🎉 Introducing the Fantastic New Network State Utils Library for Android 🎉

Hey Android developers! 🧑‍💻👩‍💻 Have you been struggling with network state management in your Android projects? Good news — the Network State Utils library is here to simplify the process and offer seamless integration with Jetpack Compose to update your UI! 💪📚📲

Step 1: Easily Install the Library 📥

Add the package to your project by first including jitpack in your root build.gradle:

allprojects {
    repositories {
        // ...
        maven { url 'https://jitpack.io' }
    }
}

Then, add the dependency to your module gradle:

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.github.JimmyMcBride:NetworkStateUtilsLib:1.0.1'
}

Step 2: Leverage the NetworkState Sealed Class 🌟

NetworkState helps you manage your network requests' current status. States include Idle, Loading, Success, and Error. Take control of UI updates during specific network states!

sealed class NetworkState<out T> {
    object Idle : NetworkState<Nothing>()
    object Loading : NetworkState<Nothing>()
    data class Success<T>(val data: T) : NetworkState<T>()
    data class Error(val message: String) : NetworkState<Nothing>()
}

Step 3: duringState & DuringComposableState 🔀

Using duringState and DuringComposableState, handle what happens at various network states. Achieve seamless integration with classic view models or Jetpack Compose!

networkEvent.duringState(
    success = { data -> onSuccess(data) },
    error = { message -> onError(message) },
    loading = { onLoading() },
    idle = { onIdle() }
)

networkEvent.DuringComposableState(
    success = { data ->
        Text(data.name)
    },
    error = { message ->
        Text("N/A")
        showSnackbar(message)
    },
    loading = { CircularProgressIndicator() },
    idle = {}
)

Step 4: ConsumeNetworkEvent 🔄

Use ConsumeNetworkEvent to reset NetworkState back to Idle after a specific event. It resets the state, ensuring your UI remains fresh for subsequent updates!

ConsumeNetworkEvent(
    networkEvent = addCityEvent,
    consumeEvent = citiesViewModel::consumeAddCityEvent,
    onSuccess = {
        isLoading = false
        navController.popBackStack()
    },
    onError = {
        isLoading = false
    },
    onLoading = { isLoading = true }
)

Step 5: Simplify with handleNetworkException & handleResponse 🛠️

Simplify your repository by using handleNetworkException and handleResponse for managing exceptions and responses during API calls.

fun <T> Response<T>.handleResponse(errorMessage: String = "Something went wrong.") =
    if (this.isSuccessful && this.body() != null)
        NetworkState.Success(data = this.body()!!)
    else
        NetworkState.Error(message = errorMessage)

suspend fun <T> handleNetworkException(apiCall: suspend () -> NetworkState<T>) = try {
    apiCall()
} catch (e: Exception) {
    NetworkState.Error(message = e.message.toString())
}

With Network State Utils, you have a powerful and accessible library to manage network events in your Android applications. Empower your code and simplify your network state management!

What are your thoughts on the Network State Utils library? Feel free to ask questions or leave comments below! And don't forget to hit that Like button and follow for more awesome content! 🤩👍

Comments

[Eric Donovan]

Nice 👏👏👏 I reckon you might be able to get it to support ktor as well as retrofit by providing an alternative handleResponse function btw (and if you reference retrofit in the build grade with api rather than implementation, that should mean users won't need to pull in retrofit if they don't use it) and congrats on releasing it! 99% of devs don't get that far ;)

[Jimmy McBride]

That's actually a really good idea! Thanks for the insight! One thing I want to do as well is make the Error type more dynamic. People (or me) might want to handle errors in a more robust way.

I'm thinking of making an empty Error interface for the Error type instead of string. That way people can create their own custom Error types and just extend the interface to build their own custom implementations.

Building out support for retrofit and ktor is actually a beautiful idea. Could really flesh this out into a super useful tool!