stream_state 0.1.1

A very simple and easy to use state management option for those new to declarative / react style programming. It has no boilerplate and supports automatic state persistence.

StreamState

Extremely simple and easy to use state management

• Easy to learn and use
• No boilerplate
• No reactive programming knowledge required
• Automatic state persistence -- save the state of your variables between app launches
• Full Flutter Web support
• VS Code snippets available for common tasks

You do not need to understand what streams are, or how to use them to use this package.

StreamState is a very simple and easy to use state management option for those new to declarative / react style programming. It has no boilerplate, and also offers easy automatic state persistence (it will automatically save the state of your variables between app launches).

General concept

The main idea in reactive style programming is that your UI just shows the current state of your app. Instead of manually telling a Text widget to change the string it is displaying, you store that string in a variable somewhere, and any time that variable changes, the text widget automatically updates.

If you're used to programming UIs in an imperative style (Qt for example), this can be a hard concept to adjust to at first, but I promise its really awesome, powerful and enjoyable to use once it 'clicks'.

How to use

The included counter example manages 2 pieces of state, an int called counter that stores how many times we have pressed a button, and a bool called useRedText that says if we should display the counter using red text or not.

Create state:

For each piece of state that you want to manage, create a StreamState object with an initial value. Each StreamState object can manage state of any type, including custom classes:

    var counter = StreamState<int>(initial: 0);
    var useRedText = StreamState<bool>(initial: true);

Access state:

The current state of a StreamState object is stored in it's state attribute:

    print(counter.state);
    print(useRedText.state);

Update state:

It is very easy to update the state -- just modify the state attribute of the StreamState object:

    counter.state++;
    useRedText.state = !useRedText.state;

Have widgets auto update when state changes:

To have a widget in your UI automatically update when the state changes, you can use a MultiStreamStateBuilder widget. It takes a list of StreamState objects and knows to rebuild when any of them change.

    MultiStreamStateBuilder(
        streamStates: [useRedText], // list of StreamStates to listen to for changes
        builder: (_) => Checkbox(
        value: useRedText.state,
        onChanged: (value) => useRedText.state = value
        ),
    ),

Have widgets watch many states to know when to auto update:

Here is an example of how easy it is to listen to multiple StreamState objects for changes:

    MultiStreamStateBuilder(
        streamStates: [useRedText, counter], // widget will update when either of these change
        builder: (_) => Text(
            counter.state.toString(),
            style: TextStyle(color: useRedText.state ? Colors.red : null),
        ),

Isn't MultiStreamStateBuilder is a lot to type all the time? You can use MSSB instead:

Because the MultiStreamStateBuilder is used so often, and it's quite a lot to type, there is an alias for it: MSSB. The two classes are completely identical, so the following example is the same as the previous:

    MSSB( // MSSB is just shorthand for MultiStreamStateBuilder. They are identical.
        streamStates: [useRedText, counter], // widget will update when either of these change
        builder: (_) => Text(
            counter.state.toString(),
            style: TextStyle(color: useRedText.state ? Colors.red : null),
        ),

How to handle modification of state when not using state = x:

If you modify your state without using =, you need to call StreamState.forceUpdate() to trigger widget rebuilds. For example, if your StreamState object is a List and you call myStreamStateList.state.add(new_element), the MultiStreamStateBuilder widgets won't rebuild until you call myStreamStateList.forceUpdate().

Easy State Persistence (Save variables across App launches)

There is a 2nd example file called persist_state_main.dart that shows different persisted StreamState objects, including a persisted Custom Class.

SteamState makes it very easy to persist state across app launches. To allow StreamState objects to persist, you must call await initStreamStatePersist() when you start your app. The easiest way to do this is in your main() function like so:

    void main() async {
        await initStreamStatePersist();
        runApp(MyApp());
    }

Then you can tell any of your StreamState objects to save their state across launches, by simply setting persist:true and providing a persistPath:

    var counter = StreamState<int>(
        initial: 0,
        persist: true,
        persistPath: 'counter',
    );
    var useRedText = StreamState<bool>(
        initial: true,
        persist: true,
        persistPath: 'useRedText',
    );

The persistPath is just a String that uniquely identifies which StreamState object you want to persist. For simple apps, just using the variable name is fine, but if you have lots of StreamState objects that you want to persist, you might want to stay organized by providing a full path like '/settings/theme/useDarkTheme'.

You can reset a persisted state back to its initial value with resetPersist():

    counter.resetPersist();
    useRedText.resetPersist();

What types can be persisted?

Currently the types of state that can be directly persisted are:

• int
• double
• String
• bool
• List
• Set
• Map
• DateTime
• BigInt
• Uint8List

Please note that types that contain other types, like List and Map and Set, must also only contain the above types in order to be persisted.

What about persisting custom classes?

You can persist custom objects by providing serialization and deserialization functions. The serialization function must serialize the state to one of the above directly persistable types (such as a Map in the following example), and the deserialization function should return your object.

    var custom = StreamState<Custom>(
        initial: Custom(name: 'My Persisted Custom Class', awesomeness: 10),
        persist: true,
        persistPath: 'custom',
        serialize: (state) => state.toMap(),
        deserialize: (serialized) => Custom.fromMap(serialized),
    );

StreamState uses Hive under the hood to persist objects, so my thanks goes out to Simon Leier for making such an awesome and easy to use package.

AppManager / Where to store StreamState objects?

For simplicity and ease, the included counter example uses a singleton called AppManager to store the StreamState objects. This makes it very easy to access your state from anywhere in your app.

Any time you call AppManager() it will always return the same object (containing our state).

You can create as many managers as you'd like to separate the logic of your code. For example you can have an AuthManager() that stores state related to login flow and user tokens.

You could also store your StreamState objects in any other way, including just in a Stateful Widget, or in a class along with some other type of dependency injection like Provider or GetIt.

---

Why make this package?

Flutter was my first experience with declarative / react style programming.

When first getting into Flutter I was overwhelmed by the complexity and start up investment needed to explore, learn and choose a state management solution.

I just wanted to find something that was very simple to grasp and that I could start implementing immediately so that I could continue learning the bulk and fun parts of Flutter.

Most of the available state management solutions involved very heady concepts and had lots of boilerplate to get started.

I made this package because it would have made making my first few apps a much more pleasant experience.

Do you need help?

I'm now a massive fan of Flutter and react style programming. I'm still learning but also want to give back and help others where I can. If you need help implementing this or are struggling with the concepts, feel free to reach out!