Hi all, I am hoping to advocate for allowing deep links as start destinations within compose navigat...

# compose

[Lachlan McKee]

Hi all, I am hoping to advocate for allowing deep links as start destinations within compose navigation. I saw this thread that discussed this a several months ago, but it doesn't seem to have reached the outcome I expected.

I've raised a ticket to introduce this behaviour (https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/214733434), but it was marked as a duplicate of an issue with a similar explanation.

I don't suppose anyone else would be interested in discussing this?

[Siyamed]

@Ian Lake as fyi

[Lachlan McKee]

I believe in this situation my usecase is valid. I am working on a project where I use two NavHosts for tablets/foldables. When a user clicks something on the right panel (for example an email), I want to be able to open a second NavHost and immediately set the start destination to this email.

Without being able to support a deep link as a start destination, the only way I have managed to get this to work is to create an 'empty' composable, wait for the NavGraph to be ready, then trigger navigation to the deep link

[Ian Lake]

I was the one who closed out the original issue and marked this one as an exact duplicate - that's not what a startDestination is or what it is used for

[Ian Lake]

The startDestination is a route.

[Lachlan McKee]

any suggestions for my usecase? I'm hoping to create a library to make navigation for foldables more seamless for developers. i.e. if they are on a phone the deep link would open in the same NavHost, and if they are on a foldable a new NavHost is opened in the right pane and it starts on the correct page

[Lachlan McKee]

thanks for the speedy reply =D

[Lachlan McKee]

my solution - using a blank composable and then deep linking works reasonably well, however there is a noticable white flicker due to the crossfade animation

[Ian Lake]

That's not how you do two pane layouts. Did you get a chance to read the documentation on adaptive UIs and Navigation? https://developer.android.com/jetpack/compose/nav-adaptive

[Lachlan McKee]

yes, I've read through the documentation. I'm hoping to provide a device agnostic approach that could make it appealing to developers to support tablets and foldables without explicitly coding for it

[Lachlan McKee]

I'm hoping going to release an initial version of this approach in the next few weeks. I believe I have avoided the pitfalls discussed within https://developer.android.com/jetpack/compose/nav-adaptive#avoid-nav-as-side-effect

[Ian Lake]

Explicitly choosing the most appropriate method (be it changing the presentation, amount of data shown, or doing something more extreme like having that specific destination implement a two pane layout) for making each destination responsive is a key part of the thought process; bypassing that is not the road you should consider long term viable

[Lachlan McKee]

ah, but in my API I will be making it explicit.

[Ian Lake]

Then the documentation is indeed the correct approach - the routes in your graph should cover the full area of the NavHost, even if an individual route is implemented differently (side by side vs overlapping) based on the device type

[Lachlan McKee]

i.e. the user will explicitly say whether or not it should be shown in the left or right pane, and depending on the form factor it will either open a second pane, or open it in the first pane. Then if the user unfolds their foldable, the second pane appears as expected.

i.e. navigate(SECOND_PANE, "route")

[Ian Lake]

So sure, having a NavGraphBuilder.twoPaneComposable helper method that sets up that one pane vs two pane approach is valid and useful

[Lachlan McKee]

yeah. I'm really keen to see how useful it might be

[Lachlan McKee]

I would even be happy to contribute it back in some manner if it has merit

[Lachlan McKee]

I'll let keep you posted when it's available =]

[Lachlan McKee]

You hit the nail on the head about overlapping NavHosts, that's indeed how I am doing it

[Ian Lake]

but having a global idea of a left pane vs right pane is specifically not a pattern that we recommend - that's exactly what the Routes vs screens section is trying to get at - it is a per destination choice: https://developer.android.com/jetpack/compose/nav-adaptive#routes-vs-screens

[Ian Lake]

As there are absolutely destinations (login, a full screen photo viewer, video playback) that are not two pane and should not be two pane on any device

[Lachlan McKee]

The way that I am building this library would allow you to only have one pane on a foldable or tablet. It would be up to the developer how they want to use it

[Alex Vanyo]

For the case of nested `NavHost`s, would splitting up the deep link be a solution?

In other words, the outer NavHost picks up the first “half” of the deep link,
and then defers the second “half” to the inner NavHost

[Ian Lake]

We actually specifically talk about deep linking over in the non-compose world for two pane layouts: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout/twopane?hl=en#navigation

The destinations in the detail pane's navigation graph should not be present in any outer, app-wide navigation graph. However, any deep links within the detail pane's navigation graph should be attached to the destination that hosts the SlidingPaneLayout. This ensures that external deep links first navigate to the SlidingPaneLayout destination and then navigate to the correct detail pane destination.

[Ian Lake]

If you really want an individual destination to have a stack of destinations in their embedded right pane, that's also automatically supported for actual deep links 🙂

[Lachlan McKee]

Perhaps in this case I might be misusing the term deep link. In this case it's not a deep link from outside of the app, i just need to be able to support a dynamic route, and at the moment deep links are the only way to support that

[Ian Lake]

That's not true at all

[Ian Lake]

As per those issues, your defaultValue and even the whole startDestination are variables just like any other

[Lachlan McKee]

Perhaps poor wording on my part? I was replying to @Alex Vanyo

[Ian Lake]

I think you have all the tools you need right now between setting the startDestination to the route of your choice and using a defaultValue on an argument for that start destination, to have any kind of 'dynamic route' you think you need

[Lachlan McKee]

Can the default argument be dynamic? I.e. if someone clicks an email, can my start destination be email/1 or email/2?

[Ian Lake]

your defaultValue for the emailId can certainly change to whatever you want, whenever you want

[Ian Lake]

again, as per the issue your issue was marked as a duplicate of

[Alex Vanyo]

I think code might be easier?

val startIndex = 1

NavHost(
    navController = navController,
    startDestination = "deeplink/record/{index}",
  ) {
    composable(
      route = "deeplink/record/{index}",
      arguments = listOf(navArgument("index") {
          type = NavType.IntType,
          defaultValue = startIndex
      }),
      content = { backStackEntry ->
        ...
      }
    )
}

[Lachlan McKee]

Ah... I think I get it now. I just need to make sure that when I create the graph I set the default value dynamically.

I suppose then this is not an issue for my library, but a documentation detail I will need to ensure others how attempt this follow

[Lachlan McKee]

Yeah, exactly @Alex Vanyo. Thanks both!

[Lachlan McKee]

Sorry for taking so much of both of your time. I really appreciate it! I'll post back in this thread when I publish my 1.0.0 😅