Hey everyone! .. I am trying to a build a server-d...

# compose

[yousefa2]

Hey everyone! .. I am trying to a build a server-driven UI which supports declaring the layout at run-time, from the server, instead of at compile-time.

Usually at compile-time I would use Row, Column or Box depending on what I want. You get additional modifiers based on the scope you are in..i.e BoxScope.Modifier.matchsParentSize() , RowScope.Modifier.weight ..etc.

I am looking into a way to get these values from the server. Since I don’t know which layout will be rendering at run-time.. I can’t have a scope.

I have looked into something like

fun MyCustomLayout(someLayoutEnum: LayoutTypeEnum, content: @Composable () -> Unit) {
// do some work here
}

Which works to define the layout at run-time but you would still be stuck not knowing the scope and not being able to use RowScope.Modifier.weight for example.


What I am going with right now is copying the Jetpack compose team logic of using a MeasurePolicy + Layout, which is either internal or private, and modifying it to accept a list of modifiers for each child.

val measurePolicy = rowMeasurePolicy(horizontalArrangement,verticalAlignment, modifiers) // This could be columnMeasurePolicy or boxMeasurePolicy
    Layout(
        content = { content() },
        measurePolicy = measurePolicy,
        modifier = modifier
    )

My question is, does anyone know a better way of doing this?

[Colton Idle]

If I'm understanding correctly... I would have three root layouts then.

One for row, col, and box. and then depending on the type that you get from your server, you'll know what type it is when you deserilize it and then just map that type to one of the three composables you just created.

[yousefa2]

Yeah that’s one part. The second part is the content of the composable.. for example if the server is sending

Row
' -> Text(weight = 1)
’-> Text()

We won’t be able to use Modifier.weight since we don’t know which scope to use of BoxScope, RowScope or ColumnScope

[Colton Idle]

Gotcha. I didn't know the SDUI was able to get that granular.