Note – Listable is still experimental 🙈. While it is shipping in Square Point of Sale in several places, we're still actively iterating on the API, and backfilling comprehensive tests. As such, expect things to break and change in the coming months.
Listable is a declarative list framework for iOS, which allows you to concisely create rich, live updating list based layouts which are highly customizable across many axes: padding, spacing, number of columns, alignment, etc. It's designed to be performant: Handling lists of 10k+ items without issue on most devices.
self.listView.setContent{ list in
list +=Section("section-1"){ section in
section.header =DemoHeader(title:"This Is A Header")
section +=DemoItem(text:"And here is a row")
section +=DemoItem(text:"And here is another row.")letrows=["You can also map rows","Like this"]
section += rows.map{DemoItem(text: $0)}}
list +=Section("section-2"){ section in
section.header =DemoHeader(title:"Another Header")
section +=DemoItem(text:"The last row.")}}The core power and benefit of Listable comes from its declarative-style API, which allows you to implement SwiftUI or React style one-way data flow within your app's list views, eliminating many common state management bugs you encounter with standard UITableView or UICollectionView delegate-based solutions. You only need to tell the list what should be in it right now – it does the hard parts of diffing the changes to perform rich animated updates when new content is provided.
Let's say you start with an empty table, like so:
self.listView.setContent{ list in
// No content right now.
}And then push in new content, so there is one row with one section:
self.listView.setContent{ list in
list +=Section("section-1"){ section in
section.header =DemoHeader(title:"This Is A Header")
section +=DemoItem(text:"And here is a row")}}This new section will be animated into place. If you then insert another row:
self.listView.setContent{ list in
list +=Section("section-1"){ section in
section.header =DemoHeader(title:"This Is A Header")
section +=DemoItem(text:"And here is a row")
section +=DemoItem(text:"Another row!")}}It will also be animated into place by the list. The same goes for any change you make to the table – a diff will be performed, and the changes will be animated into place. Content that did not change between updates will be unaffected.
A core design principle of Listable is performance! Lists are usually small, but not always! For example, within Square Point of Sale, a seller may have an item catalog of 1,000, 10,000, or even more items. When designing Listable, it was important to ensure that it could support lists of these scales with minimum performance cost, to make it easy to build them without paying for performance, or without having to drop back down to standard UITableView or UICollectionView APIs, which are easy to misuse.
This performance is achieved through an internal batching system, which only queries and diffs the items needed to display the current scroll point, plus some scrollover. Views are only created for what is currently on screen. This allows culling of most content pushed into the list for long lists.
Further, height and sizing measurements are cached more efficiently than in a regular collection view implementation, which for large lists, can boost scrolling performance and prevent dropped frames.
Listable makes very few assumptions of the appearance of your content. The currency you deal with is plain UIViews (not UICollectionViewCells), so you can draw content however you wish.
Further, the layout and appearance controls vended by ListView allow for customization of the layout to draw lists in nearly any way desired.
This is primarily controlled through the Appearance object:
publicstructAppearance:Equatable{publicvarbackgroundColor:UIColorpublicvardirection:LayoutDirectionpublicvarstickySectionHeaders:Boolpublicvarlist:TableAppearance}You use the TableAppearance.Sizing struct to control the default measurements within the list: How tall are standard rows, headers, footers, etc.
publicstructTableAppearance.Sizing :Equatable{publicvaritemHeight:CGFloatpublicvarsectionHeaderHeight:CGFloatpublicvarsectionFooterHeight:CGFloatpublicvarlistHeaderHeight:CGFloatpublicvarlistFooterHeight:CGFloatpublicvaritemPositionGroupingHeight:CGFloat}You can use TableAppearance.Layout to customize the padding of the entire list, how wide the list should be (eg, up to 700px, more than 400px, etc) plus control spacing between items, headers, and footers.
publicstructTableAppearance.Layout :Equatable{publicvarpadding:UIEdgeInsetspublicvarwidth:WidthConstraintpublicvarinterSectionSpacingWithNoFooter:CGFloatpublicvarinterSectionSpacingWithFooter:CGFloatpublicvarsectionHeaderBottomSpacing:CGFloatpublicvaritemSpacing:CGFloatpublicvaritemToSectionFooterSpacing:CGFloatpublicvarstickySectionHeaders:Bool}Finally, the Behavior and Behavior.Underflow allows customizing what happens when a list's content is shorter than its container view: Should the scroll view bounce, should the content be centered, etc.
publicstructBehavior:Equatable{publicvarkeyboardDismissMode:UIScrollView.KeyboardDismissModepublicvarunderflow:UnderflowstructUnderflow:Equatable{publicvaralwaysBounce:Boolpublicvaralignment:AlignmentpublicenumAlignment:Equatable{case top
case center
case bottom
}}Another common pain-point for standard UITableViews or UICollectionViews is handling dynamic and self sizing cells. Listable handles this transparently for you, and provides many ways to size content. Each Item has a sizing property, which can be set to any of the following values. .default pulls the default sizing of the item from the List.Measurement mentioned above, where as the thatFits and autolayout values size the item based on sizeThatFits and systemLayoutSizeFitting, respectively.
publicenumSizing:Equatable{case `default`
case fixed(CGFloat)case thatFits(Constraint=.noConstraint)case autolayout(Constraint=.noConstraint)}Listable integrates closely with Blueprint, Square's framework for declarative UI construction and management (if you've used SwiftUI, Blueprint is similar). Listable provides wrapper types and default types to make using Listable lists within Blueprint elements simple, and to make it easy to build Listable items out of Blueprint elements.
All you need to do is take a dependency on the BlueprintUILists pod, and then import BlueprintUILists to begin using Blueprint integration.
In this example, we see how to declare a List within a Blueprint element hierarchy.
varelementRepresentation:Element{List{ list in
list +=Section("podcasts"){ section in
section +=self.podcasts.map{PodcastRow(podcast: $0)}}}}And in this example, we see how to create a simple BlueprintItemContent that uses Blueprint to render its content.
structDemoItem:BlueprintItemContent,Equatable{vartext:String
// ItemContent
varidentifierValue:String{returnself.text
}
// BlueprintItemContent
func element(with info :ApplyItemContentInfo)->Element{varbox=Box(
backgroundColor:.white,
cornerStyle:.rounded(radius:6.0),
wrapping:Inset(
uniformInset:10.0,
wrapping:Label(text:self.text)))
box.borderStyle =.solid(color:.white(0.9), width:2.0)return box
}}Listable provides integration with the os_signpost API for measuring the duration of events in your application. If you are experiencing issues with list performance in your app, you can profile it in Instruments, and add the os_signpost instrument to inspect the timing for various layout and update passes.
Most of your interaction will be three primary families of types: ListView, Item, HeaderFooter, and Section.
The list that you put content into! Beyond allocating a list and putting it on screen, the bulk of your interaction with ListView will be through the setContent API shown above.
self.listView.setContent{ list in
// Set list appearance, specify content, etc...
}What is that list parameter, you ask...?
ListProperties is a struct which contains all the information required to render a list update.
publicstructListProperties{publicvaranimatesChanges:BoolpublicvarlayoutType:ListLayoutTypepublicvarappearance:Appearancepublicvarbehavior:BehaviorpublicvarautoScrollAction:AutoScrollActionpublicvarscrollInsets:ScrollInsetspublicvaraccessibilityIdentifier:String?publicvarcontent:Content}This allows you to configure the list view however needed within the configure update.
You can think of Item as the wrapper for the content you provide to the list – similar to how a UITableViewCell or UICollectionViewCell wraps a content view and provides other configuration options.
An Item is what you add to a section to represent a row in a list. It contains your provided content (ItemContent), alongside things like sizing, layout customization, selection behavior, reordering behavior, and callbacks which are performed when an item is selected, displayed, etc.
publicstructItem<Content:ItemContent>:AnyItem{publicvaridentifier:Content.Identifierpublicvarcontent:Contentpublicvarsizing:Sizingpublicvarlayout:ItemLayoutpublicvarselection:ItemSelectionpublicvarswipeActions:SwipeActions?publicvarreordering:ItemReordering?publictypealiasOnSelect=(Content)->()publicvaronSelect:OnSelect?publictypealiasOnDeselect=(Content)->()publicvaronDeselect:OnDeselect?publictypealiasOnDisplay=(Content)->()publicvaronDisplay:OnDisplay?publictypealiasOnEndDisplay=(Content)->()publicvaronEndDisplay:OnEndDisplay?}You can add an item to a section via either the add function, or via the += override.
section +=Item(YourContent(title:"Hello, World!"),
sizing:.default,
selection:.notSelectable
)However, if you want to use all default values from the Item initializer, you can skip a step and simply add your ItemContent to the section directly.
section +=YourContent(title:"Hello, World!")The core value type which represents an item's content.
This view model describes the content of a given row / item, via the identifier, plus the wasMoved and isEquivalent methods.
To convert an ItemContent into views for display, the createReusableContentView(:) method is called to create a reusable view to use when displaying the content (the same happens for background views as well).
To prepare the views for display, the apply(to:for:with:) method is called, which is where you push the content from your ItemContent onto the provided views.
publicprotocolItemContent{associatedtypeIdentifierValue:HashablevaridentifierValue:IdentifierValue{get}func apply(
to views :ItemContentViews<Self>,
for reason:ApplyReason,
with info :ApplyItemContentInfo)func wasMoved(comparedTo other :Self)->Boolfunc isEquivalent(to other :Self)->BoolassociatedtypeContentView:UIViewstaticfunc createReusableContentView(frame :CGRect)->ContentViewassociatedtypeBackgroundView:UIView=UIViewstaticfunc createReusableBackgroundView(frame :CGRect)->BackgroundViewassociatedtypeSelectedBackgroundView:UIView=BackgroundViewstaticfunc createReusableSelectedBackgroundView(frame :CGRect)->SelectedBackgroundView}Note however, you usually do not need to implement all these methods! For example, if your ItemContent is Equatable, you get isEquivalent for free – and by default, wasMoved is the same was isEquivalent(other:) == false.
publicextensionItemContent{func wasMoved(comparedTo other :Self)->Bool{returnself.isEquivalent(to: other)==false}}publicextensionItemContentwhere Self:Equatable{func isEquivalent(to other :Self)->Bool{returnself== other
}}The BackgroundView and SelectedBackgroundView views also default to a plain UIView which do not display any content of their own. You only need to provide these background views if you wish to support customization of the appearance of the item during highlighting and selection.
publicextensionItemContentwhere BackgroundView ==UIView{staticfunc createReusableBackgroundView(frame :CGRect)->BackgroundView{BackgroundView(frame: frame)}}The SelectedBackgroundView also defaults to the type of BackgroundView unless you explicitly want two different view types.
publicextensionItemContentwhere BackgroundView ==SelectedBackgroundView{staticfunc createReusableSelectedBackgroundView(frame :CGRect)->BackgroundView{self.createReusableBackgroundView(frame: frame)}}This is all a bit abstract, so consider the following example: An ItemContent which provides a title and detail label.
structSubtitleItem:ItemContent,Equatable{vartitle:Stringvardetail:String
// ItemContent
func apply(to views :ItemContentViews<Self>, for reason:ApplyReason, with info :ApplyItemContentInfo){
views.content.titleLabel.text =self.title
views.content.detailLabel.text =self.detail }typealiasContentView=Viewstaticfunc createReusableContentView(frame :CGRect)->ContentView{View(frame: frame)}privatefinalclassView:UIView{lettitleLabel:UILabelletdetailLabel:UILabel...}}How to describe a header or footer within a list. Very similar API to Item, but with less stuff, as headers and footers are display-only.
publicstructHeaderFooter<Content:HeaderFooterContent>:AnyHeaderFooter{publicvarcontent:Contentpublicvarsizing:Sizingpublicvarlayout:HeaderFooterLayout}You set headers and footers on sections via the header and footer parameter.
self.listView.configure{ list in
list +=Section("section-1"){ section in
section.header =DemoHeader(title:"This Is A Header")
section.footer =DemoFooter(text:"And this is a footer. Please check the EULA for details.")}}Again, a similar API to ItemContent, but with a reduced surface area, given the reduced concerns of header and footers.
publicprotocolHeaderFooterContent{func apply(to view :Appearance.ContentView, reason :ApplyReason)func isEquivalent(to other :Self)->BoolassociatedtypeContentView:UIViewstaticfunc createReusableContentView(frame :CGRect)->ContentViewassociatedtypeBackgroundView:UIViewstaticfunc createReusableBackgroundView(frame :CGRect)->BackgroundViewassociatedtypePressedBackgroundView:UIViewstaticfunc createReusablePressedBackgroundView(frame :CGRect)->PressedBackgroundView}As is with Item, if your HeaderFooterContent is Equatable, you get isEquivalent for free.
publicextensionHeaderFooterContentwhere Self:Equatable{func isEquivalent(to other :Self)->Bool{returnself== other
}}A standard implementation may look like this:
structHeader:HeaderFooterContent,Equatable{vartitle:Stringfunc apply(to view :Appearance.ContentView, for reason:ApplyReason){
view.titleLabel.text =self.title }typealiasContentView=Viewstaticfunc createReusableContentView(frame :CGRect)->ContentView{View(frame: frame)}privatefinalclassView:UIView{lettitleLabel:UILabel...}}Section – surprise – represents a given section in a list. Most of your interaction with Section will be through the init & builder API, as shown above.
Section("section"){ section in
section +=self.podcasts.map{PodcastRow(podcast: $0)}}However, section has many properties to allow for configuration. You can customize the layout, the number of and layout of columns, set the header and footer, and obviously provide items, via the items property, and via the many provided overrides of the += operator.
publicstructSection{publicvarlayout:Layoutpublicvarcolumns:Columnspublicvarheader:AnyHeaderFooter?publicvarfooter:AnyHeaderFooter?publicvaritems:[AnyItem]}If you're using Blueprint integration via the BlueprintUILists module, you will also interact with the following types.
When using ListView directly, you'd use list.configure { list in ... } to set the content of a list.
However, Blueprint element trees are just descriptions of UI – as such, List is just a Blueprint Element which describes a list. The parameter passed to List { list in ... } is the same type (ListProperties) that is passed to list.configure { list in ... }.
varelementRepresentation:Element{List{ list in
list +=Section("section"){ section in
section +=self.podcasts.map{PodcastRow(podcast: $0)}}}}BlueprintItemContent simplifies the ItemContent creation process, asking you for a Blueprint Element description, instead of view types and view instances.
Unless you are supporting highlighting and selection of your ItemContent, you do not need to provide implementations of backgroundElement(:) and selectedBackgroundElement(:) – they default to returning nil. Similar to ItemContent, wasMoved(:) and isEquivalent(:) are also provided based on Equatable conformance.
publicprotocolBlueprintItemContent:ItemContent{associatedtypeIdentifierValue:HashablevaridentifierValue:IdentifierValue{get}func wasMoved(comparedTo other :Self)->Boolfunc isEquivalent(to other :Self)->Boolfunc element(with info :ApplyItemContentInfo)->Elementfunc backgroundElement(with info :ApplyItemContentInfo)->Element?func selectedBackgroundElement(with info :ApplyItemContentInfo)->Element?}A standard BlueprintItemContent may look something like this:
structMyPerson:BlueprintItemContent,Equatable{varname:StringvarphoneNumber:StringvaridentifierValue:String{self.name
}func element(with info :ApplyItemContentInfo)->Element{Row{
$0.add(child:Label(text: name))
$0.add(child:Spacer())
$0.add(child:Label(text: name))}.inset(by:15.0)}}Similarly, BlueprintHeaderFooterContent makes creating a header or footer easy – just implement elementRepresentation, which provides the content element for your header or footer. As usual, isEquivalent(to:) is provided if your type is Equatable.
publicprotocolBlueprintHeaderFooterContent:HeaderFooterElement{func isEquivalent(to other :Self)->BoolvarelementRepresentation:Element{get}}A standard BlueprintHeaderFooterContent may look something like this:
structMyHeader:BlueprintHeaderFooterContent,Equatable{varname:StringvaritemCount:StringvarelementRepresentation:Element{Row{
$0.add(child:Label(text: name))
$0.add(child:Spacer())
$0.add(child:Label(text: itemCount))}.inset(by:15.0)}}Listable is published on CocoaPods. You can add a dependency on Listable or it's Blueprint wrapper with the following in your Podspec:
s.dependency 'ListableUI'
s.dependency 'BlueprintUILists'
If you want to depend on bleeding-edge changes, you can add the pods to your Podfile via the git repo like so:
pod 'BlueprintUILists', git: 'ssh://git@github.com:kyleve/Listable.git'
pod 'ListableUI', git: 'ssh://git@github.com:kyleve/Listable.git'
If you'd like to see examples of Listable in use, clone the repo, and then run bundle exec pod install in the root of the repo. This will create the Demo/Demo.xcworkspace workspace, which you can open and run. It contains examples of various types of screens and use cases.
You can nest horizontal scrolling Lists within vertical scrolling lists to create advanced, custom layouts. Listable provides a ListItemElement to make this easy.
By setting the layout parameter on Item or HeaderFooter, you can specify the alignment of each item within a layout, how much padding it should have, how much spacing it can have, etc.
Listable is built on top of UICollectionView, with a custom UICollectionViewLayout though this is not exposed to consumers.
Internally, performance is achieved through transparent batching of content that is loaded into the collection view itself. This allows pushing large amounts
of content into the list, but ListView is intelligent enough to only load, measure, diff, etc, enough of that content to display the current scroll position,
plus some scroll overflow. In practice, this means that even if you put 50,000 items into a list, if the user is scrolled at the top of the table, only a few hundred
items will be measured, diffed, and take up computation time during initial rendering and updates. This allows performance to remain nearly constant, regardless
of what content is pushed into the list. The farther down a user scrolls, the more computation must be completed.
Internally, every item drawn on screen and visible in the list is represented by a long-lived PresentationState instance, which tracks visible cells, sizing measurements, etc.
This long lived object allows an extra layer which means it's easy to cache height calculations across multiple content updates in the list view, allowing for further performance
improvements and optimizations. This is transparent to the developer.
Building rich and interactive list views and lists on iOS remains a challenge. Maintaining state and performing animations on changes is tricky and error prone. More often than not, there are lurking state bugs that result in inconsistent data or crashes that are hard to diagnose and debug.
Historically, we have managed list view state one of a few ways...
Via Core Data and NSFetchedResultsController, which handles diffing and updates. However, this binds your UI tightly to the underlying core data model, which makes changes difficult and error prone. You end up needing to model UI concerns deep in your Core Data model to sort and section your data as you want. No good.
Use other options such as common block-based table view or collection view builders – which abstracts some of the complexity away from developers, but it still deals in the currency of cells and views – and makes it difficult to properly handle animations and updates.
Sometimes, you end up just giving up and calling reloadData() any time anything in your table’s data source changes – this sucks because users don’t see animations which indicate to them what changed.
Or, even worse, you end up managing insertions, deletions, and updates yourself, which usually goes something like this…
Call beginUpdates
Call insertRow:atIndexPath: Call insertRow:atIndexPath: Call moveRowAtIndexPath:toIndexPath: Etc..
Call endUpdates
Assertion failure in UITableView/UICollectionView.m:20000000: The number of rows before the update is not equal to > the number of rows after the update, plus or minus the added and removed rows. You suck, nerd!
[Crash]
Needless to say, none of these options are great, and all of these are state-of-the-art circa about 2011 – which was a long time ago.
Copyright 2019 Square, Inc.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License