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The Scene Framework
Known internally as "Flexiglass", this framework defines a graph where each node is a "scene" and each edge between the scenes is a transition. The scenes are the main components of System UI, on phones these are: the lockscreen, bouncer, shade, and quick settings panels/views/screens). Each scene is a standalone experience.
The main goal of the framework is to increase code health by applying Separation of concerns over several dimensions:
- Each scene is a standalone piece of UI; their code doesn't need to concern itself with either transition animations or anything in other scenes. This frees the developer to be able to focus only on the content of the UI for that scene.
- Transition definitions (which scene leads to which other scene following which user action) are pulled out and separated from the content of the UI.
- Transition animations (the effects that happen alongside the gradual change from one scene to another) are also pulled out and separated from the content of the UI.
In addition to the above, some of the secondary goals are:
- Make customization easier: by separating scenes to standalone pieces, it becomes possible for variant owners and OEMs to exclude or replace certain scenes or to add brand-new scenes.
- Enable modularization: by separating scenes to standalone pieces, it becomes possible to break down System UI into smaller codebases, each one of which could be built on its own. Note: this isn't part of the scene framework itself but is something that can be done more easily once the scene framework is in place.
Terminology
- Scene a collection of UI elements in a layout that, together, make up a "screen" or "page" that is as large as the container. Scenes can be navigated between / transition to/from. To learn more, please see this section.
- Element (or "UI element") a single unit of UI within a scene. One scene can arrange multiple elements within a layout structure.
- Transition the gradual switching from one scene to another scene. There are two kinds: user-driven and automatic scene transitions.
- Transition animation the set of UI effects that occurs while/during a transition. These can apply to the entire scene or to specific elements in the scene. To learn more, please see this section.
- Scene container (or just "container") the root piece of UI (typically a
@Composable
function) that sets up all the scenes, their transitions, etc. To learn more, please see this section. - Container configuration (or just "configuration") the collection of scenes and some added information about the desired behaviour of a container. To learn more, please see this section.
Enabling the framework
As of the end of 2023, the scene framework is under development; as such, it is disabled by default. For those who are interested in a preview, please follow the instructions below to turn it on.
NOTE: in case these instructions become stale and don't actually enable the
framework, please make sure SceneContainerFlag.isEnabled
in the
SceneContainerFlag.kt
file evalutes to true
.
-
Set a collection of aconfig flags to
true
by running the following commands:$ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.keyguard_bottom_area_refactor true $ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.keyguard_wm_state_refactor true $ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.migrate_clocks_to_blueprint true $ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.notification_avalanche_throttle_hun true $ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.predictive_back_sysui true $ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.device_entry_udfps_refactor true $ adb shell device_config override systemui com.android.systemui.scene_container true
-
Restart System UI by issuing the following command:
$ adb shell am crash com.android.systemui
-
Verify that the scene framework was turned on. There are two ways to do this:
(a) look for the sash/ribbon UI at the bottom-right corner of the display:
NOTE: this will be removed proper to the actual release of the framework.
(b) Turn on logging and look for the logging statements in
logcat
:# Turn on logging from the framework: $ adb shell cmd statusbar echo -b SceneFramework:verbose
Checking if the framework is enabled
Look for the log statements from the framework:
$ adb logcat -v time SceneFramework:* *:S
Disabling the framework
To disable the framework, simply turn off the main aconfig flag:
$ adb shell device_config put systemui com.android.systemui.scene_container false
Defining a scene
By default, the framework ships with fully functional scenes as enumarated here. Should a variant owner or OEM want to replace or add a new scene, they could do so by defining their own scene. This section describes how to do that.
Each scene is defined as an implementation of the
Scene
interface, which has three parts: 1. The key
property returns the
SceneKey
that uniquely identifies that scene 2. The userActions
Flow
returns
the (potentially ever-changing) set of navigation edges to other content, based
on user-actions, which is how the navigation graph is defined (see
the Scene navigation section for more) 3. The Content
function which uses
Jetpack Compose to declare of
the UI itself. This is the UI "at rest", e.g. once there is no transition
between any two scenes. The Scene Framework has other ways to define how the
content of your UI changes with and throughout a transition to learn more please
see the Scene transition animations section
For example:
@SysUISingleton class YourScene @Inject constructor( /* your dependencies here */ ) : Scene {
override val key = SceneKey.YourScene
override val userActions: StateFlow<Map<UserAction, SceneModel>> =
MutableStateFlow<Map<UserAction, SceneModel>>(
mapOf(
// This is where scene navigation is defined, more on that below.
)
).asStateFlow()
@Composable
override fun SceneScope.Content(
modifier: Modifier,
) {
// This is where the UI is defined using Jetpack Compose.
}
}
Injecting scenes
Scenes are injected into the Dagger dependency graph from the
SceneModule
.
Scene navigation
As seen above, each scene is responsible for providing an observable Flow
of a
Map
that connects UserAction
(for example: swipe down, swipe up, back
button/gesture, etc.) keys to SceneModel
destinations. This is how the scene
navigation graph is defined.
NOTE: this controls only user-input based navigation. To learn about the other type of scene navigation, please see the Automatic scene transitions section.
Because this is a Flow
, scene implemetations should feel free to emit new
values over time. For example, the Lockscreen
scene ties the "swipe up" user
action to go to the Bouncer
scene if the device is still locked or to go to
the Gone
scene if the device is unlocked, allowing the user to dismiss the
lockscreen UI when not locked.
Scene transition animations
The Scene Framework separates transition animations from content UI declaration by placing the definition of the former in a different location. This way, there's no longer a need to contaminate the content UI declaration with animation logic, a practice that becomes unscalable over time.
Under the hood, the Scene Framework uses
SceneTransitionLayout
,
a @Composable
function designed with scene graph and transitions in mind. In
fact, the Scene Framework is merely a shallow wrapper around
SceneTransitionLayout
.
The SceneTransitionLayout
API requires the transitions to be passed-in
separately from the scenes themselves. In System UI, the transitions can be
found in
SceneContainerTransitions
.
As you can see, each possible scene-to-scene transition has its own builder,
here's one example:
fun TransitionBuilder.lockscreenToShadeTransition() {
spec = tween(durationMillis = 500)
punchHole(Shade.Elements.QuickSettings, bounds = Shade.Elements.Scrim, Shade.Shapes.Scrim)
translate(Shade.Elements.Scrim, Edge.Top, startsOutsideLayoutBounds = false)
fractionRange(end = 0.5f) {
fade(Shade.Elements.ScrimBackground)
translate(
QuickSettings.Elements.CollapsedGrid,
Edge.Top,
startsOutsideLayoutBounds = false,
)
}
fractionRange(start = 0.5f) { fade(Notifications.Elements.Notifications) }
}
Going through the example code:
- The
spec
is the animation that should be invoked, in the example above, we use atween
animation with a duration of 500 milliseconds - Then there's a series of function calls:
punchHole
applies a clip mask to theScrim
element in the destination scene (in this case it's theShade
scene) which has the position and size determined by thebounds
parameter and the shape passed into theshape
parameter. This lets theLockscreen
scene render "through" theShade
scene - The
translate
call shifts theScrim
element to/from theTop
edge of the scene container - The first
fractionRange
wrapper tells the system to apply its contained functions only during the first half of the transition. Inside of it, we see afade
of theScrimBackground
element and atranslate
o theCollpasedGrid
element to/from theTop
edge - The second
fractionRange
only starts at the second half of the transition (e.g. when the previous one ends) and applies afade
on theNotifications
element
You can find the actual documentation for this API here.
Tagging elements
As demonstrated above, elements within a scene can be addressed from transition
defintions. In order to "tag" an element with a specific ElementKey
, the
element
modifier
must be used on the composable that declared that element's UI:
Text(
text = "Some text",
modifier = Modifier.element(MyElements.SomeText),
)
In addition to the ability to refer to a tagged element in transition
definitions, if the same ElementKey
is used for one element in the current
scene and another element in the destination scene, the element is considered to
be a shared element. As such, the framework automatically translates and
scales the bounds of the shared element from its current bounds in the source
scene to its final bounds in the destination scene.
Scene container
To set up a scene framework instance, a scene container must be declared. This
is the root of an entire scene graph that puts together the scenes, their
transitions, and the configuration. The container is then added to a parent
@Composable
or View
so it can be displayed.
The default scene container in System UI is defined in the
SceneContainer.kt
file.
Scene container configuration
The SceneContainer
function is passed a few parameters including a view-model
and a set of scenes. The exact details of what gets passed in depends on the
SceneContainerConfig
object
which is injected into the Dagger dependency graph
here.
Automatic scene transitions
The scene framework supports the ability for scenes to change automatically
based on device state or events other than direct user input. For example: when
the device is locked, there's an automatic scene transition to the Lockscreen
scene.
This logic is contained within the
SceneContainerStartable
class.
Side-effects
Similarly to the above, the
SceneContainerStartable
also handles side-effects by updating other parts of
the System UI codebase whenever internal scene framework state changes. As an
example: the visibility of the View
that contains our
scene container is updated every time there's a transition
to or from the Gone
scene.
Observing scene transition state
There are a couple of ways to observe the transition state:
- [Easiest] using the
SceneScope
of the scene container, simply use theanimateSharedXAsState
API, the full list is here. - [Harder] if outside the
SceneScope
of the scene container, observeSceneInteractor.transitionState
.
Dependency Injection
The entire framework is provided into the Dagger dependency graph from the
top-level Dagger module at
SceneContainerFrameworkModule
this puts together the scenes from SceneModule
, the configuration from
SceneContainerConfigModule
, and the startable from
SceneContainerStartableModule
.
Integration Notes
Relationship to Jetpack Compose
The scene framework depends on Jetpack Compose; therefore, compiling System UI with
Jetpack Compose is required. However, because Jetpack Compose and Android Views
interoperate,
the UI in each scene doesn't necessarily need to be a pure hierarchy of @Composable
functions; instead, it's acceptable to use an AndroidView
somewhere in the
hierarchy of composable functions to include a View
or ViewGroup
subtree.
Interoperability with Views
The scene framework comes with built-in functionality to animate the entire scene and/or elements within the scene in-tandem with the actual scene transition progress.
For example, as the user drags their finger down rom the top of the lockscreen, the shade scene becomes visible and gradually expands, the amount of expansion tracks the movement of the finger.
That feature of the framework uses a custom element(ElementKey)
Jetpack Compose
Modifier
to refer to elements within a scene.
The transition builders then use the same ElementKey
objects to refer to those elements
and describe how they animate in-tandem with scene transitions. Because this is a
Jetpack Compose Modifier
, it means that, in order for an element in a scene to be
animated automatically by the framework, that element must be nested within a pure
@Composable
hierarchy. The element itself is allowed to be a classic Android View
(nested within a Jetpack Compose AndroidView
) but all ancestors must be @Composable
functions.
Notifications
As of January 2024, the integration of notifications and heads-up notifications (HUNs) into the scene framework follows an unusual pattern. We chose this pattern due to migration risk and performance concerns but will eventually replace it with the more common element placement pattern that all other elements are following.
The special pattern for notifications is that, instead of the notification list
(NotificationStackScrollLayout
or "NSSL", which also displays HUNs) being placed in the element
hierarchy within the scenes that display notifications, the NSSL (which continues to be an Android View)
"floats" above the scene container, rendering on top of everything. This is very similar to
how NSSL is integrated with the legacy shade, prior to the scene framework.
In order to render the NSSL as if it's part of the organic hierarchy of elements within its
scenes, we control the NSSL's self-imposed effective bounds (e.g. position offsets, clip path,
size) from @Composable
elements within the normal scene hierarchy. These special
"placeholder" elements can be found
here.