In this chat, Sebastiano Poggi, a UX engineer at Google, reveals how the Android Studio team enhances UIs, including the innovative use of Compose for Desktop and the Jewel library. He discusses the challenges of text rendering across platforms and the productivity boosts provided by modern UI tools. The complexities of integrating Markdown and adapting legacy frameworks for desktop applications are explored, alongside the evolution from Swing to Jetpack Compose. Sebastiano also shares insights from his podcast, 'Code with the Italians.'
The transition from Swing to Jetpack Compose enhances productivity by simplifying the management of dynamic UI components for developers.
The Juul library aims to ensure a consistent aesthetic in Android Studio by integrating Compose components that resemble existing IntelliJ designs.
Markdown rendering provides effective rich text formatting within the IDE, allowing users to seamlessly integrate documentation while maintaining context and styling.
Deep dives
The Role of UX Engineering in Android Studio
UX engineering plays a crucial role in the development of Android Studio, focusing on enhancing the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). The team utilizes the IntelliJ platform as a foundation, which has evolved over 20 years and incorporates various languages and technologies such as Java and Kotlin. This evolution includes recent integrations of new features and UI improvements, exemplified by projects like StudioBot and the ongoing enhancements in JetBrains' UI libraries. As these technologies advance, they aim to streamline the development process for Android developers by ensuring a seamless and efficient user experience.
Transition from Swing to Compose for Desktop
The conversation highlights the significant transition from the older Swing UI toolkit to the modern Compose for Desktop framework. While Swing has been a tried-and-true technology, it faces challenges with outdated interfaces and complexity in UI management. In contrast, Compose offers a more reactive and declarative programming model, allowing developers to easily create dynamic UI components. This shift is particularly beneficial as it enhances productivity, making it simpler for developers to implement and manage UI changes without the cumbersome listener management required in Swing.
Introducing Juul as a New Library
Juul is a new library developed in collaboration with JetBrains to facilitate the integration of Compose in Android Studio while maintaining a consistent look and feel. The library's design allows developers to create UI components that closely resemble existing IntelliJ components, thereby ensuring a unified aesthetic across the IDE. Juul's emphasis on theming and component behavior is aimed at reducing discrepancies between different UI frameworks, thereby enhancing user experience. This initiative also opens up the possibility for developers to build desktop applications while leveraging their existing knowledge from Android development.
Markdown Rendering in IDEs
Markdown rendering has emerged as a key feature for integrating rich text formatting within IDE environments, addressing the need for displaying documentation and code comments effectively. The implementation utilizes a parser to convert Markdown into a structured document object model (DOM), which is then rendered in Compose. This capability allows for seamless integration of documentation within the IDE, ensuring that user-generated content maintains context and styling. By adopting Markdown, developers can easily manage text within their applications and benefit from the flexibility it offers compared to traditional HTML formatting.
Future Prospects and Community Engagement
Anticipation surrounds the upcoming updates and features related to Juul and its integration within Android Studio, particularly with the introduction of enhanced UI elements. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of community feedback in refining the library and adapting it to users' needs, encouraging developers to report their experiences and any bugs they encounter. Through platforms like GitHub, the team seeks to engage with users to gain insights on real-world applications of Juul and address potential improvements. This collaborative approach not only fosters innovation but also aims to create tools that resonate with the developer community.
In this episode Chet, Romain and Tor chat with Sebastiano about how the Android Studio team builds UIs. We talk about how Compose for Desktop is used in parts of Android Studio and how the Compose Markdown renderer available in the Jewel library makes Studio Bot tick.
Chapters:
Intro (00:00)
Android Dev UX team (00:39)
What kind of libraries and languages are used to build Android studio? (1:52)
Swing (2:53)
Reactive and declarative programming models (8:25)
SKIA for Kotlin (10:01)
Jetpack Compose widgets (11:54)
Jewel (13:07)
Text rendering across platforms (15:51)
Differences in behaviors (17:40)
Support for markdown files (20:26)
What is markdown? (21:25)
Swing and html (25:45)
Selection handling in StudioBot (28:46)
Boosting productivity with Compose (30:40)
Standalone vs plugin artifacts (34:29)
The difference between Jewel & Swing (35:30)
HTML vs Markdown (39:31)
Markdeep (41:53)
Jewel's Markdown API (43:46)
Where to find Jewel? (46:54)
Sebastiano’s podcast - Code with the Italians (47:34)
