Update UI with respect to data from observable

Question

I have LiveData in my InfoViewModel (written in Java)

public LiveData<List<Info>> getAllInfo(){ return allInfo }

In my DashboardActivity (written in Kotlin) i am trying to observe this LiveData then use result from the observer to update a list which should in turn update a portion of my UI.

The portion of my UI to be updated when there is a change in infoList size

 if(infoList.isEmpty){ Text("Empty") } else { Text("Info list size is ${InfoList.size} ") }

At first i used

val infoList by remember { mutableStateOf(ArrayList<Info>)}
SideEffect { infoViewModel.allInfo.observe(activity as LifecycleOwner, { infoList.addAll(it) } ) }

But my UI did not update when infoList size was updated by the observer. I searched here on stack overflow and found

 observeAsState

So i did this

 val infoList by infoViewModel.allInfo.observeAsState

But then observeAsState show errors. What can i do. My main problem here is notifying that portion of my UI that my infoList has changed and it should update itself or at least any way to update my UI with respect to the observable

Answer 1

So... I later discovered that

  observeAsState

Is part of the

  androidx.compose.runtime:runtime-livedata

artifacts so i added

  implementation "androidx.compose.runtime:runtime-livedata:$compose_version"

to my build.gradle (app level). I also added

  implementation 'androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-compose:1.0.0-alpha02'

to my build.gradle (app level), converted my DAO, repository and ViewModel classes from Java to Kotlin. After doing all these, i was able to

  import androidx.compose.runtime.livedata.observeAsState

Then on my DashboardActivity, inside my @Composable function

  val context = LocalContext.current

  val infoViewModel: InfoViewModel = viewModel(factory = InfoViewModelFactory(context.applicationContext as Application))
  /*this particular type of viewModel(factory = ...) is available after adding implementation 'androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-compose:1.0.0-alpha02' to build.gradle (app level)*/

  val infoList = infoViewModel.allInfo.observeAsState(listOf()).value

Then the portion of my UI that needed to be updated when there is a change in infoList size

  if(infoList.isEmpty){ Text("Empty") } else { Text("Info list size is ${InfoList.size} ") }

Started to work perfectly. In essence,

  implementation "androidx.compose.runtime:runtime-livedata:$compose_version"

                                      ...

  import androidx.compose.runtime.livedata.observeAsState

                                          ...

  val infoList = infoViewModel.allInfo.observeAsState(listOf()).value

got the job done for me:-)