observable_state 0.1.0

Yet Another Flutter State Manager for a Reactive Application Architecture

Observable state

Yet Another Flutter State Manager for a Reactive Application Architecture.

But this time

• 🧰 State changes are handled using encapsulation on plain-old objects.
• ✔️ You can freely test your state and its changes, like pure Dart; because IT IS pure Dart.
• 🎯 Notify only the specific States that are observing the triggered change, NOT the entire Widget tree.
• 💧 No Streams or new Widgets, it is purely State and setState(); like Vanilla, but in a Centralized and Predictable state container.

How it works

It's a sweet, sweet sugar on top of the battle-tested Observer pattern. Your state is stored in a list of Observables of a given subject (see Change below) and it's setState() is called only when your Model explicit tells to notify about that change.

• It isn't BLoC, but you still can maintain, test and visualize your Business Logic away from the UI.
• It isn't Flux (Redux/Rx/Stream), but you still can control data in an unidirectional flow.

Get started

The fact is: state is hard! Probably the hardest thing (after naming, of course). This is why things like BLoC, Flux/Redux and ScopedModel appears; to help you solve that.

And that is why observable_state is here too.

Talk is cheap. Show me the code — Torvalds, Linus

Installing

dependencies:
  observable_state: ^0.1.0

State modeling

class MyState {
  int counter;
}

From a simple model like that, to add observable_state super-powers you just need to:

class MyState extends Observable<Changes> {
  int counter;
}

Then make sure you declare what changes to your state are:

enum Changes {
  increment,
}

Even better, remember that changes are handled by encapsulation:

enum Changes {
  increment,
}

class MyState extends Observable<Changes> {
  int _counter;
  int get counter => _counter;

  void increment() {
    _counter++;
  }
}

How to notify about the increment change?

Observable state borrows the same Flutter API for local state (setState()) with a slight difference: the notify argument:

enum Changes {
  increment,
}

class MyState extends Observable<Changes> {
  int _counter;
  int get counter => _counter;

  void increment() {
    setState(
      () => _counter++,
      notify: Changes.increment,
    );
  }
}

That is it. Your Observable is notifying about MyState changes.

How to listen to then?

Here comes the StateObserver.

StatelessWidgets are state-less as the name suggests. We are not going to mess with them adding Streams or whatever. Actually, even the StatefulWidget remains the same. We are going to super-power the State only!

class MyStatefulWidget extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _MyStatefulWidgetState createState() => _MyStatefulWidgetState();
}

class _MyStatefulWidgetState extends StateObserver<MyStatefulWidget, MyState, Changes> {
  @override
  List<Changes> get changes => [Changes.increment];

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(title: Text('Observable state #${state.counter}')),
      body: Center(child: Text('Counter: ${state.counter}')),
      floatingActionButton: Builder(
        builder: (context) {
          return FloatingActionButton(
            child: Icon(Icons.add),
            onPressed: () {
              state.increment();
            },
          );
        },
      ),
    );
  }
}

Note that we are extending StateObserver instead of State and we are given a list of changes we are interest in, like Changes.increment. StateObserver already got the state so we can get counter and we can call increment() on it as well. Whenever increment() is called, since it notifies about Changes.increment, whoever Observer (like a StateObserver) is observing this change, it will automatically calls its inner setState() method, then rebuilding it.

Where does the state comes from?

The last piece: ObservableProvider.

class App extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return ObservableProvider(
      state: MyState(),
      child: MaterialApp(home: MyStatefulWidget()),
    );
  }
}

It's an InheritedWidget responsible to provide our state from its context.

That is it! You're ready to Rock! 🎸

Observable has no dependency at all with any Flutter APIs, so you can unit test your state using plain-old test package. And you can test your Widgets using a mock or a real state without any hassle.

Check out the example directory for a complete example with async-flows, services, dependency injection, Firebase integration and a lot more!

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Feel free to, and I'd be glad if you, try it and leave some feedback. Just be aware that while on early stages, API may change.