In SwiftUI if you do something like following (no params to

padding()

then default system padding values are used (using

Modifier.padding()

). In Compose it looks like

0dp

is used if no parameters are passed. Would be nice I think to use SwiftUI's approach here..

VStack {
    ....
}
.padding()

What would the default padding be? 4dp? 8dp? I don’t think there’s a particularly valuable default value for a broad enough range of applications. I think the “default” padding will change between different apps with different design systems. That being said, if your application has a consistent default padding, I could see a lot of value in making your own Modifier like so:

fun Modifier.defaultPadding() = Modifier.padding(8.dp)

Well why would there be a default padding? Wouldn't that have to rely on the design style you are using?

Doesn't of course over all cases but material design I think generally recommends 16dp in many cases....might be a reasonable default anyway

yes in material design it makes sense

I'm not sure how smart SwiftUI is when you don't pass in value regarding what value to use (based on for example form factor etc being used)

but compose !=material design

what you'd almost need is some way to have certain defaults if say

MaterialTheme

was being used

But which default? material design often has 16dp space, but often there are different values. I guess having your own defaults would be an easy way to start

Material layer already exposes its own default layout-related metrics such as https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/support/+/refs/heads/androidx-main/c[…]rc/commonMain/kotlin/androidx/compose/material/Button.kt

Yeah, I can see now that this isn't quite as clear cut as I had thought initially 🙂

Correct-

ButtonDefaults

is part of

MaterialTheme

. In fact, all of

Button

is! There is no design system-agnostic button implementation in Compose.

And I have my own for Aurora which is a separate desktop-only design "system" - https://github.com/kirill-grouchnikov/aurora/blob/master/component/src/desktopMain/kotlin/org/pushingpixels/aurora/component/AuroraButton.kt#L75 for buttons as an example

Yeah, makes sense.....if this was to be possible then I guess it would have to be done under the "umbrella" of

MaterialTheme

as is being done for Button as mentioned above

Right, because of the specific 4/8dp underlying grid, touch size, minimum sizes, content paddings etc - for the specific system. I find this separation between the foundation layer and the material layer quite helpful.