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weiV

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weiV (pronounced the same as wave), a new declarative UI development framework based on the Android View system. The core source files are only 35 KB.

Download weiV Counter apk Building the counter release obfuscated package took only 4 seconds and was 41 KB in size.

if ("weiV" == "View".reversed()) {
    Log.d(
        "weiV",
        "It means Inversion of Control, you should always manipulate the UI 's description Widget directly instead of the View."
    )
}

It has the following advantages:

Declarative UI writing doubles the efficiency of native development
Meets or exceeds the performance of the View system
1. I ported my Flutter ConstraintLayout to Android, relying on its advanced layout algorithm, without introducing Intrinsic Measurement, so that the child elements in the View tree will only be laid out once in any case, making arbitrary nesting does not cause performance issues. Even if each level in the View tree is a mix of wrap_content and match_parent
2. xml will be discarded
All your existing View system experience will be retained
All existing UI components will be reused
It is written in Kotlin but supports Java friendly
At present, the initial support for real-time effective dynamization has begun. You can issue JS, use JS to write page logic, and generate JSON describing the Widget tree and pass it to the native, and the native uses a non-reflection method to convert it into a real Widget tree and render. I might consider implementing a declarative API in JS later

Why is weiV based on the View system, but it is possible to surpass the View system in performance?

Abandoned xml, the first frame always renders faster
Enhanced ConstraintLayout solves performance problems caused by nesting, and for complex layouts, non-first frame rendering may also be faster
Enhanced ConstraintLayout makes the layout level more flat, and for general layout, non-first frame rendering may also be faster
In other cases the performance is quite close

Experience the Flutter version of the Enhanced ConstraintLayout online example

No one wants to overturn their past experience with the View system, Compose's design is too bad.

Progress

At present, the definition of DSL has been completed, and it can be parsed into a Widget tree. The DSL style is as follows:

Kotlin style:

class WeiVCounterKotlinActivity : WeiVActivity() {
    private var count = 0
    private val maxCount = 10
    private val minCount = 0

    override fun build(buildCount: Int) = WeiV {
        Flex {
            it.orientation = FlexDirection.VERTICAL

            Button(text = "Add count", enable = count < maxCount, onClick = {
                setState {
                    count++
                }
            })

            Button(text = "Sub count", enable = count > minCount, onClick = {
                setState {
                    count--
                }
            })

            Text(text = "count = $count")
        }
    }
}

Java style:

public class WeiVCounterJavaActivity extends BaseWeiVJavaActivity {
    private int count = 0;
    private int maxCount = 10;
    private int minCount = 0;

    @Override
    public WeiV build(int buildCount) {
        return WeiV(() -> {
            Flex((it) -> {
                it.wOrientation(FlexDirection.VERTICAL);

                Button().wText("Add count").wEnable(count < maxCount).wOnClick(v -> {
                    setState(() -> {
                        count++;
                    });
                });

                Button().wText("Sub count").wEnable(count > minCount).wOnClick(v -> {
                    setState(() -> {
                        count--;
                    });
                });

                Text().wText("count = " + count);
            });
        });
    }
}

The following functions have been implemented and are still under rapid iteration

Scalable
1. Easily adapt third-party UI components to implement declarative APIs
2. The internal implementation can be replaced. For example, Text is rendered with TextView by default. You can replace it with AppCompatTextView
Provides JsContext based on WebView, which can be easily dynamic with WeiVParser, and will continue to be enhanced later
Friendly, full support for Java
Provides XmlViewWidget that allows you to inline all existing views and implement a declarative API without writing extensions
Provides StatefulWidget to achieve separate management of subtree state, with it you no longer need Fragment
Provides WeiVView, WeiVJavaView to embed weiV anywhere
ConstWidget is provided to achieve the same effect as Flutter const Widget

Kotlin:

class WeiVCounterKotlinActivity : WeiVActivity() {
    override fun build(buildCount: Int) = WeiV {
        // Subtree wrapped with Const will not be updated, Lambda will only execute once
        Const(buildCount = buildCount) {
            Text(text = "Widgets wrapped by Const will not be updated, count = $count")
        }
    }
}

Java:

class WeiVCounterJavaActivity extends WeiVJavaActivity {
    public WeiV build(int buildCount) {
        // Subtree wrapped with Const will not be updated, Lambda will only execute once
        Const(buildCount, () -> {
            Text().wText("Widgets wrapped by Const will not be updated, count = " + count);
        });
    }
}

Provides a Hook for global Widget creation and update, which can easily achieve skinning and night mode
Provides a UI modular solution
The core logic of the declarative architecture has been improved, the complexity of the Diff algorithm is O(2n) or O(4n), and the code is extremely optimized

Near-term plans:

Porting Flutter ConstraintLayout to achieve the above performance goals and bring unprecedented development efficiency and experience, ConstraintLayout provided by Compose Haven't gotten rid of imperative thinking, it's really inefficient to use
Rewrite common core controls such as RecyclerView and ViewPager2 to implement declarative API
Wrap all system built-in common components to implement declarative API, some may be rewritten
Support animation in an extremely simple way, property animation is no longer suitable under the declarative system
Develop layout preview, this may be a little troublesome
Porting Flutter PVState to provide a more lightweight and easy-to-use state management solution under a declarative UI
Built-in lightweight QuickJS engine, use pure JS (abandon HTML, CSS) to develop cross-platform apps, get rid of the dependence on WebView and achieve high-performance synchronous calls between native and JS
Implements stateful hot reloading for Android. By developing an Android Studio plugin, when you change the code, the plugin generates the JSON of the widget tree according to the latest code and sends it to the App through ADB. The App restores the JSON to the real widget tree and re-renders the UI. The state of the entire process application is preserved. This will further improve the efficiency of Android development

It is expected that all the code will be written, and the amount of code will be around 30,000 lines.

The ultimate goal: the only declarative UI development framework under Java, a better declarative UI development framework under Kotlin than Compose.

Some might say that Compose supports cross-platform, I think cross-platform you should prefer Flutter over Compose.

Flutter should be prioritized at all times for developing UI parts. Even if there is no cross-end requirement, when performance is not a problem, the efficiency it brings to you is doubled. Maybe 80% of UI will be built with Flutter in the future. If you gave up Flutter because of nesting hell, now is the time to pick it up again, because my Flutter ConstraintLayout has eliminated nesting hell.

weiV is extensible. It will have all the commonly used widgets built in, which are wrappers for the system View. But for third-party libraries, you need to write extensions, which are extremely simple to write. For example, the extension for Button is as follows:

class weiVButton(
    key: Key? = null,
    var text: String = "",
    var textSize: Float = TextConst.defaultTextSize,
    var textColor: Int = TextConst.defaultTextColor,
    var onClick: View.OnClickListener? = null,
    var enable: Boolean = true
) :
    LeafRenderWidget<Button>(key), IWeiVExtension {

    override fun createView(context: Context): Button = Button(context)

    override fun doParameter(view: Button, first: Boolean): Button {
        if (view.text != text) {
            view.text = text
        }
        if (view.currentTextColor != textColor) {
            view.setTextColor(textColor)
        }
        if (view.textSize != textSize) {
            view.textSize = textSize
        }
        view.setOnClickListener(onClick)
        if (view.isEnabled != enable) {
            view.isEnabled = enable
        }
        return view
    }

    @JavaOnly
    fun wKey(key: Key? = null): weiVButton {
        this.key = key
        return this
    }

    @JavaOnly
    fun wText(text: String = ""): weiVButton {
        this.text = text
        return this
    }

    @JavaOnly
    fun wTextSize(textSize: Float = TextConst.defaultTextSize): weiVButton {
        this.textSize = textSize
        return this
    }

    @JavaOnly
    fun wTextColor(textColor: Int = TextConst.defaultTextColor): weiVButton {
        this.textColor = textColor
        return this
    }

    @JavaOnly
    fun wOnClick(onClick: View.OnClickListener?): weiVButton {
        this.onClick = onClick
        return this
    }

    @JavaOnly
    fun wEnable(enable: Boolean = true): weiVButton {
        this.enable = enable
        return this
    }

    override fun toString(): String {
        return "weiVButton(text = $text, enable = $enable)"
    }
}

@KotlinOnly
fun WeiV.Button(
    key: Key? = null,
    text: String = "",
    textSize: Float = TextConst.defaultTextSize,
    textColor: Int = TextConst.defaultTextColor,
    onClick: View.OnClickListener? = null,
    enable: Boolean = true
) {
    addLeafRenderWidget(
        weiVButton(
            key = key,
            text = text,
            textSize = textSize,
            textColor = textColor,
            onClick = onClick,
            enable = enable
        )
    )
}

weiV is based on the View system, so it can be embedded anywhere in the View tree. You can embed Flutter and Compose in weiV, or embed weiV in Compose and Flutter. It is recommended to embed weiV on top of Compose to improve Compose performance. 😀

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Thanks to the following netizens for their sponsorship, let's make weiV better and better together.

庸人自扰 2022.06.06
杨永安 2022.07.02

Contact

hackware1993@gmail.com

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2022 hackware1993

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and
associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction,
including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial
portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT
NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES
OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.