Redux-like state container in SwiftUI. Container Views.

This week I want to continue the topic of using a Redux-like state container in SwiftUI. I’m delighted with the new approach and already finished the refactoring of the NapBot app in this way. That’s why today I want to share with you how I use Container Views with a state container similar to Redux.

In previous weeks we already discussed the basics and some good practices while using Redux-like state containers. If you are not familiar with Redux, please take a look at those posts to understand how to build it in SwiftUI and which benefits you get by using it.

The container which holds the whole app’s state as a single source of truth simplifies my codebase and eliminates a bunch of bugs that I had during manual sync between multiple states across the app screens. To learn more about modeling app state using multiple store objects, check my dedicated post.

Container Views

Today, I want to touch another subject from my previous posts which plays very nice in conjunction with a Redux-like state container, and this is Container Views. Container Views help us to keep our SwiftUI views simple and responsible for only one job.

The main idea is dividing your views into two types: Container Views and Rendering Views. The Rendering View is responsible for drawing the content, and that’s all. So basically it should not store the state or handle any lifecycle event. It usually renders the data which you pass via the init method.

Container View, on another hand, is responsible for handling data-flow and lifecycle events by providing the functions/closures to a Rendering View. Let’s take a look at a simple example.

import SwiftUI struct SearchContainerView : View { @EnvironmentObject var store : ReposStore @State private var query : String = "Swift" var body : some View { SearchView ( query : $ query , repos : store . repos , onCommit : fetch ) . onAppear ( perform : fetch ) } private func fetch () { store . fetch ( matching : query ) } } struct SearchView : View { @Binding var query : String let repos : [ Repo ] let onCommit : () -> Void var body : some View { List { TextField ( "Type something" , text : $ query , onCommit : onCommit ) ReposView ( repos : repos ) } } } struct ReposView : View { let repos : [ Repo ] var body : some View { ForEach ( repos ) { repo in HStack ( alignment : . top ) { VStack ( alignment : . leading ) { Text ( repo . name ) . font ( . headline ) Text ( repo . description ?? "" ) . font ( . subheadline ) } } } } }

In the example above, you can see how we build a connection between Container and Rendering views. Container View provides the data to Rendering Views. By doing this, we can easily reuse our ReposView anywhere across the app. ReposView doesn’t have any dependency on some state or datastore and gets all the needed data via the init method. To learn more about Container Views, take a look at “Introducing Container views in SwiftUI” post.

Using Container Views with Redux-like state container

During my transition from multiple stores to a single source of truth, I realize that Container Views play a significant role in this approach. I mainly use them for sending actions to the store and mapping the global app state to Rendering View properties. Container Views perfectly fit into my current app architecture. Let’s take a look at the example.

import SwiftUI struct SearchContainerView : View { @EnvironmentObject var store : AppStore @State private var query : String = "Swift" var body : some View { SearchView ( query : $ query , repos : store . state . search . result , onCommit : fetch ) . onAppear ( perform : fetch ) } private func fetch () { store . send ( SideEffect . search ( query )) } } struct SearchView : View { @Binding var query : String let repos : [ Repo ] let onCommit : () -> Void var body : some View { List { TextField ( "Type something" , text : $ query , onCommit : onCommit ) ReposView ( repos : repos ) } } }

As you can see in the example above, Container View helps us to keep Rendering Views small and independent.

Conclusion

Today we talked about the benefits of using Container Views with Redux-like state containers. I love this approach and use it as my main way to go with SwiftUI. I hope you enjoy the post. Feel free to follow me on Twitter and ask your questions related to this post. Thanks for reading and see you next week!