Like in Swift, can we somehow shorten `Column(hori...

# compose

[adjpd]

Like in Swift, can we somehow shorten Column(horizontalAlignment = Alignment.CenterHorizontally)
to? Column(horizontalAlignment = .CenterHorizontally) to improve readability? It would be a, seemingly, simply thing but would increase the readbility to codebases massively.

[josefdolezal]

you can import CenterHorizontally like so:

import androidx.compose.ui.Alignment.Companion.CenterHorizontally

then use it directly:

Column(horizontalAlignment = CenterHorizontally)

[adjpd]

Inspired by your idea I've just made my codebase about 3000 times more readable by using this:

@Composable fun surface() = MaterialTheme.colors.surface
@Composable fun primary() = MaterialTheme.colors.primary
@Composable fun onPrimary() = MaterialTheme.colors.onPrimary
@Composable fun secondary() = MaterialTheme.colors.secondary
@Composable fun onSecondary() = MaterialTheme.colors.onSecondary
@Composable fun background() = MaterialTheme.colors.background
@Composable fun onBackground() = MaterialTheme.colors.onBackground

[adjpd]

Things like this mean I don't need to modify the imports and assume Android Studio will know what I want to import:

val CenterHorizontally = Alignment.CenterHorizontally
val CenterVertically = Alignment.CenterVertically

[josefdolezal]

You can even push this a little further and make colors computed values by annotating getter with @Composable like so:

val primary: Color
    @Composable get() = colors.primary

I consider using colors.primary a bit more readable than plain primary /`primary()` , but that’s for sure a matter of preference 👍

[adjpd]

Yeah I've just done the same this with MaterialTheme.typography.

[Zach Klippenstein (he/him) [MOD]]

There’s an issue somewhere proposing this as a language feature, I’d link it but I can’t find it

[josefdolezal]

I found these two discussions a while back. I am not sure whether there is some technical challenge, but it seems to me the community is not interested in such feature. Btw, linked discussions are about leading dot notation for enums, but it’s a far more powerful feature in swift

[okarm]

https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-44729