Revisit: changing @published properties on widgets not working as advertised

[ussuri]

There are currently multiple issues with programmatic changes to @published properties on widgets not properly propagating to the HTML side. A property would be changed either by an external client or internally by the widget itself, but that's not reflected in the HTML/CSS (attributes don't get set, CSS rules don't get applied etc.).

It seems like there is a fix coming from the Polymer side:

https://codereview.chromium.org/222203009/ which is the fix for https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/detail?id=17301

Track that and revisit the widgets. Some markers to look for:

• Explicit deliverChanges() invoked on the widgets
• setAttr() calls on the widgets replacing simple property assignment
• Properties set internally in a widget's script rather than simply data-bound in its markup using "{{attr}}"

cc @devoncarew

[adam-singer]

@ussuri 8411d93 seemed to break ide. Reverting that change seems to unbreak it.

WARNING: more than one child with 'focused' attribute (:1)
Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
  chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/user.json
[INFO] spark.launch: embedded web server listening on port 64929
[INFO] spark.workspace: Workspace restore took 839ms.
Uncaught Error: type 'Null' is not a subtype of type 'bool' of 'boolean expression'.
Stack Trace: 
#0      dirtyCheckObservables (package:observe/src/dirty_check.dart:61:36)
#1      Observable.dirtyCheck (package:observe/src/observable.dart:35:52)
#2      SparkPolymerUI.refreshFromModel (chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/spark_polymer_ui.dart:71:26)
#3      SparkPolymerUI.modelReady (chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/spark_polymer_ui.dart:60:21)
#4      _SparkSetupParticipant.applicationStarted (chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/spark_polymer.dart:338:25)
#5      Application._transition.<anonymous closure> (chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/lib/app.dart:95:46)
#6      Future.forEach.nextElement.<anonymous closure> (dart:async/future.dart:300)
#7      Future.Future.sync (dart:async/future.dart:168)
#8      Future.forEach.nextElement (dart:async/future.dart:300)
#9      Future.forEach (dart:async/future.dart:306)
#10     Application._transition (chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/lib/app.dart:91:26)
#11     Application.start.<anonymous closure> (chrome-extension://kcjgcakhgelcejampmijgkjkadfcncjl/lib/app.dart:64:25)
#12     _rootRunUnary (dart:async/zone.dart:730)
#13     _RootZone.runUnary (dart:async/zone.dart:864)
#14     _Future._propagateToListeners.handleValueCallback (dart:async/future_impl.dart:488)
#15     _Future._propagateToListeners (dart:async/future_impl.dart:571)
#16     _Future._complete (dart:async/future_impl.dart:317)
#17     Future.forEach.nextElement (dart:async/future.dart:303)
#18     _rootRunUnary (dart:async/zone.dart:730)
#19     _RootZone.runUnary (dart:async/zone.dart:864)
#20     _Future._propagateToListeners.handleValueCallback (dart:async/future_impl.dart:488)
#21     _Future._propagateToListeners (dart:async/future_impl.dart:571)
#22     _Future._completeWithValue (dart:async/future_impl.dart:331)
#23     _Future._asyncComplete.<anonymous closure> (dart:async/future_impl.dart:393)
#24     _asyncRunCallbackLoop (dart:async/schedule_microtask.dart:23)
#25     _asyncRunCallback (dart:async/schedule_microtask.dart:32)
#26     _handleMutation (dart:html:38464)


Exception: type 'Null' is not a subtype of type 'bool' of 'boolean expression'.
[INFO] preferences: saved preferences: (editorStates, lastFileSelection)

[dinhvh]

@financecoding: @devoncarew fixed it already.

[gaurave]

Possibly fixed here #2367

[devoncarew]

I wonder if the (fairly pervasive) problem of polymer not reacting to changes is due to us not properly setting up the Zone for polymer? We used to have explicit setup for the polymer zone, and now we don't.

It may also be worth exploring having the components be responsible for firing events when their properties change, instead of replying on polymer's automagic detection.

[ussuri]

Based on @jmesserly's comment to #2247, you're right. We can wait for "https://codereview.chromium.org/222203009/ which is the fix for https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/detail?id=17301", or indeed fix the Zone on our end. I know very little about Zones, so if you know how, could you do that?

[ussuri]

https://codereview.chromium.org/222203009/ is still not fixed (I've just pinged that bug). Moving this further out.