meowchannel 1.1.0

Lightweight Redux implementation for Flutter with async workers, combiners... and cats!

meowchannel v1.1.0-production

Lightweight Redux implementation for Flutter with workers
... and cats! 😼

Overview

Where:

Actions - Payloads with data sent from view to Store or from Middleware to Store describing the fact that something happened. You can send them using dispatch(action).
Every action must extend from Action class.

State - Single structure describing everything required by the application to show its views to user.

Reducer - Pure function that takes latest dispatched Action and previous State and creates (not modifies!) a new State
In pseudo-code:
Reducer stateReducer = (Action action, State previousState) => newState
It is really important to understand that:

• Reducer is a pure function: no side-effects, like calling api or any other external non-pure functions should be present
• Reducer is not called in async thread: no long and complex tasks should be done in it (use Worker for this!)
• State is immutable: every action Reducer should produce a modified copy of previous State or return old one without mutations

Middleware - Function that intercepts Actions before they reach Reducer. It is not pure - it can produce side-effects including dispatching other Actions. In pseudo-code:

Middleware<State> example = (Dispatcher dispatcher, Function<State> getState, Dispatcher next) => (Action action) {
 doSomething();
 next(action);
}

• Middleware itself is not called in async thread, but it can create any side-effect including new threads

• WorkerMiddleware is an extension to Store bringing asynchronous Workers to consume actions, do some work and dispatch new actions with results

  In pseudo-code:

  Worker<Action, State> example = worker<Action, State>((context, action) async {
    await doSomething();
    context.put(ResultAction());
  })
  

Store - Object that combines Actions and Dispatcher (aka Middlewares->Reducer) and also:

• Holds State and its channel which application can listen
• Allows Actions to be dispatcher via dispatch(action)
• Allows direct access to current State via the getState()
• Dispatches MeowChannelInit and MeowChannelClose as a lifecycle-related Actions

Important:

• It is allowed to create multiple Stores with unique State
• It is not allowed to have two or more Stores with the same State type

Example:

Let's build a todos app!

First, we definitely need a model of our TODO

//I use https://pub.dev/packages/dataclass to define  .== and .copyWith and other useful functions on entity (just like kotlin data class!)
@dataClass 
class Todo {
  final int id;
  final String title;
  final String text;

  Todo({
    this.id,
    this.title,
    this.text
  });
}

Next, we will need to define some Actions

//Every action must extend Action 

//These actions are going to be data-related
class TodoAction extends Action {}

class TodoListAction extends TodoAction {}

class TodoGetAction extends TodoAction {
  final int id;

  TodoGetAction({
    this.id
  }): assert(id != null);
}

class TodoAddAction extends TodoAction {
  final String title;
  final String text;

  TodoAddAction({
    this.title,
    this.text
  }): assert(title != null),
    assert(text != null);
}

class TodoEditAction extends TodoAction {
  final int id;
  final String title;
  final String text;

  TodoEditAction({
    this.id,
    this.title,
    this.text
  }): assert(id != null);
}

class TodoRemoveAction extends TodoAction {
  final int id;

  TodoRemoveAction({
    this.id
  }): assert(id != null);
}

//These actions are going to be ui-related
class TodoUiAction extends Action {}

class TodoUpdateUiAction extends TodoUiAction {
  final List<Todo> todos;

  TodoUpdateUiAction({
    this.todos
  }): assert(todos != null);
}

class TodoAddUiAction extends TodoUiAction {
  final Todo todo;

  TodoAddUiAction({
    this.todo
  }): assert(todo != null);
}

class TodoEditUiAction extends TodoUiAction {
  final int id;
  final Todo todo;

  TodoEditUiAction({
    this.id,
    this.todo
  }): assert(id != null),
    assert(todo != null);
}

class TodoRemoveUiAction extends TodoUiAction {
  final int id;

  TodoRemoveUiAction({
    this.id
  }): assert(id != null);
}

And then we should thing about state
But in this case it will be just a data class with list of todos

@dataClass
class TodoState {
  final List<Todo> todos;

  TodoState({
    this.todos = const <Todo>[]
  });
}

Now we should create 3 things:

• Reducer
• Watcher and Worker pair

/// Reducer is going to be a stack of typedReducers<ActionType, State> (basically reducers which say: if this Action is ActionType then make new state else just pass) what will replace if-else hell

final Reducer<TodoState> TodoReducer = combinedReducer<TodoState>([
  typedReducer<TodoUpdateUiAction, TodoState>(
    (action, previousState) => previousState.copyWith(
      todos: action.todos
    )
  ),
  typedReducer<TodoAddUiAction, TodoState>(
    (action, previousState) => previousState.copyWith(
      todos: [action.todo] + previousState.todos
    )
  ),
  typedReducer<TodoEditUiAction, TodoState>(
    (action, previousState) => previousState.copyWith(
      todos: previousState.todos.map((todo) => todo.id == action.id? action.todo : todo)
        .toList()
    )
  ),
  typedReducer<TodoRemoveUiAction, TodoState>(
    (action, previousState) => previousState.copyWith(
      todos: previousState.todos.where((todo) => todo.id != action.id)
        .toList()
    )
  ),
]);

/// Watcher is a distinct stream manipulator which then will be send to Worker
/// Its job is to filter and cast stream of Actions to match this specific Worker
Watcher<TodoAction, TodoState> TodoWatcher(
  Worker<TodoAction, TodoState> worker
) =>
  watcher(worker, (actionStream, context) {
    return actionStream.where((action) => action is TodoAction)
      .cast<TodoAction>();
  });

/// Worker can have side-effects and handle complex tasks
/// because it is async!
/// combinedWorker is logically same as combinedReducer, but for workers
Worker<TodoAction, TodoState> TodoWorker(
  TodoRepository todoRepository
) =>
  combinedWorker([
    typedWorker<TodoAction, TodoListAction, TodoState>(worker((context, action) async {
      final todos = await todoRepository.list();

      context.put(TodoUpdateUiAction(
        todos: todos
      ));
    })),
    typedWorker<TodoAction, TodoAddAction, TodoState>(worker((context, action) async {
      final todo = await todoRepository.add(
        title: action.title,
        text: action.text
      );

      context.put(TodoAddUiAction(
        todo: todo
      ));
    })),
    typedWorker<TodoAction, TodoEditAction, TodoState>(worker((context, action) async {
      final todo = await todoRepository.edit(
        id: action.id,
        title: action.title,
        text: action.text
      );

      context.put(TodoEditUiAction(
        id: action.id,
        todo: todo
      ));
    })),
    typedWorker<TodoAction, TodoRemoveAction, TodoState>(worker((context, action) async {
      await todoRepository.remove(
        id: action.id
      );

      context.put(TodoRemoveUiAction(
        id: action.id
      ));
    }))
  ]);

Finally, let's create Store and StoreProvider

runApp(
  StoreProvider<TodoState>(
    create: (context) =>
      /// To provide multiple stores to children use MultiStoreProvider
      Store<TodoState>(
        reducer: TodoReducer,
        initialState: TodoState(),
        middleware: [
          /// For the Workers to be able to intercept Actions, it is required to create WorkerMiddleware
          WorkerMiddleware([
            TodoWatcher(TodoWorker(
              TodoRepository()
            ))
          ])
        ]
      ),
    child: MaterialApp(
      home: ...,
    )
  )
);

How to access Store and State in Widgets?

/// For any Widget you can use StoreProvider.of<Store<StateType>>()
/// to get Store of desired state
StoreProvider.of<Store<TodoState>>(context);

/// For any StatefulWidget that needs to be rebuilt on each new state arrival
class TodoApplicationWidget extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  State<StatefulWidget> createState() =>
    _TodoApplicationWidgetState();

}


/// You should extend from StoreState in order to subscribe to stores automagically
class _TodoApplicationWidgetState extends StoreState<TodoApplicationWidget> {

  /// Here all Stores which are required by the Widget can be specified
  @override
  List<Store> requireStores(BuildContext context) => [
    StoreProvider.of<Store<TodoState>>(context)
  ];

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    /// Every new State from each of specified Store the Wiget will be rebuilt
    final store = getStore<TodoState>(); /// To get access to store
    final state = getState<TodoState>(); /// To get access to current state

    ...
    /// Here goes your creativity!
  }

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();

    /// Store hooks can be added to track state updates out of widget context
    hookTo<TodoState>((store, state) {

    });
  }
}

Any other way to access state changes out of StoreState?

Sure thing!

class SomeWidget extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    final store = StoreProvider.of<SomeState>(context); /// To get access to store

    return StoreBuilder<SomeState>(
      store: store,
      condition: (previous, current) => previous?.value != current?.value, /// Apply custom change checkers if needed
      builder: (context, state) {
        return Scaffold(
          body: Column(
            children: <Widget>[
              ...
              /// Here goes your creativity!
            ],
          ),
        );
      },
    );
  }
}

Credits:

• This page has many connections with Redux docs
• Shoutouts to flutter_bloc for lots of cool and working ideas that I've ported here Link