Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#31

Post by vvanders » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #26

bsimpson wrote: post #5

Flutter renders the whole UI, like a game engine. In the past, this has meant that if there isn't a Flutter implemention of a component (like a video player or map), you couldn't add it to your app. I don't know if that's still true. [edit]: It looks like this has been addressed with the PlatformView widget: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/12/flutter-10-googles... [edit]: Sorry, bluetidepro - this was supposed…

That's modern development for you. Shipping a copy of Skia so you can render exact facsimiles of Android widgets to a Vulkan context and avoid having Android render Android widgets with Skia to a Vulkan context. A full Chrome copy for your desktop app is whatever, we have the resources, but on smartphones this is actively harmful. It bypasses the hardware compositors. Displaying a video, they have to render that to a…

For bonus points you've probably broken accessibility on many platforms as the way that a11y works is intrinsic to the native widgets used by a platform.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#32

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #30

Looks cool but not too much of cross-platform - iOS and Android only. It seems the only really cross-platform GUI technologies still are browser-powered and Qt.

They literally just previewed Hummingbird.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#33

Post by _7siz » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

Flutter looks amazing!

I was looking for some new dev challenges and wanted to mess with some mobile app development that is outside of the React Native / Ionic / js world.

Gave Flutter a serious look, loved it, but ultimately decided to just skip and mess with Swift and Apple's tools - so no Android stuff for me for now. I just don't trust it to be around long enough to be an investment for me.

I know I'm just 1 developer working on a crappy hobby app for fun, but Google's quick lifecycle of products has real impact. But then on the other hand I love Firebase. Just wanted to share.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#34

Post by parvenu74 » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

The widget layer of flutter is Skia which is written in C++ and Flutter apps compile to ARM binary (native) code. Someone else asked about whether a Flutter app can be ported to Linux; why not compile both the logic and the UI directly to WebAssembly?

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#35

Post by vvilliam0 » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #30

Looks cool but not too much of cross-platform - iOS and Android only. It seems the only really cross-platform GUI technologies still are browser-powered and Qt.

iOS, Android, and Fuscia. I just found out that there is now Hummingbird for web as well.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#36

Post by warent » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

_7siz wrote: post #33

Flutter looks amazing! I was looking for some new dev challenges and wanted to mess with some mobile app development that is outside of the React Native / Ionic / js world. Gave Flutter a serious look, loved it, but ultimately decided to just skip and mess with Swift and Apple's tools - so no Android stuff for me for now. I just don't trust it to be around long enough to be an investment for me. I know I'm just 1 dev…

"I just don't trust it to be around long enough to be an investment for me."

Normally I would be inclined to agree with you given that this is Google, but the good news is that Flutter is open source. So even if Google discontinues internal development on it, it's likely that the community will continue it anyway.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#37

Post by garysahota93 » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

This looks really cool!

Could someone explain the difference between Kotlin and Flutter given that they are both being pushed for app development now?

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#38

Post by nailer » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

warent wrote: post #36

_7siz wrote: post #33

Flutter looks amazing! I was looking for some new dev challenges and wanted to mess with some mobile app development that is outside of the React Native / Ionic / js world. Gave Flutter a serious look, loved it, but ultimately decided to just skip and mess with Swift and Apple's tools - so no Android stuff for me for now. I just don't trust it to be around long enough to be an investment for me. I know I'm just 1 dev…

"I just don't trust it to be around long enough to be an investment for me." Normally I would be inclined to agree with you given that this is Google, but the good news is that Flutter is open source. So even if Google discontinues internal development on it, it's likely that the community will continue it anyway.

Dart (the lang used in Flutter) already failed to gain traction in the web dev community and nobody seems to be maintaining it there.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#39

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #30

Looks cool but not too much of cross-platform - iOS and Android only. It seems the only really cross-platform GUI technologies still are browser-powered and Qt.

There is an embedder engine API that can be used for other platforms.

Re: Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit goes 1.0

#40

Post by NiekvdMaas » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #5

Flutter renders the whole UI, like a game engine. In the past, this has meant that if there isn't a Flutter implemention of a component (like a video player or map), you couldn't add it to your app. I don't know if that's still true. [edit]: It looks like this has been addressed with the PlatformView widget: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/12/flutter-10-googles... [edit]: Sorry, bluetidepro - this was supposed…

They recently added "PlatformView" which allows you to embed any native (Android/iOS) component in the app. Sample: https://medium.com/flutter-community/flutter-platformview-ho...