The docs for `AmbientAutofillTree` note that Autof...

# compose

[Bryan Herbst]

The docs for AmbientAutofillTree note that Autofill semantics will be replacing some of the existing autofill APIs at some point, but reference an internal issue and the comment itself seems to be over a year old.

Is the plan still to leverage semantics for some of the autofill support?

Ref: https://cs.android.com/androidx/platform/frameworks/support/+/androidx-master-dev:co[…]compose/ui/platform/Ambients.kt;l=58-65?q=AmbientAutofillTree

[Bryan Herbst]

Mostly curious because while the current approach works, it’s a bit clunky and at the very least I’d expect something like this `Autofill` composable to become part of the public API

[jim]

cc @Ralston Da Silva

[Ralston Da Silva]

Hi Bryan, thanks for asking. Yes that comment is pretty old. Our current thoughts are that the Autofill API will use modifiers.

Here is an example of what the API might end up looking like:

CustomComponent(
   text = text, 
   modifier = Modifier
       .autofillProperties {
           autofillDataType = AutofillDataType.Text
           autofillType = AutofillType.EmailAddress
       }
       .onAutofill{ text = it }
)

[Ralston Da Silva]

For components that we provide, we will provide the onAutofill modifier internally, and populate default autofill properties. The users can override the properties to change them:

var name by remember { mutableStateOf("enter email address here") }
BasicTextField(
   text = name,
   onValueChanged = { text = it }
   modifier = Modifier.autofillProperties { 
       autofillType = listOf(AutofillType.EmailAddress)
  } 
)

[Ralston Da Silva]

The existing API is just a placeholder, but when we re-visit autofill, it might look something like this. Would love to hear your feedback!

[Bryan Herbst]

Thanks @Ralston Da Silva, that’s exactly what I was hoping to see for autofill!!

[Bryan Herbst]

I imagine that with Compose setting proper autofill types will be more important than with the View framework since the autofill services won’t have as much context to use to infer types

[Ralston Da Silva]

Yes that's right @Bryan Herbst, but we will still try to infer autofill types based on location on the screen (if it is close to a text label), and try to use accessibility properties if they are set.

[FannyDemey]

Hi ! Any update on an upcoming Autofill API in Compose UI ? 🙂 thanks for your feedback and thanks @Bryan Herbst for your article on that subject

[Daniele Segato]

@Ralston Da Silva can I have a link to the tracking issue or MR for autofill?