DioxusLabs / DioxusLabs/taffy

LayoutPartialTree low level api is restrictive

Open
#710 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Rust
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Description

## What problem does this solve or what need does it fill?

It would be nice if there was a less restrictive low-level api, within my UIs node structure my nodes are not owned but are subject to interior mutability (my trees own something akin to Rc>>), hence unless I'm missing something (which I very well may be) its impossible for me to return the references (`&Style`, `&mut Cache`) as required by `LayoutPartialTree` as it breaks rust ownership guarantees. For reference here is the current trait:

```
pub trait LayoutPartialTree: TraversePartialTree {
fn get_style(&self, node_id: NodeId) -> &Style;
fn set_unrounded_layout(&mut self, node_id: NodeId, layout: &Layout);
fn get_cache_mut(&mut self, node_id: NodeId) -> &mut Cache;
fn compute_child_layout(&mut self, node_id: NodeId, inputs: LayoutInput) -> LayoutOutput;
}
```

## What solution would you like?

I'm not 100% sure on what the ideal solution really would be. In my exact scenario a API which returned an owned `Style` (this would be a performance cost) and `Rc>` would work, however returning the `Rc>` really doesn't seem ideal to me either as this doesn't leave room for alternative mutability patterns.

MAYBE creating a Cache Trait would actually be the more versatile solution. Something like:

```
pub trait LayoutPartialTree: TraversePartialTree + CacheForNode {
fn get_style(&self, node_id: NodeId) -> Style;
fn set_unrounded_layout(&mut self, node_id: NodeId, layout: &Layout);
fn compute_child_layout(&mut self, node_id: NodeId, inputs: LayoutInput) -> LayoutOutput;
}

pub trait CacheForNode {
fn get(&self, node_id, ...) -> Option;
fn store(&mut self, node_id, ...)
fn clear(&mut self, node_id)
fn is_empty(&self, node_id)
}
```

Ideally it would be cool to have a solution which doesn't introduce any significant performance cost (`&Style` -> `Style` might, I'm not sure); and also isn't just a second low level api for maintainability purposes. Curious if anyone else has other thoughts, maybe folks like I just need to use my workaround (below), however I bet there is a good solution

## What alternative(s) have you considered?

Right now, I figured I can just use the high-level api as a workaround and rebuild the tree for each time a recomputation is required. It's just not the nicest solution but it will work.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reading the LayoutPartialTree and TraversePartialTree traits shown in the issue, then inspect the high-level API workaround and how it rebuilds the tree. Compare ownership and interior-mutability constraints for the proposed alternatives; done requires an agreed low-level API that supports these node structures without an unspecified significant performance cost.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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