If you have a single activity, is it a good practi...

# compose

[Pablo]

If you have a single activity, is it a good practice to store in the viewmodel of that activity the navigation route of the navhost that manages the navigation on the application? I mean to have inside that viewmodel a "appuistate" state var with the current route. The app haves various screens that will be switched with a drawer, bottom bar or rail navigating with the navhost. I need to store the current route somewhere. I think the viewmodel of the single activity should be the best place to store it, as it is the higher place to do it, and as the navigation is common for the entire app. My main concern about this is that a viewmodel of the activity will be used at the same time as a viewmodel of the screens (routes) of the app. I don't know if this is a good practice in Compose.

[Stylianos Gakis]

https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/CJLTWPH7S/p1709728313088939?thread_ts=1709674897.162639&cid=CJLTWPH7S
Your NavController has a different lifecycle from your ViewModel. If you put it on your ViewModel you'll be creating memory leaks.
You need to create your NavController using this https://cs.android.com/androidx/platform/frameworks/support/+/androidx-main:navigation/navigation-compose/src/main/java/androidx/navigation/compose/NavHostController.kt;l=56?q=RememberNavController to properly survive configuration changes, which is done in a composable context which you don't have in your ViewModel.

[Pablo]

I don't mean putting the navcontroller in the viewmodel, just the route. I mean simply a var of the enum type that the navcontroller uses to know which screen is selected. Just the route. In a AppUiState state variable stored in the viewcontroller.

[Pablo]

The viewmodel of the main and single activity whould contain just this:

private val _uiState = MutableStateFlow(uiState())
val uiState: StateFlow<UiState> = _uiState

fun updateCurrentTab(selectedTab: Screen) {
    _iiState.update {
        it.copy(
            selectedTab = selectedTab
        )
    }
}

[Stylianos Gakis]

You're introducing a point of failure if for some reason this variable then shows one thing, but in reality you are in another route. Aka not using a single source of truth for your destination.
Do it at your own risk.

[Pablo]

please, can you help me understanding how can that situation happens? will help me to improve myself, because at this point I don't know how can that happens

[Stylianos Gakis]

It depends when you will call updateCurrentTab, it’s up to you I suppose.

[Pablo]

I call updateCurrentTab just when an user press the button on the navigation rail, the drawer or the bottom navigation bar

[Pablo]

how that can produce a point of failure?

[Pablo]

why is not that a single source of destination?

[Pablo]

as I can see, the only source of truth is exactly that variable stored in uistate inside the viewmodel of the main activity

[Pablo]

which other sources of truth do exist?

[Stylianos Gakis]

By definition, your truth regarding what your NavHost shows is inside the NavController.
This field that you need to remember updating is another source of truth that can absolutely be lying compared to the real destination.
But if you feel confident keeping those two in sync you are absolutely free to do so 😅

[Pablo]

whould that dual source of truth possibility be avoided if I use a remember mutablestateof with the navcontroller inside and I get the current destination from it?

[Pablo]

and what if I simply store the navcontroller in the uistate of the viewmodel and get the current destination from it?

[Pablo]

I mean, this:

[Pablo]

private val _uiState = MutableStateFlow(uiState())
val uiState: StateFlow<UiState> = _uiState

having this inside UiState:

data class UiState (
    val navController: NavHostController
)

[Stylianos Gakis]

We've done a full loop. Now you're storing the NavController in your ViewModel, which introduces the other issues I was talking about before.

[Pablo]

but I'm losing something, the idea is that the navcontroller survives to configuration changes, to recompositions etc...

[Pablo]

if the viewmodel survives that, why can it be a problem?

[Pablo]

is not the same that having it in a mutablestate remember var?

[Stylianos Gakis]

Yes exactly, the ViewModel will, the NavController won't. So the VM will be referencing the old NavController

[Pablo]

ouch

[Pablo]

ok

[Pablo]

and having it in a mutablestate remember var without a view model will force the navcontroller to survive? (solving the issue)

[Stylianos Gakis]

This message https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/CJLTWPH7S/p1709730511976179?thread_ts=1709728460.970259&cid=CJLTWPH7S is the one that links to the code which ensures that when doing rememberNavController you will get the right behavior of it being restored well when there is a configuration change. You don't get back the same instance, but the new instance you get back will have the right restored state

[Pablo]

I understand, thank you, but I see this as extremely complex for a very small feature

[Pablo]

I mean, this was massively simple before compose, and it seems I'm overprogramming to simply manage current tab in a screen

[Pablo]

I hope there is a simpler way to achieve this, I'm not very happy with this approach, not confortable for me

[Pablo]

I noticed something, in all the codelabs I did, I never used your approach, but.. even better, I never stored the current screen in any state variable

[Pablo]

in the codelabs, the navcontroller was simply initialized like this in the parameter of the main screen composable:

[Pablo]

@Composable
fun LunchTrayApp(
    viewModel: OrderViewModel = viewModel(),
    navController: NavHostController = rememberNavController()
) {

[Pablo]

and it works!!! if I change device orientation producing a configuration change, the nav controller paints the current screen

[Pablo]

so, is not necessary then to store it in a state variable? can it simply be obtained with that compose built int method called rememberNavController() to keep always the current screen remembered and without any issues?