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Flutter desktop shells

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21–30 of 322 posts

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#22
post #15

Cool! Does flutter do web apps/frontends yet? I think when/if it does it’ll be really interesting for small tech teams in non-tech businesses. I work in a municipality and we simply can’t keep up with different frontend stacks for web, mobile and desktops or even the pace of which modern JS framework versions become obsolete.

AngularDart does all the frontend stuff.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#23
post #3

I really want to like Flutter, but I someone really don't want to spend the time to learn Dart. I can't really quantify it--some mix of yet-another Proprietary Google Technology, yet another ecosystem, yet another X. I'm tired I just want to build stuff that solves problems.

So what's your alternative? Java Swing? Proprietary Sun (now Oracle) technology. Qt? Proprietary Trolltech tech. Electron? You're back on square one of using Google technology. And winforms, WPF, application kit, etc are all far more proprietary than Flutter.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#24

Anyone, is this yet another electron-based thing? I can't really tell from the readme...

It doesn't use a browser to draw the UI, it draws it itself. It's not native UI controls though, they're emulated UI controls.

Ok, still miles better in terms of performance I am sure then. Thanks!

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#25
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yet-another Proprietary Google Technology Dart is open source: https://github.com/dart-lang It took me two minutes to find that using googles real proprietary technology..their search.

Sure it is, but I can see why OP looks down on it – just like their web rendering engine, it may be open source, but it's Google holding all the cards and ultimately making all the decisions. It may be opensource now while it's useful for them, but it may end up just like Android over the years: more and more closed bit by bit.

Is Google any worse than some "benevolent dictator for life" like other open-source languages?

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#27
post #17
post #8

I want to link to Revery - a native, cross-platform GUI library written in Reason/OCaml. It brings React's view=function(state) model to native applications, along with CSS box model and Flexbox. It has the developer ergonomics of Electron, but without the need for its heavy runtime. It is still under development and I'm looking forward to playing with it next time I try writing a GUI app. https://github.com/revery-u…

All these projects are trashing the accepted meaning of "native" GUIs. If it's not using, for example, Cocoa controls on macOS, then how is it native GUI?

If Revery makes use of react-native-macos like ReactXP does, it does infact use Cocoa controls, unlike Flutter.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#28
post #17
post #8

I want to link to Revery - a native, cross-platform GUI library written in Reason/OCaml. It brings React's view=function(state) model to native applications, along with CSS box model and Flexbox. It has the developer ergonomics of Electron, but without the need for its heavy runtime. It is still under development and I'm looking forward to playing with it next time I try writing a GUI app. https://github.com/revery-u…

All these projects are trashing the accepted meaning of "native" GUIs. If it's not using, for example, Cocoa controls on macOS, then how is it native GUI?

[deleted]

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#29
I just checked out a couple of Flutter’s showcase apps on iOS. The scrolling in the Hamilton app was atrociously stuttery, just really broken. This is on an iPhone X. Then I opened it again and it was fine. Seems like it was doing some initialization work that was blocking the main thread. Not sure if it’s Flutter’s fault but I never see broken scrolling like that on native apps.

The other app I tried was some journaling app. Both of them used unconventional UI. Are there any good examples of native performing and looking Flutter apps?

EDIT: Apparently somebody downvoted this? What’s up with that?

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#30
post #23
post #3

I really want to like Flutter, but I someone really don't want to spend the time to learn Dart. I can't really quantify it--some mix of yet-another Proprietary Google Technology, yet another ecosystem, yet another X. I'm tired I just want to build stuff that solves problems.

So what's your alternative? Java Swing? Proprietary Sun (now Oracle) technology. Qt? Proprietary Trolltech tech. Electron? You're back on square one of using Google technology. And winforms, WPF, application kit, etc are all far more proprietary than Flutter.

The done thing in Java now is JavaFX, and the last time I bothered to work with it (more than a year ago) I remember really liking it. Of course, to me any kind of web tech is a complete non-starter so I am comparing this to using Tcl and WxWidgets.
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