API design: I have rather complex composable compo...

# compose

[Jan Skrasek]

API design:
I have rather complex composable component taking multiple slots arguments.
Is it better to have:
• main slot named content and having it as the last one, or
• make that slot rather named by its function and sort slots differently?
The second option seems more suitable, but only if there is another non slot argument as the last one, otherwise it would expose the last slot as trailing lambda, which is not good. What do you think?

[Stylianos Gakis]

I’d be very surprised if I used a composable, which had many composable slots but the one that was put in the trailing lambda was not the “main” one.
I would say take inspiration from ones like Scaffold and don’t steer away from that pattern. You can still name your “content” one differently I guess, but I’d still like it to be last.

[Stylianos Gakis]

Like this sort of code on the call site

Scaffold(
    topBar = { TopAppBar() },
    content = { FooScreen() }
) {
    // this would be the parameter named `bottomBar` as the last one in line
    BottomAppBar()
}

Would be super confusing in my opinion.

[Jan Skrasek]

What I have is something like this

ListChoice(
     onClick = {},
     icon = { Icon(Icons.Accommodation, contentDescription = null) },
     description = { Text("Further description") },
     trailingIcon = { Icon(Icons.ChevronRight, contentDescription = null) },
 ) {
     Text("ListChoice title")
 }

And we're thinking about if keep it this way with content, or name it title and put it before icon parameter.

[Jan Skrasek]

Slots are optional expect the title slot, so in this case it could be quite good to utilize trailing lambda. Though practically it won't be used without other slots.

[Stylianos Gakis]

Could you show me how the ListChoice function signature looks like?

[Jan Skrasek]

@Composable
public fun ListChoice(
    onClick: () -> Unit,
    modifier: Modifier = Modifier,
    icon: @Composable () -> Unit = {},
    description: @Composable () -> Unit = {},
    trailingIcon: @Composable () -> Unit = {},
    withSeparator: Boolean = true,
    content: @Composable () -> Unit,
)

[Stylianos Gakis]

This reminds me of ListItem a lot, which is basically what you’re doing, but with your defaults instead of the Material ones. You can draw inspiration from there and just rename the content to text or something similar as you said before, and still keep it as the last item without a default value. I think then the API will look nice and will be very predictable for all devs trying to use it.

[Jan Skrasek]

Great idea, I somehow missed there is a ListItem in Material! Thank you very much.