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% Real World Reflex % Doug Beardsley % Takt

Audience

  • People with prior reflex knowledge
  • Interested in design patterns for larger apps

My Experience

Two production reflex apps

  • 02/2015 - 12/2015: 14,000 lines (Soostone)
  • 10/2016 - present: 21,000 lines (Takt)

Misc small projects

  • hsnippet.com
  • github.com/reflex-frp/reflex-dom-contrib
  • github.com/reflex-frp/reflex-dom-ace
  • github.com/reflex-frp/reflex-dom-semui
  • github.com/TaktInc/reflex-dhtmlx

Goal

  • Overall, building UIs with Reflex is fantastic.
  • This talk describes some less obvious things encountered while building real world app.

Outline

  • The API
  • Existence and Maybe
  • Widget Patterns
  • FRP Frames
  • Causality Loops

You will forget this

I've given this talk to multiple people as onboarding and they all came back with questions later that were answered here.

Come back to it

  • Don't feel bad

Note on code examples

Correct type signature

foo :: MonadWidget t m => Dynamic t Foo -> m (Event t ())

In this presentation

foo ::  Dynamic Foo -> m (Event ())

The API

Event, Behavior, Dynamic

  • Event - Notifies you when something occurs (push)
  • Behavior - Has a value at EVERY point in time (pull)
  • Dynamic - Gives you both
Hard to know when to use which type

The Big Question

When to use each one?

  • If you need to know when something happens...use Event
  • If you need to be able to get a value at arbitrary points in time...use Behavior
  • If you need to see something's value at arbitrary times AND know when it changes...use Dynamic

It really is exactly that

Yes, but that doesn't help

  • DOM API is primarily push-oriented
  • How would you implement dynText :: Dynamic Text -> m ()?
  • Need to know when it changes
  • Need to be able to query the value in case you have to redraw
  • Dynamic is usually preferred over Behavior

Event and Behavior

never :: Event a
hold :: a -> Event a -> m (Behavior a)
tag :: Behavior a -> Event b -> Event a
attach :: Behavior a -> Event b -> Event (a,b)
attachWith :: (a -> b -> c) -> Behavior a -> Event b -> Event c
switch :: Behavior (Event a) -> Event a

Dynamic

Accessors

current :: Dynamic a -> Behavior a
updated :: Dynamic a -> Event a

Construction

constDyn :: a -> Dynamic a
holdDyn :: a -> Event a -> m (Dynamic a)
foldDyn :: (a -> b -> b) -> b -> Event a -> m (Dynamic b)

Dynamic 2

tagDyn :: Dynamic a -> Event b -> Event a
attachDyn :: Dynamic a -> Event b -> Event (a,b)
attachDynWith :: (a -> b -> c) -> Dynamic a -> Event b -> Event c

Instances

FunctorApplicativeMonad
EventX
BehaviorXXX
DynamicXXX
  • T.pack . show <$> anEvent
  • () <$ anEvent

Existence and Maybe

Must have a value, but don't have one?

hold    :: a -> Event a -> m (Behavior a)
holdDyn :: a -> Event a -> m (Dynamic a)

Use the adjunction!

(a Maybe)

  • s/a/Maybe a/
  • How do you go the other way?
  • maybe, fromMaybe, etc
  • We have one more tool:

Use the adjunction!

(a Maybe)

fmapMaybe    :: (a -> Maybe b) -> Event a         -> Event b
fmapMaybe id ::                   Event (Maybe a) -> Event a

Widget Patterns

textErr

How to write?

textErr :: Either Text Text -> m ()

textErr

textErr :: Either Text Text -> m ()
textErr (Left err) = elClass "span" "red-text" $ text err
textErr (Right t) = text t

dynTextErr

  • How to write?
  • dynTextErr :: Dynamic (Either Text Text) -> m ()
  • Can't pattern match

Higher-order FRP

  • Reflex has two core higher-order functions:
  • widgetHold :: m a -> Event (m a) -> m (Dynamic a)
  • dyn :: Dynamic (m a) -> m (Event a)

Nested Reactive Values

| Outer | Inner | Collapsing Function | |----------|----------|---| | Dynamic | Dynamic | | | Dynamic | Behavior | | | Dynamic | Event | | | Behavior | Dynamic | | | Behavior | Behavior | | | Behavior | Event | | | Event | Dynamic | | | Event | Behavior | | | Event | Event | |

Nested Reactive Values

| Outer | Inner | Collapsing Function | |----------|----------|---| | Dynamic | Dynamic | join | | Dynamic | Behavior | join . current | | Dynamic | Event | switch . current, switchPromptlyDyn | | Behavior | Dynamic | join . fmap current | | Behavior | Behavior | join | | Behavior | Event | switch | | Event | Dynamic | join . holdDyn iv | | Event | Behavior | join . hold iv | | Event | Event | switch . hold iv, switchPromptly, switchPromptOnly |

Input Widgets

"Definitive" widget

widget :: a -> Event a -> m (Dynamic a)

View Widgets

widget :: Dynamic a -> m (Event a)

FRP Frames

Frames

  • A frame is the atomic time unit
    • Frame begins with, say, a mouse click
    • Mouse click event fires
    • Events fmapped from that event fire
    • All other events depending on those events fire
    • Repeat until there are no more event firings
    • Frame ends

Frames and Dynamics

current :: Dynamic a -> Behavior a
updated :: Dynamic a -> Event a
  • updated gets the new value from the firing event
  • current gets the value from the previous frame
  • uniqDyn supresses the firing if nothing changed

Causality Loops

Recursive Do

tweetWidget = do
    click <- button "Send Tweet"
    ta <- textArea $ def & setValue .~ ("" <$ click)
    ...

vs

tweetWidget = do
    rec ta <- textArea $ def & setValue .~ ("" <$ click)
        click <- button "Send Tweet"
    ...

Loops

loopWidget = do
    rec click <- button "Add"
        val <- formWidget a
        let a = leftmost [42 <$ click, updated val]

  • They don't happen very often
  • But when they do, it's hard to know how to debug them.

Loop Symptoms

  • App just hangs
  • Hangs and consumes 100% CPU
  • Throws bizarre error message
    • "heightBagRemove: Height 20 not present in bag HeightBag..."
    • "Causality loop found"
    • something else?

Finding Loops 1

  • Loops can only happen in recursive structures.
  • In practice, this is almost always a rec block.
  • So keep them as small as possible.

Minimizing the rec

loopWidget = do
    rec click <- button "Add"
        val <- formWidget a
        let a = leftmost [42 <$ click, updated val]

vs

loopWidget = do
    click <- button "Add"
    rec val <- formWidget a
        let a = leftmost [42 <$ click, updated val]

Finding Loops 2

  • Loops can only happen in a rec block, so keep them as small as possible
  • Disable whole blocks of code

Substitutions 1

For

m ()

Replace with

return ()

Substitutions 2

For

m (Event a)

Replace with

return never

Substitutions 3

For

m (Dynamic (Maybe a))

Replace with

return (constDyn Nothing)

Finding Loops 3

  • Loops can only happen in a rec block, so keep them as small as possible
  • Disable whole blocks of code
  • Binary search

Binary Search

val <- case ty of
         InputChar     -> charWidget
         InputString   -> stringWidget
         InputInt      -> intWidget
         InputDouble   -> doubleWidget
         InputDate     -> dateWidget
         InputTime     -> timeWidget
         InputDateTime -> dateTimeWidget
         InputEnum     -> enumWidget

Binary Search

val <- case ty of
--         InputChar     -> charWidget
--         InputString   -> stringWidget
--         InputInt      -> intWidget
--         InputDouble   -> doubleWidget
         InputDate     -> dateWidget
         InputTime     -> timeWidget
         InputDateTime -> dateTimeWidget
         InputEnum     -> enumWidget

Binary Search

val <- case ty of
         InputChar     -> charWidget
         InputString   -> stringWidget
         InputInt      -> intWidget
         InputDouble   -> doubleWidget
--         InputDate     -> dateWidget
--         InputTime     -> timeWidget
--         InputDateTime -> dateTimeWidget
--         InputEnum     -> enumWidget

Binary Search

val <- case ty of
--         InputChar     -> charWidget
--         InputString   -> stringWidget
--         InputInt      -> intWidget
--         InputDouble   -> doubleWidget
--         InputDate     -> dateWidget
--         InputTime     -> timeWidget
         InputDateTime -> dateTimeWidget
         InputEnum     -> enumWidget

Binary Search

val <- case ty of
--         InputChar     -> charWidget
--         InputString   -> stringWidget
--         InputInt      -> intWidget
--         InputDouble   -> doubleWidget
--         InputDate     -> dateWidget
--         InputTime     -> timeWidget
--         InputDateTime -> dateTimeWidget
         InputEnum     -> enumWidget

Fixing Loops

  • Use current
  • Avoid using "promptly" functions unless you know you need them

Fixing Loops: current

Two examples I've actually encountered

attachPromptlyDynWith func d e
attachWith func (current d) e

and

tagPromptlyDyn d e
tag (current d) e

Fixing Loops

  • Use current
  • Use input widget "change" events instead of value
  • Things must be sufficiently lazy
    • Only pass Event, Behavior, and Dynamic up a rec
    • Don't passs, e.g. (Event, Event)

Recap

  • Reflex is the most enjoyable UI development experience I've encountered.
  • Hopefully these tips will help you get up and running more quickly.

Questions?

http://mightybyte.net/real-world-reflex/index.html

doug@takt.com

Looking for a job? Takt is hiring!