YAXL.Redux - Yet Another Xamarin Library | Redux

Intro

YAXL.Redux is a predictable state container for Xamarin and C# applications. It is a straightforward C# port of redux and aims at solving the exactly same problems.

Let's look at a concrete example:

Actions using Types (POCO)

// Actions are defined as actual types
public class IncrementAction {}
public class DecrementAction {}
public class SetCounterAction
{
    public int Value { get; set; }
}

var counter = new Store<int>((state, action) =>
{
    if (action is IncrementAction)
        return state + 1;
    if (action is DecrementAction)
        return state - 1;
    if (action is SetCounterAction s)
        return s.Value;

    return state;
}, 0);

This creates a store that acts as a counter since it holds a single int value inside. Actions are handled by their type so it means:

• Class name is the action name
• The traditional payload is now defined as Public Properties inside the POCO

We can use it in our Xamarin app for consistent UI updates. If the UI is given as:

<StackLayout VerticalOptions="Center">
    <Label Text="Counter" />
    <Label x:Name="CounterValue" />
    <Button Clicked="Up_Clicked" Text="+" />
    <Button Clicked="Down_Clicked" Text="-" />
    <Button Clicked="SetTo42_Clicked" Text="Set to 42">
</StackLayout>

We would connect our store to our UI by projecting the necessary parts. Projection is done when the state is large and when a particular UI part only needs to know about a part of the entire app's state.

public partial class CounterFormsPage : ContentPage
{
    Store<int> counter;

    public CounterFormsPage()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        // counter creation ommitted

        counter.Connect(mapStateToProps: state => new
        {
            count = state
        }, propsChanged: props =>
        {
            CounterValue.Text = props.count.ToString();
        });
    }

    private void Up_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) => counter.Dispatch(new IncrementAction());

    private void Down_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) => counter.Dispatch(new DecrementAction());
    
    private void SetTo42_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) => counter.Dispatch(new SetCounterAction { Value = 42 });
}

Actions using string

Actions don't have to be defined as classes, they can be anything reducer can handle:

var counter = new Store<int>((state, action) =>
{
    if (Equals(action, "+"))
        return state + 1;
    if (Equals(action, "-"))
        return state - 1;

    return state;
}, 0);

This creates a store that acts as a counter since it holds a single int value inside. It can handle two string based actions (actions can be any object) which serve as increment/decrement.

public partial class CounterFormsPage : ContentPage
{
    Store<int> counter;

    public CounterFormsPage()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        // counter creation ommitted

        counter.Connect(mapStateToProps: state => new
        {
            count = state
        }, propsChanged: props =>
        {
            CounterValue.Text = props.count.ToString();
        });
    }

    private void Up_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) => counter.Dispatch("+");

    private void Down_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) => counter.Dispatch("-");
}

How to install?

Library can be built from sources or installed via NuGet.

PM> Install-Package YAXL.Redux -pre

Little bit of extra reading

Blog posts about building this library:

1. MVVM, data stores and Redux
2. Implementing Redux in C#, Part 1

Similar libraries

1. redux.NET
2. reducto
3. ReduxSimple

Pull requests and contributions

This is an open source project and we accept contributes. Please be mindful about style changes when submitting pull requests, we will reject those pull requests which are mostly style changes.

License

YAXL.Redux is distributed under MIT licence