From Views to Compose: A Smooth Migration Journey

Transitioning from traditional Views to Jetpack Compose can be daunting, yet fun. This session will be a guide to making this migration seamless and efficient. To ensure a smooth transition, you will delve into practical strategies, best practices, and potential challenges. You will also learn how to incrementally adopt Compose and have a harmonious blend of old-Traditional Views and new-Compose.
By the end of the session, you will be able to create a clear roadmap to modernise your app and unlock the potential of Jetpack Compose.

Transcript

1. From Views to Compose: A Smooth Migration Journey International Women’s Day 2025 By Love Otudor
2. Six strong sisters sought success, sharing stories, shaping strength, celebrating successes Can you say this in 4 seconds?
3. Love Otudor Developer Advocate, Anvil
4. 01 02 03 04 05 06 Why Jetpack Compose? Migration doesn’t have to be a Hassle. Set up Compose for an existing app. Interoperability APIs. Migration Strategy Resources Proprietary and Confidential Table of contents
5. 01 Why Jetpack Compose?
6. Proprietary and Confidential “Android’s recommended modern toolkit for building native UI.”
7. Proprietary and Confidential Declarative UI Less Boilerplate Simplified testing Better State Management Why Compose?
8. 02 Migration doesn’t have to be a Hassle.
9. Compose was designed with View interoperability in mind.
10. Views Compose Views Compose Compose Interoperability
11. 03 Set up Compose for an existing app
12. Proprietary and Confidential 1. Enable Compose Build Features. 2. Set up the Compose Compiler Gradle plugin. 3. Add Compose Dependencies Setup Compose
13. 04 Interoperability APIs
14. Use Compose in Views International Women’s Day 2025
15. Compose View in an Activity International Women’s Day 2025 Activity Compose
16. Proprietary and Confidential Add to build.gradle file androidx.activity:activity-compose:$latestVersion setContent()
17. Compose View in a Fragment International Women’s Day 2025 Fragment Compose
18. Proprietary and Confidential ComposeView in Fragments
19. Compose View in Existing Layout Proprietary and Confidential International Women’s Day 2025 ViewGroup Compose View
20. Proprietary and Confidential ComposeView in an Existing Layout
21. Proprietary and Confidential
22. Use Views in Compose International Women’s Day 2025
23. Android View in a Composable Proprietary and Confidential International Women’s Day 2025
24. Proprietary and Confidential AndroidView in Composable
25. Proprietary and Confidential
26. 05 Migration Strategy
27. Proprietary and Confidential • Smaller apps or when doing a major redesign. • Eliminate legacy issues and technical debt. • Existing code is hard to maintain or extend. When to Consider • High risk & time-consuming. • Feature freeze. • Relearning curve. Pitfalls & Challenges • Set clear milestones. • Focus on core features first. • Consider parallel development – Maintain the old app while building the new one. • Thorough testing & validation. Mitigating the Risks: Full Rewrite
28. Proprietary and Confidential Start using Compose for all new features. This allows you to immediately benefit from Compose's advantages while modernizing your app. Use Compose for new features While adding new features in Compose, create a library of common UI components in like buttons, app bars, and cards. Build a Library of Common UI components Incrementally migrate existing features to Compose, screen by screen. Start with simpler screens (splash, login) to build confidence. For mixed screens, adopt a bottom-up approach, migrating UI elements piece by piece. Incrementally migrate existing features to compose Gradual Migration
29. Proprietary and Confidential 1. Start with Simple screens. 2. Then Move to Hybrid UIs. 3. Removing Fragments and Navigation component. Incrementally Migrate existing Features Animation from developer.android.com
30. Proprietary and Confidential 1. More Context Switching between XML and Compose 2. UI Tests need to be Compose aware in Hybrid Screens. 3. Compose-View interop might be deeply nested. Gradual Migration Challenges
31. Proprietary and Confidential Leverage Interoperability Compose and Views can work together—start small and incrementally replace legacy UI. Understand Your Migration Path Choose between full rewrite or gradual migration based on your app’s complexity, goals, and team capacity. Follow a Structured Approach Whether you are rewriting or migrating gradually, have a clear plan. Test, Test, and Test Compose offers robust testing tools, which you can use to validate your migrated UI. Summary
32. Connect with Me Proprietary and Confidential @loveotudor @lamouresparus
33. Proprietary and Confidential • Setup Compose for an Existing App • Migrate existing View-based apps • Using Compose in Views • Using Views in Compose Resources
34. Thank you!