I have these two variables at the top of my Compos...

# compose

[Nat Strangerweather]

I have these two variables at the top of my Composable: var enabled by remember { mutableStateOf(true) } and var visible by remember { mutableStateOf(true) } . When I reload the Composable with new data, these variables do not return to their original true value. Why is that? And how can I make sure they are updated too?

[Kirill Grouchnikov]

Why use remember then?

[Nat Strangerweather]

Because I need to change that value in the Composable. Let me show you some code.

[Nat Strangerweather]

val color by animateColorAsState(
        if (visible) tileColor else Color.White,
        animationSpec = tween(durationMillis = 1000)
    )

[Kirill Grouchnikov]

You can still do that with var or mutableStateOf

[Nat Strangerweather]

Ok, thanks for the pointer, makes sense! 😊

[Kirill Grouchnikov]

remember is for maintaining the value over multiple re-entrances into your composable

[Nat Strangerweather]

What I don't understand is if I just use var , my color does not change.

[Kirill Grouchnikov]

Probably because the relevant code (your if statement) can't track those changes, so you do need the mutableStateOf wrapper

[Kirill Grouchnikov]

You need to tell the compiler that this "thing" not only changes, but is also observable (to borrow terminology from the imperative way of doing things) where those changes trigger some logic elsewhere

[Adam Powell]

(nit: snapshot observation does not involve the compose compiler, it's purely a runtime construct)

[Adam Powell]

It might help guide any advice if you post the whole composable and describe what you'd like it to do

[Nat Strangerweather]

Thanks, so first of all I have a vertical grid with some pieces in it:

@OptIn(ExperimentalFoundationApi::class)
@Composable
fun GameBoard(boardLetters: Array<Letter>) {
       Column(
        horizontalAlignment = Alignment.Start,
        verticalArrangement = Arrangement.Center,
    ) {
        LazyVerticalGrid(
            cells = GridCells.Fixed(7),
            verticalArrangement = <http://Arrangement.Top|Arrangement.Top>
        ) {
            items(boardLetters) { data ->
                Piece(data)
            }
        }
    }
}

[Nat Strangerweather]

I am trying to reload this gameboard when I click a FAB.

[Nat Strangerweather]

The piece composable looks like this:

@Composable
fun Piece(data: Letter) {
    val viewModel: MainViewModel = viewModel()
    var enabled by remember { mutableStateOf(true) }
    var tileColor by remember { mutableStateOf(Color.White) }
    var visible by remember { mutableStateOf(true) }
    val scope = rememberCoroutineScope()
    val bestScore by viewModel.bestScore.observeAsState()
    val context = LocalContext.current
    val view = LocalView.current

    when (data.value) {
        1 -> tileColor = Color(0xff7189BF)
        2 -> tileColor = Color(0xffBF8B67)
        3 -> tileColor = Color(0xffFFAD60)
        4 -> tileColor = Color(0xffDF7599)
        5 -> tileColor = Color(0xffA275E3)
        8 -> tileColor = Color(0xff72D6C9)
        10 -> tileColor = Color(0xff655D8A)
    }

    val color by animateColorAsState(
        if (visible) tileColor else Color.White,
        animationSpec = tween(durationMillis = 1000)
    )

    val superscript = SpanStyle(
        baselineShift = BaselineShift.Superscript,
        fontSize = 12.sp,
        color = Color.White
    )

    Box(
        modifier = Modifier
            .fillMaxSize()
            .aspectRatio(1f)
            .padding(2.dp)
            .shadow(7.dp, shape = RoundedCornerShape(8.dp))
            .clip(shape = RoundedCornerShape(8.dp))
            .background(color)
            .clickable(enabled = enabled) {
                view.playSoundEffect(SoundEffectConstants.CLICK)
                viewModel.deleteResultString()
                for (v in data.name) {
                    viewModel.onNewLetterValue(data.value)
                    enabled = false
                }
                viewModel.onNewLetter(data.name)
                scope.launch {
                    DataStoreUtils.saveBestScore(context, "bestScoreKey", bestScore!!)
                }
                visible = !visible
            },
        contentAlignment = Alignment.Center
    ) {
        Text(
            text = buildAnnotatedString {
                append(data.name)
                withStyle(superscript) {
                    append("  ${data.value}")
                }
            }, style = TextStyle(Color.White, fontSize = 20.sp),
            fontWeight = FontWeight.ExtraBold
        )
    }
}

[Nat Strangerweather]

What happens is that when I click on a letter, it goes blank (white).

[Nat Strangerweather]

The problem is that when I update my data in order to refresh the composable and get a new set of letters, all the blank Pieces or tiles stay white.

[Nat Strangerweather]

I would need the visible variable to go back to true when I redraw the Composable.

[Nat Strangerweather]

I hope I am making sense!

[Adam Powell]

The Piece composable is trying to own and control too much. Whenever you encounter a situation where you feel like you want to "reset" a composable, that's a sign that you should hoist the state you want to be able to reset out of `remember`s inside the composable itself, probably into a class.

[Adam Powell]

Once you have a class that has a Letter and enabled, tileColor and visible properties, that same class can either have a reset method, or possibly even better, you can generate a new collection of instances of your class to pass to the Piece composables, and the act of generating that new board is all the reset you need.

[Adam Powell]

chances are you don't want board pieces to be responsible for talking to a viewmodel or writing to a datastore either

[Nat Strangerweather]

Brilliant, many thanks for this, I did feel like my poor Piece Composable had a lot going on it it!

[Adam Powell]

at some point it'd be nice if we could get an IDE refactoring to transform

@Composable
fun MyComposable() {
  var one by remember { mutableStateOf(initialOne) }
  var two by remember { mutableStateOf(initialTwo) }

into

class MyComposableState(
  one: OneType,
  two: TwoType
) {
  var one by mutableStateOf(one)
  var two by mutableStateOf(two)
}

@Composable
fun MyComposable(
  state: MyComposableState = remember { MyComposableState(initialOne, initialTwo) }
) {