Separating the Concerns of Activity and GoogleApiClient

android, design-patterns, google-api-client, google-play-services, google-plus

Solution

0. TL;DR

For the impatient coder, a working version of the following implementation can be found on GitHub.

Reducing our problem only to the connection concept, we may consider that:

- It has finite states.

- It encapsulates the connection client.

- It is (rather) be unique.

- The current state affect the behavior of the app.

1. State Pattern

This is a behavioral pattern the allow an object to alter its behavior when its internal state changes. The GoF Design Patterns book describes how a TCP connection can be represent by this pattern (which is also our case).

A state from a state machine should be a `singleton`, and the easiest away of doing it in Java was to create `Enum` named `State` as follows:

public enum State {
    CREATED {
        void connect(Connection connection) {
            connection.onSignUp();
        }
    },
    OPENING {
        void connect(Connection connection) {
            connection.onSignIn();
        }
    },
    OPENED {
        void disconnect(Connection connection) {
            connection.onSignOut();
        }
        void revoke(Connection connection) {
            connection.onRevokeAndSignOut();
        }
    },
    CLOSED {
        void connect(Connection connection) {
            connection.onSignIn();
        }
    };

    void connect(Connection connection) {}
    void disconnect(Connection connection) {}
    void revoke(Connection connection) {}
}

The `Activity` will communicate with the `Connection` abstract class (which holds the context) through the methods `connect()`, `disconnect()`, and `revoke()`. The current state defines how these methods will behave:

public void connect() {
    currentState.connect(this);
}

public void disconnect() {
    currentState.disconnect(this);
}

public void revoke() {
    currentState.revoke(this);
}

private void changeState(State state) {
    currentState = state;
    setChanged();
    notifyObservers(state);
}

2. Proxy Pattern

The class `GoogleConnection` inherits from `Connection` and encapsulates the `GoogleApiClient`, so it must provide both `ConnectionCallbacks` and `OnConnectionFailedListener` as follows:

@Override
public void onConnected(Bundle connectionHint) {
    changeState(State.OPENED);
}

@Override
public void onConnectionSuspended(int cause) {
    mGoogleApiClient.connect();
}

@Override
public void onConnectionFailed(ConnectionResult result) {
    if (state.equals(State.CLOSED) && result.hasResolution()) {
        changeState(State.CREATED);
        connectionResult = result;
    } else {
        connect();
    }
}

public void onActivityResult(int resultCode) {
    if (resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
        connect();
    } else {
        changeState(State.CREATED);
    }
}

The methods `onSignIn()`, `onSignUp()`, `onSignOut()`, and `onRevokeAndSignOut` are required on the second step of this explanation.

public void onSignUp() {
    try {
        Activity activity = activityWeakReference.get();
        changeState(State.OPENING);
        connectionResult.startResolutionForResult(activity, REQUEST_CODE);
    } catch (IntentSender.SendIntentException e) {
        changeState(State.CREATED);
        mGoogleApiClient.connect();
    }
}

public void onSignIn() {
    if (!mGoogleApiClient.isConnected() && !mGoogleApiClient.isConnecting()) {
        mGoogleApiClient.connect();
    }
}

public void onSignOut() {
    Plus.AccountApi.clearDefaultAccount(mGoogleApiClient);
    mGoogleApiClient.disconnect();
    changeState(State.CLOSED);
    mGoogleApiClient.connect();
}

public void onRevokeAndSignOut() {
    Plus.AccountApi.clearDefaultAccount(mGoogleApiClient);
    Plus.AccountApi.revokeAccessAndDisconnect(mGoogleApiClient);
    changeState(State.CLOSED);
    mGoogleApiClient = mGoogleApiClientBuilder.build();
    mGoogleApiClient.connect();
}

3. Singleton Pattern

Since there is not need to recreate this class repeatedly, we provide it as a singleton:

public static Connection getInstance(Activity activity) {
    if (null == sConnection) {
        sConnection = new GoogleConnection(activity);
    }

    return sConnection;
}

public void onActivityResult(int result) {
    if (result == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
        changeState(State.CREATED);
    } else {
        changeState(State.CLOSED);
    }
    onSignIn();
}

private GoogleConnection(Activity activity) {
    activityWeakReference = new WeakReference<>(activity);

    googleApiClientBuilder = new GoogleApiClient
           .Builder(activity)
           .addConnectionCallbacks(this)
           .addOnConnectionFailedListener(this)
           .addApi(Plus.API, Plus.PlusOptions.builder().build())
           .addScope(new Scope("email"));

    googleApiClient = googleApiClientBuilder.build();
    currentState = State.CLOSED;

    googleApiClient.connect();
}

4. Observable Pattern

The `Connection` class extends Java `Observable`, so one or many activities can observe the state changes:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle bundle) {
    mConnection = GoogleConnection.getInstance(this);
    mConnection.addObserver(this);
}

@Override
protected void onDestroy() {
    mConnection.deleteObserver(this);
}

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int request, int result, Intent data) {
    if (Connection.REQUEST_CODE == request) {
        mConnection.onActivityResult(result);
    }
}

@Override
public void update(Observable observable, Object data) {
    if (observable == mGoogleConnection) {
        // UI/UX magic happens here ;-)
    }
}

Problem

Original source