
      //  } else if (currentState is DogsUiState.Success && loadIteration == 0) {
      //    return@LaunchedEffect
      //  }
      //  ```

      dogsRepository.getDogs().fold(
        ifLeft = { currentState = DogsUiState.Error },
        ifRight = { dogList -> currentState = DogsUiState.Success(dogs = dogList, isRefreshing = false) },
      )
    }
    return currentState
  }
}

More real life usages can be found here

StylianosGakis/molecule-aacvm

Integration for molecule along with Android Architecure Components ViewModel

Sample usage for a feature named "Dogs":