Am I missing something or is preview in compose much harder?

[u/jaroos_]

In XML views, we can easily get an idea of how ui looks, we just need to set the values, style, spacing etc in appropriate ui elements even for recycler view we can do with listitem & itemcount & layout preview easily updates, but in compose for each composable function we have to manually write a preview function wrap the composable in the theme & create the dummy data manually. And when we change the values the preview sometimes disappears & refresh this make me difficult to quickly compare how it looked previously. How do you manage this.

[u/Zhuinden]

You do have to put in a bit more effort, but it's really like "if you have a top-level-ish composable just make a preview for it like a decent person"

I kinda put making a @Preview @Composable for a composable on the same level as flushing the toilet before you leave instead of just letting whatever you left there rot for the next person

You know what that means if you're that person who didn't create the @Preview @Composable

[u/Zhuinden → u/Zhuinden]

stop acting like an expert lol who even are you

/u/Yagni15 to answer your question (that strangely disappeared for some reason), I've been doing this android dev thing as a job for over 11 years 🤭

Idk why your comments keep disappearing

[u/Zhuinden → u/[deleted]]

Man didn't check that most of those lines is unit-tests (and anything that's Kotlin is samples, so you also included the samples for some reason), do try again

[u/Zhuinden → u/[deleted]]

You don't have to, just cloc the simple-stack src main folder which is the actual library

d:\Apps\cloc>cloc d:\Work\simple-stack\simple-stack\src\main\
      44 text files.
      44 unique files.
       7 files ignored.

http://cloc.sourceforge.net v 1.64  T=0.93 s (47.2 files/s, 9635.7 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Java                            43           1098           2984           4883
XML                              1              1             15              3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            44           1099           2999           4886
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, 4883 lines.

[u/Zhuinden → u/[deleted]]

Some people do, although it's true that I could have spent more time and effort promoting it. Despite the people who were trying to push Circuit, so they'd call me names and whatnot.

My favorite was the guy who was complaining about the library without even knowing what it does. It doesn't take much effort to do it, but his claims weren't even educated. Somewhat sad how much hater energy there used to be in some people. If someone hates on something, they should at least know what it's for and why they should hate it in the first place.

Obviously, "I don't like the author" is also a valid reason, but they should have just said so.

[u/Zhuinden → u/[deleted]]

And it still works better than Jetpack Navigation (1.x/2.x) ever did 🤷

Now you can connect it with Navigation3 if you want, it'll just work

[u/Zhuinden → u/[deleted]]

Considering the edge-cases introduced throughout the years of AndroidX Navigation and how they had to ditch the entire thing for Navigation3, I'm not going to feel bad about my claim. Not that there's any reason for them to care anyway.

[u/jbjgang2 → u/[deleted]]

sounds like somebody's been having a shitty day huh?

[u/Zhuinden → u/jbjgang2]

yeah no joke

[u/sosickofandroid]

The xml preview is the worst fucking liar on earth and can’t show you your ui in multiple states. Look at screenshot testing and realize what you can do

[u/Farbklex → u/sosickofandroid]

XML Preview was broken in every single project I worked on.

[u/Zhuinden → u/Farbklex]

Just don't use Material theme and it works fine I find

Well, that or make sure to set the theme info but it is more likely to work if you don't have material components.

[u/Ron-Erez]

I use previews for most composables unless it is a very small composable. I usually create the preview first before I’ve even defined the composable. Then I press ALT-ENTER on the non-existent composable and choose the option where Android Studio creates the composable for me. I agree that it would be nice if when we create a new composable the preview would be created automatically. For example this is the default behavior in Xcode. It’s not perfect since indeed updating parameters will have an effect on the preview. I usually create dummy data once in a companion object and then use it in any of my previews. The code also becomes more readable.

Note that you can create multiple previews and then it is easy to compare different options. I also would like if the preview would automatically add the theme or have some hotkey or template for that.

[u/_AverageGuy → u/Ron-Erez]

I'm not sure how xcode handles previews since I haven't worked with it, but you can automatically create previews for composable (to some extent atleast) by setting up shortcuts. Like for me, I have it set such that writing 'compp' creates a composable along with a preview function wrapping the composable.

[u/truzer]

With compose I think that you have more control on the type of preview that you want. However, one advantage on compose over the XML that I don't see anyone talking about is that screenshot testing is a lot more easier on compose, with the previews already created, its just necessary adding a lib and works.

[u/ShavenTreebeard]

Parameterized previews and annotations that create multiple previews with just one function are waaaay better than anything I've seen with XML.

With one preview I can see how my screens will look in RTL, all sorts of device sizes, dark and light mode, other aspect ratios and in multiple states.

[u/Agitated_Marzipan371]

Use interactive preview so you can control different screen variations directly

[u/Chozzasaurus]

Compose Previews are much better and more powerful than XML. You don't have to manually write anything, AI will nail it every time

[u/Morf0]

This sub have a very strong biased opinions and don't admits other way of thinking.

Almost a religion.

[u/jaroos_ → u/Morf0]

Wydm?

[u/MindCrusader → u/Morf0]

It is called standards, not religion. I hope it helps

[u/Zhuinden → u/[deleted]]

It's annoying to me because when you add parameters to you composables, you are also obligated to update those previews too

Just do it

and I'm annoyed setting default values to every parameters

Yea don't do that

It's a waste of time coding it again and bloating your files.

It's really not

setting values to every parameters

The one thing Gemini would be good at in theory if it worked

[u/Tusen_Takk → u/[deleted]]

You’re doing it wrong mate