Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.

Post History

80%
+6 −0
Q&A Proper way of sending large amount of data from View to ViewModel

The problem I am working on a simple drawing app for Android. I have a custom view on which the user can draw. This means that a lot of data (a list of points) is generated in this View. I want t...

1 answer  ·  posted 3y ago by FractionalRadix‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by nnlei‭

Question java android binding
#4: Post edited by user avatar Alexei‭ · 2020-11-08T11:32:36Z (over 3 years ago)
added relevant tag
#3: Post edited by user avatar hkotsubo‭ · 2020-11-07T09:19:33Z (over 3 years ago)
#2: Post edited by user avatar hkotsubo‭ · 2020-11-07T09:18:54Z (over 3 years ago)
Formatting / added android tag
#1: Initial revision by user avatar FractionalRadix‭ · 2020-11-07T07:37:19Z (over 3 years ago)
Proper way of sending large amount of data from View to ViewModel
**The problem**

I am working on a simple drawing app for Android. I have a custom view on which the user can draw. This means that a lot of data (a list of points) is generated in this View.

I want to store this data in the ViewModel. 

If I need to update a View after something changes in the ViewModel, I can just use LiveData in the ViewModel and put an observer in the View.
However, what I need is the other direction: changes in the View should lead to an update of the data in the ViewModel.

**What I've learnt so far**

I can use MutableLiveData for this, however, it is unclear to me what the right way is to give the View access to the MutableLiveData.

I can access a ViewModel from an Activity, by calling:

`viewModel = new ViewModelProvider(this).get(MyViewModel.class);`

But, I cannot access the ViewModel from the View. `ViewModelProvider` takes a `ViewModelStoreOwner` as its parameter. An `Activity` is a `ViewModelStoreOwner`,  but a View is not.  
I believe this is intentional, otherwise the View would be a ViewModelStoreOwner itself. I could pass a reference to the Activity or the ViewModel itself to the View, but this feels wrong.

It seems that I need to use MutableLiveData. I could then use `setValue` or `postValue` on the MutableLiveData whenever the View has more data to send.  
However, that just shifts the problem: how should the View get access to the MutableLiveData?

**What I've tried**

For now, I have a workaround.  
I have created an interface "ListOfPoints" that is implemented by the Activity. The View has a method `setPointsOwner(ListOfPoints)` . So, effectively, the View still gets a reference to the Activity, but can only use it to manipulate the data. The implementation of the interface, inside the Activity, then updates the MutableLiveData it gets from the ViewModel.

This works, but still feels wrong. 

**The question**

How can I send a lot of data from a View to a ViewModel?

Is it proper coding style to give the View access to MutableLiveData from the owning Activity?  
Or is there a way in which I can make the ViewModel observe the View, without letting it have a direct reference to the View?