/picnic-app

Primary LanguageDartGNU Affero General Public License v3.0AGPL-3.0

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Picnic is a open source social media project meant to become the future of online communities.

Setup

  1. Install flutter_gen in your system and run:

    fluttergen -c pubspec.yaml

  2. Ask your leader to give you acccess to config.zip file containing config specific to the app, that cannot be source-controlled. put the config.zip file in the root folder of the project and run:

    make extract_config

  3. Install git hooks (optional)

    ./scripts/install-git-hooks.sh

  4. Run

    make check

This command comes useful when you want to make sure your code is clean and ready to be code-reviewed. it does the following:

  • runs flutter_gen
  • formats your code
  • runs flutter analyze
  • runs unit tests and recreates all golden test screenshot files
  • runs dart_code_metrics checks

Architecture

The app follows clean architecture principles and is divided into 4 modules: modules diagram modules diagram

UI

The UI Module contains Flutter widgets, animations, routes, pages and all the code that is responsible for the appearance of the Picnic app. Furthermore, it is important to note that the module omits logic.

Presentation

Home for Presenter and PresentationModel classes.

Presenters decide WHEN to display things. They trigger business logic from the domain module as well as update the PresentationModel with relevant data, that is then used by the UI.

Moreover, the PresentationModel stores data, and exposes it to the UI through the ViewModel interface. This ensures that the data is accessible to the UI in a read-only manner, and all internals relevant to presentation is not visible.

Domain

UseCase, Repository and Entity classes.

This module contains the business logic of the application. It decides WHAT should be done in the event of user interaction. The logic is encapsulated into the UseCase classes that communicate with the outer world through repositories.

Repository interfaces are specified inside the domain module and are implemented by the data module. All the data that domain operates on is encapsulated into domain entity classes.

Data

The Data module takes care of communicating with the “outer world” and interacts with third party libraries. Here we specify the REST API’s interactions, database access, SharedPrefs or external sensor access. All the data is then translated to domain entities that are agnostic of the libraries and technologies used in order to access them.

Navigation

Navigation within the app uses the concept of mixin Routes and per-page Navigators.

Navigator

Navigator is a class that consist of 0 or more Routes mixins, its only job is to open another page. let's see it on an example:

Assume we have a navigator for the LoginPage called LoginNavigator:

class LoginNavigator with NoRoutes {
  AppInitNavigator(this.appNavigator);

  @override
  final AppNavigator appNavigator;
}

by default, its mixed in with NoRoutes mixin that is a placeholder to be replaced with other routes. This navigator is used by LoginPresenter to open other pages, lets add possibility to Navigate to DashboardPage from within LoginNavigator. We can do it in the following way:

class LoginNavigator with DashboardRoute {
  // ...
}

as you can see, we mixed in the DashboardRoute

Route

Below you can see an implementation of the route

mixin DashboardRoute {
  Future<void> openDashboard(DashboardInitialParams initialParams) async {
    return appNavigator.push(
      OnboardingPageTransition(
        getIt<DashboardPage>(param1: initialParams),
      ),
    );
  }

  AppNavigator get appNavigator;
}

it specifies the the openDashboard method that now can be used on the LoginNavigator in order to open DashboardPage. It uses appNavigator under the hood that is a wrapper around Flutter navigation that streamlines navigation, more on AppNavigator below.

The takeaway from this is that Routes specify how given pages are opened, while Navigators gather those routes together and expose them to the caller by mixing them in.

AppNavigator class

AppNavigator is a wrapper around Flutter navigation that allows us to perform navigation without the need of providing BuildContext by default, it will use MaterialApp's root navigator unless you provide BuildContext explicitly in order to use nested navigation through an embeded Navigator widget from the flutter's SDK.

Example

Below you can find a diagram showing the flow of control for a basic scenario of a login page:

example diagram

Tools

Here is a list of different tools we use in the project that augment and help with our day-to-day jobs

FVM

In order to keep consistent version of flutter and dart for all developers in the team, we use fvm which is flutter version manager. we have a config commited to this repository under the .fvm/fvm_config.json file specifying exact version of flutter to use. After you install fvm on your machine, you can issue this command in the root directory to install proper flutter version:

fvm install

Code templates

This repository host few useful file templates created with Mason. You can find them in the tools/templates subdirectory. In order to use those, install Mason (INSTRUCTIONS HERE)

Make commands

We have introduced helpful make commands to run the templates, see the list below:

make new_page #creates new page, presenter and presentation model and adds all boilerplate
make new_repository # creates new repository interface, implementation and all the boilerplate 
make new_use_case # creates new use case, failure class and all boilerplate
make move_page # moves and/or renames the page file with all auxiliary files (presenter, presentation model etc.)
make move_repository # moves and/or renames repository files

if you want to dig into more detail or use mason templates directly, have a look into Makefile to see how the commands are called there or simply see below

Mason commands

🔴NOTE🔴
You have to run following commands from the tools/templates subdirectory!

First, run mason get to install all the templates locally!

command description
mason get installs all templates on your local machine
mason list shows the list of available templates
mason make page executes the page template

Custom lints

We host a set of our own custom lints inside the tools/custom_lints/ folder. those are written using the custom_lint package. to run the lints, you have to run the following command:

 fvm flutter pub run custom_lint

you can find the list of all the lints inside the custom_lint.dart

Fluttergen

We use Fluttergen to properly generate index files for our assets, this way all the paths are saved into constants and you don't have to remembember about updating them or type them in manually whenever you need to use an asset.

after you install it in your system, you can run the following command:

fluttergen -c pubspec.yaml

in the root of project to generate Assets.gen.dart files and others.

Dart code metrics

dart code metrics Docs

Dart_code_metrics is a library hosting bunch of additional custom lints.

We use the following commands to run it, (but please refer to Makefile for up-to-date list of commands)

fvm flutter pub run dart_code_metrics:metrics analyze lib --set-exit-on-violation-level=warning --fatal-style --fatal-performance --fatal-warnings
fvm flutter pub run dart_code_metrics:metrics check-unused-code . --fatal-unused
fvm flutter pub run dart_code_metrics:metrics check-unused-files . --fatal-unused --exclude="{templates/**,.dart_tool/**,lib/generated/**}"

Fastlane

Fastlane Docs

we use fastlane for various tasks inside ios and android subfolders. Both platforms reuse a lot of code by referencing the scripts inside tools/fastlane folder. To understand more about what can be done with Fastlane, have a look at their respective READMEs:

Flutter Launcher Icons

Flutter Launcher Icons Docs

A command-line tool which simplifies the task of updating Flutter app's launcher icon. Fully flexible, allowing us to choose which platform to update the launch icon for, the option to keep our old launcher icon in case we want to revert back sometime in the future.

Update launcher icon

  1. Replace the old icons located in assets/icon/ folder with the new ones
  2. Run the following commands:
flutter pub get
flutter pub run flutter_launcher_icons:main

Attributes

see the original doc here

Widgetbook

Picnic Widgetbook

About

Widgetbook 📚 is a Flutter package that provides us developers a way to keep an overview of all the Flutter widgets in the Picnic project. Widgets can be tested easily on different mobile devices, and themes. Moreover, Widgetbook allows us to create use cases (stories) per widget. In practice , this means we can toggle between the different parameters of a widget. Such as color, size, label and so on.

Furthermore, one can develop widgets in isolation, without the distraction of other widgets that make up a the UI of a Flutter page. All this makes it easier to spot UI flaws in our Picnic app 🍉 and design the best looking UI with ease.

The widgetbook is automatically deployed on Netlify on every push to the master branch. Here the public link to the Picnic Widgetbook

Setup

The widgetbook package provides a Flutter widget called Widgetbook where we inject our custom Flutter widgets. The widgetbook package is added as a dev dependency to the pubspec.yaml file of the Picnic project.

Widgetbook app structure

A second main method has been created in this project as Widgetbook is launched as a separate app. This is advantageous as you can switch between the Picnic app 🍉 and Widgetbook at any time. Additionally, it keeps our production code independent of Widgetbook. The widgetbook/widgetbook_picnic_app.dart file contains the Widgetbook Flutter widget wrapped within a stateless widget. In the widgetbook/main.dart file the stateless widget is run using the aforementioned second main method.

Properties

Widgetbook defines various properties to customise how the Widgetbook app and its Flutter widgets will be rendered. Properties such as mobile device type, theming among others.

One such property, categories is where we create a WidgetbookCategory to specify the widgets of the project and their use cases. This can be seen in the widgetbook/widgetbook_picnic_app.dart file. We have decided to create a * category* called "Components" to store our widget use cases.

Knobs

Knobs are what allow us to dynamically change what is passed to the parameters of a widget. Commonly we make use of ** text** and option knobs. Others can be seen here.

New use case

  1. First create a new dart file in the widgetbook/components folder

  2. Thereafter, within the file, create a new class that extends WidgetbookComponent

  3. Configure a use case by specifying a use case name. Next, return the desired widget in the WidgetbookUseCase builder

  4. Populate the parameters with your chosen knobs. See the below example as a guide:

    class PicnicUserExampleUseCase extends WidgetbookComponent {  
  PicnicUserExampleUseCase()  
      : super(  
          name: "$PicnicExample",  
          useCases: [  
            WidgetbookUseCase(  
              name: "Picnic Example Use Cases",  
              builder: (context) => const PicnicExample(  
                title: context.knobs.text(  
                  label: 'Label',
                  initialValue: 'Hello World',
                 ),  
                colors:context.knobs.options(  
                  label: 'Color',
                  options: [  
                    const Option(  
                      label: "Red",  
                      value: Colors.red,
                      ),  
                    const Option(  
                      label: "Blue",  
                      value: Colors.blue,
                      ),
                    ], 
                    )),
               ), 
           ],  
          );  
}

  5. Add the class created in (2) to the Components category property in widgetbook/widgetbook_picnic_app.dart

  6. Run

Run

Run the main method by executing flutter run -t widgetbook/main.dart -d [environment]. With environment being either chrome or macos.

Localization

We are using Localizely to automate localization of the app. You just need to add new strings to app_en.arb and once the changes will be merged to develop branch, the process of localization will be started and after a while all translations will be added to repository automaticaly.

Code best practices & guidelines

Pull Requests checklist

Rule Explanation
Review your own PR first Reading trough your own pr helps spot obvious errors and it saves time for the reviewer
Make sure all CI checks pass CI is meant to catch formatting and lint errors, make use of that and don't force others to do the machine's job :)
Run the app and test it yourself Before reviewing a PR or when issuing your own code, make sure to run the app and test it making sure the code doesn't break anything and works correctly
Don't be afraid to ask questions Code review is meant not only to find errors in someone's code, but it's also about making sure you understand the code and know what is going on. Don't be afraid to ask questions, if anything looks unclear to you, don't assume that it's your fault, ask a question! :)

General

Rule Explanation
Use trailing commas for method/constructor parameters and definitions This way each param is in a separate line and adding new params is much easier to read in PRs
Prefer named parameters Whenever using more than one param, consider using named parameters, i.e: Bad:getBalances(true,"1283184"), Bad:getBalances(id: "1283184", refresh: true)

UseCase

  • performs business logic, communicates with outer world through repositories
  • should contain single public execute() method optionally with runtime arguments that performs business logic
  • all compile-time dependencies should be injected trough constructor
  • never use json classes in usecases, always relay communication with APIs trough repositories

Repository

  • should be specified as an interface in the domain/repositories package, i.e: UserRepository
  • implementation should be placed in the data/{tech} package, i.e: RestApiUserRepository in the data/rest/ package
  • its job is abstract the communication with outer world (APIs, Blockchains, databases, shared prefs).
  • translates the domain models into data models and vice versa. so that use cases can depend solely on the domain entities
  • repository methods should always return the response in the form of Future<Either<Failure,Result>> type
  • the Result part needs to be a domain entity or a primitive type, never a json or library-specific class!
    • Good: String, User, int
    • Bad: UserJson, FirebaseUser, FirebaseAuthResponse
  • the Failure should be a class specified in domain entities subfolder (see Failures)

Failures

  • should be stored in domain/model/failures
  • a specific domain entity that denotes a failure of certain action. Failure should contain a:
    • type
    • cause
    • String toString() method
    • DisplayableFailure displayableFailure() method (useful to be able to display a error dialog stating the cause of a failure)

Example

enum VerifyPasscodeFailureType {
  Unknown,
  ValidationError,
}

class SomeFailure {
  // ignore: avoid_field_initializers_in_const_classes
  const SomeFailure.unknown([this.cause]) : type = SomeFailureType.Unknown;

  const SomeFailure.validationError(PasscodeValidationFailure fail)
      : cause = fail,
        type = SomeFailureType.ValidationError;

  final SomeFailureType type;
  final dynamic cause;

  DisplayableFailure displayableFailure() {
    switch (type) {
      case SomeFailureType.Unknown:
        return DisplayableFailure(
          title: strings.failureTitle,
          message: strings.failureMessage,
        );
    }
  }

  @override
  String toString() {
    return 'SomeFailure{type: $type, cause: $cause}';
  }
}

Domain entity

  • should be stored in domain/model
  • domain entities should extend from Equatable
  • all fields should be final (so that we encourage immutability)
  • all fields should be non-nullable unless the null value makes sense in the given context

Example

class User extends Equatable {
  final String username;


  const User({
    required this.username,
    required this.firstName,
    required this.lastName,
  });

  @override
  List<Object> get props =>
      [
        username,
        firstName,
        lastName,
      ];
}

Presenter

  • reacts to user interaction, (i.e: all onTap methods are being forwarded to presenter)
  • calls use cases
  • updates presentation model with new data
  • uses cubit to emit state (presentationModel)
  • never accesses initialParams from PresentationModel directly, but through the getters in presentationModel
  • does not store any data, all the data that it requires is being held inside the presentationModel
  • presenter never needs a BuildContext, it's always agnostic of the fact it's used in flutter thus should never rely on flutter classes

ViewModel

  • interface that exposes data from presentation model to pages
  • contains only getters, views are not supposed to mutate any state directly
  • should not expose data that is internal for presenters and should not be used by pages directly

PresentationModel

  • stores data used by presenter and pages
  • accepts InitialParams as constructor param

Page

  • never accesses initialParams directly
  • routes all the user interaction to presenter, i.e: InkWell(onTap: () => presenter.onTapLogin()
  • uses BlocBuilder widget to listen to changes in ViewModel
  • accesses data to display from ViewModel only
  • divides the UI into smaller widgets, extracted to separate files

Json classes

  • all fields in *Json classes should be nullable
  • all fields should be final
  • should contain toDomain() method that translates the json to domain entity

Example

class UserJson {
  UserJson({
    required this.username,
    required this.firstName,
    required this.lastName,
  });

  factory UserJson.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) =>
      UserJson(
        username: json['username'] as String? ?? '',
        firstName: json['first_name'] as String? ?? '',
        lastName: json['last_name'] as String? ?? '',
      );

  final String? username;
  final String? firstName;
  final String? lastName;

  Balance toBalanceDomain() =>
      Balance(
        username: username ?? "",
        firstName: firstName ?? "",
        lastName: lastName ?? "",
      );
}

Contributors ✨

Thanks go to these wonderful people:

Collaborating guidelines

Here are few rules/thoughts to remember when working on this project

Pull requests

  1. Make sure your pull request is as small as possible! It's extremely hard to review code that is over 1000 lines of code changed
  2. always include JIRA ticket id (i.e: PG-1012) in the PR's title
  3. make sure your pull requests fixes just single JIRA issue and not multiple

New libraries

Before adding new libraries to the project, please consult it with the team and tech leaders.
It's important to not pollute the code with low-quality libraries as it might impose code vulnerabilities
and make the maintenance much harder. If a solution provided by library is trivial, its better to host the code
inside the project rather than relying on third parties

// TODO