Compose PermissionX

Motivation

Have you ever struggled with providing a good UX to your users when it comes time to ask them for permissions? Do you get the sense that Android makes it really difficult to do this?

If so, you're on to something. Requesting permission in Android is not as straightforward as it should be. With the best of intentions around user safety, a monster was created. Unfortunately, the complicated nature of requesting permission from users usually results in a lot of frustration and corner cutting that leads to a poor UX, and a loss of trust from our users.

Through very careful state management, it is possible to get it right, but it comes with a lot of frustration. Accompanist Permissions goes a long way to solving that frustration, and that is why Compose PermissionX is built on top of it.

However, there are a couple of issues that Accompanist won't (or can't solve):

1. rememberPermissionState breaks Compose Preview

   • An issue exists, but was closed, delegating the responsibility for the fix to the findActivity API. While that might be the correct place to fix this issue, devs have had to deal with this for years, with no movement towards a fix.

   • Compose PermissionX solves this by simply making sure findActivity isn't called while in a preview.

2. The default state of the permission before a request is made

3. Detecting whether a permission was permanently denied

Both of these issues have the same underlying cause, namely the Android permissions framework doesn't want you to have this information (allegedly for user safety, and so that it isn't simple to send users to the App Settings to grant the permission). It looks unlikely that this will ever change^{1 2 3}, and that's why Compose PermissionX is here.

Usage

Most of the API mirrors Accompanist Permissions.

For single permission requests:

@Composable
fun FeatureThatRequiresCameraPermission() {
  val cameraPermissionState = rememberPermissionState(
    android.Manifest.permission.CAMERA
  )

  when(val status = cameraPermissionState.status) {
    PermissionStatus.Granted -> FeatureWithGrantedCameraPermission()
    PermissionStatus.NotGranted -> {
      val message = when(status) {
        PermissionStatus.NotGranted.NotRequested ->
          "Camera permission required for this feature to be available. Please grant the permission."
        
        PermissionStatus.NotGranted.Denied ->
          "The camera is important for this app. Please grant the permission."
        
        PermissionStatus.NotGranted.PermanentlyDenied ->
          "This feature can't be used without granting the camera permission. Please grant it in the app's settings."
      }
      
      val buttonLabel = when(status) {
        PermissionStatus.NotGranted.PermanentlyDenied -> "Open App Settings"
        else -> "Request Permission"
      }
      
      Column {
        Text(message)

        Spacer(modifier = Modifier.height(8.dp))
        
        Button(
          onClick = {
            // alternatively call cameraPermissionState.launchPermissionRequestOrAppSettings()
            when(status) {
              PermissionStatus.NotGranted.PermanentlyDenied -> cameraPermissionState.openAppSettings()
              else -> cameraPermissionState.launchPermissionRequest()
            }
          }
        ) {
          Text(buttonLabel)
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

For multiple permission requests:

@Composable
fun FeatureThatRequiresCameraAndRecordAudioPermission() {
  val multiplePermissionsState = rememberMultiplePermissionsState(
    android.Manifest.permission.CAMERA,
    android.Manifest.permission.RECORD_AUDIO,
  )

  when {
    multiplePermissionsState.isAllPermissionsGranted -> FeatureWithGrantedCameraAndRecordAudioPermission()
    else -> {
      Text(multiplePermissionsState.getTextForDeniedPermissions())

      Spacer(modifier = Modifier.height(8.dp))

      val buttonLabel = when {
        multiplePermissionsState.isAllNotGrantedPermissionsPermanentlyDenied -> "Open App Settings"
        else -> "Request Permissions"
      }
      
      Button(
        onClick = {
          // alternatively call multiplePermissionsState.launchMultiplePermissionRequestOrAppSettings()
          when {
            multiplePermissionsState.isAllNotGrantedPermissionsPermanentlyDenied ->
              multiplePermissionsState.openAppSettings()
            
            else ->
              multiplePermissionsState.launchMultiplePermissionRequest()
          }   
        }
      ) {
        Text(buttonLabel)
      }
    }
  }
}

private fun MultiplePermissionsState.getTextForDeniedPermissions() = buildString {
  if(isNotRequested) {
    append(
      "Camera and record audio permissions are required for this feature to be available. Please grant the permissions."
    )
  }
  else {
    val isCameraPermanentlyDenied = isPermanentlyDenied(android.Manifest.permission.CAMERA)
    val isRecordAudioPermanentlyDenied = isPermanentlyDenied(android.Manifest.permission.RECORD_AUDIO)

    if(isCameraPermanentlyDenied && isRecordAudioPermanentlyDenied){
      append("This feature can't be used without granting the camera and record audio permissions. ")
      append("Please grant them in the app's settings.")
    }
    else {
      val isCameraDenied = isDenied(android.Manifest.permission.CAMERA)
      val isRecordAudioDenied = isDenied(android.Manifest.permission.RECORD_AUDIO)

      append("The ")

      if(isCameraDenied && isRecordAudioDenied) append("camera and record audio permissions are ")
      else if(isCameraDenied) append("camera permission is ")
      else if(isRecordAudioDenied) append("record audio permission is ")

      append("important for this app. Please grant the ")
      if(isCameraDenied && isRecordAudioDenied) append("permissions.")
      else append("permission.")
    }
  }
}

KMP

Currently this library just supports Android. If there is ever a need to solve a platform specific issue on other platforms it can get added here. It is not a goal of Compose PermissionX to be a general use case multiplatform permission solution.

Gradle

Kotlin

repositories {
  mavenCentral()
}

implementation("com.eygraber.permissionx:compose-permissionx:0.0.6")

Snapshots

Snapshots of the current development version of this library are available, which track the latest commit.

repositories {
  maven(url = "https://s01.oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots")
}

dependencies {
  implementation("com.eygraber.permissionx:compose-permissionx:0.0.7-SNAPSHOT-SNAPSHOT")
}