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Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

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Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#251

Post by mixmastamyk »

JamesSwift wrote: post #193
bradhoffman wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not. I didn’t want to put the time into learning the .NET stack and C# because I am from a .NET town and did not want to get stuck here. What're your thoughts on it?

I'm a native dev that is aggressively against the JS-based hybrid frameworks, and I will do every project in Xamarin from now on after working in it for a greenfield project. It's the best option out there until Kotlin Native gets legs.

Flutter has no js, or are you speaking about something else?

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#252

Post by Hixie »

pcwalton wrote: post #177
Hixie wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given our architecture, it doesn't cost us any more performance to look like the OEM widgets than a bespoke widget set, and indeed it shouldn't cost us any more to look like the OEM widgets than it should cost the OEM widgets themselves to look like the OEM widgets, because we're targeting the GPU directly.

Just using the GPU isn't enough. On iOS and macOS you have a compositor that has exclusive access to the display that native widgets will use. If you do all the rendering yourself on the GPU, you'll incur an extra hidden full window blit on the compositor side, which is definitely noticeable, especially in power efficiency.

If it is noticeable, please do file a bug with the details of the device on this you're seeing the problem. https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/new?template=perfo...

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#253

Post by la_fayette »

rohan1024 wrote: post #231
tananaev wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone has a definite answer, not even Google itself. Google placed several bets on different technologies and community will ultimately decide which of them is the winning one. Personally I think native Android (Kotlin) and iOS (Swift) development is here to stay. I have tried many cross-platform frameworks and on any non-trivial mobile app, all of them cause more problem than they solve.

> all of them cause more problem than they solve I know what you mean. But have you tried flutter? Try it and you might change your opinion just like me.

I tried flutter. The available plugins cannot compete with the cordova or react native plugin system. For most apps a PWA or cordova-based web app is enough... Many apps are data-intensive and don't require fancy animations... My clients are more than happy with what the web has to offer.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#254

Post by stock_toaster »

skybrian wrote: post #139
Hixie wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the Flutter TL.) According to today's benchmark numbers, we're at 4414KB on Android and 8572KB on iOS (IIRC, iOS encrypts before compressing so it can't get as good a compression). This is for our Hello World test app ( https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/examples/hell... ), which is more or less the smallest app you can imagine building with Flutter unless you bypass the entire framework and only use…

Hmm, encrypting before compressing seems like a pretty strange decision. How does that happen?

I believe the literature says that compress before encrypt is less secure, because compression behaves predictably. See CRIME attacks.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#255

Post by Hixie »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #140
Hixie wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given our architecture, it doesn't cost us any more performance to look like the OEM widgets than a bespoke widget set, and indeed it shouldn't cost us any more to look like the OEM widgets than it should cost the OEM widgets themselves to look like the OEM widgets, because we're targeting the GPU directly.

It does cost more in developer hours though. Every update to every emulated UI requires an update on your end. There will be a lag between that update where apps will be noticeably different than native. Can you honestly guarantee Flutter will always keep up with all the environments you plan on targeting? Will Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android always look and feel the same? That seems like a lot more work to maintain…

I'm not sure what it would mean for me to guarantee anything. So far, we've generally been able to release updates ahead of the OS. For example, IIRC we implemented support for the iPhone "notch" before the notched iPhone came out. Similarly, our support for Material widgets has actually been ahead of Android's in many ways. You're right, though, maybe one day it will not be.

In practice, we've found many apps these days don't even try to use the OEM UI style. Instead, they make "branded apps" with very customized widgets. Flutter really shines at this; it's very easy to make custom widgets. (Indeed, all our widgets, including the ones that look like OEM widgets, are just "custom widgets"... it's because it's so easy to make high-quality custom widgets that we're able to make OEM-like widgets so quickly.)

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#256

Post by Hixie »

Andrex wrote: post #136
saagarjha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but I trust a Google team to get that to work at least passably well.

As someone who is highly discerning of small UI issues, Flutter on Android implements the UI controls extremely well to my eye. (Accessibility not so much unfortunately, but that is a work in progress.)

If you're aware of areas where our accessibility support isn't up to par, please file a bug: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/new?template=BUG.m...

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#257

Post by mixedCase »

gwbas1c wrote: post #197
mixedCase wrote: post #111

I cannot wait to switch from having to use a compile-to-JS toolchain to a compile-to-Dart-to-JS toolchain in order to get a language with a good type system. I'm hopeful Dart will get better given what I've seen and what a member of the Dart team mentioned in a thread a few weeks ago, but right now it's still nothing that gets close to the ancient ML. Would be nice if they learnt a few things from Facebook or Microso…

Look at Blazor. It's C# that compiles to Webassembly. None of the JS nonsense required!

As of right now unfortunately only C, C++ and Rust work well as source languages for WASM. The payloads for .NET and other managed languages go through the roof; but as WASM gains features they're bound to become more viable.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#258

Post by Hixie »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #123
Hixie wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not quite there yet unless you have a high tolerance for pain, but in the coming year we should in a good place to support that kind of thing.

pain: bugs or performance, or both? ;-)

Neither. More like "figuring out your build system and how to integrate with the Flutter embedder API and how to hook all that up to the Dart compiler" and that kind of thing.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#259

Post by Illniyar »

This is the example flutter app for the web -https://www.nytimes.com/games/prototype/kenken#/

This is flash. You can't do anything in it that fills like the web - no copy paste, right clicking causes things to happen. I don't expect games like this to have links and proper bookmarkable urls, but I doubt it'll work as expected if it did.

This is the epitome of the problem with flutter - it re-implements the UI, creating an experience that is just close enough but not good enough. And no matter how many smart people and an insane amount of resources they put into it, it'll never be good enough.

There's a reason why flash died out, and it's not only apple. It was dropped for making interactive website long before apple killed it - it doesn't work well with the web.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#260

Post by ericathegreat »

_eric wrote: post #37

Anyone using Flutter with windows 10? It's been a pain to get the emulators to work - having to changes some Bios config and all.

I found it very easy to get it up and running with Android, although to be fair I already had the Android emulators running from my foray into React Native. I expect getting iOS emulators running would be very hard on a non Apple platform though.
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