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Flutter for Linux

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Re: Flutter for Linux

#31

Post by RivieraKid »

axegon_ wrote: post #15

I'm actually a great fan of flutter and imo it is the best cross-platform solution out there. Probably except for web: though it produces very good result performance-wise, the end result is never really "web" and doesn't act like traditional web. As for desktop applications(whether it be windows, linux or mac), it seems like it's too mobile-oriented. I see great potential for simple solutions like self-service opera…

I've been using Flutter in the last few months and agree. It's the best multi-platform solution for mobile, although it still doesn't match native behavior and performance, it only gets close.

On the web it's DOA for most use cases - it's just a canvas, so scrolling, text selection, shadow rendering, etc. is custom, doesn't feel native and must be downloaded and compiled.

It can have a future on desktop. One "cultural" obstacle is that the de facto default widget system is Material, which is simply a wrong approach to desktop UI.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#32

Post by IshKebab »

sudhirj wrote: post #17
colesantiago wrote: post #8

What is the off chance that Google will drop Flutter?

This matters only if Flutter is a closed source project – but it's not. You can fork it on Github right now and continue working on it even if Google pulls its engineers off. I'd assume that those of us (and there seem be a lot of people) invested in it will continue working on it.

> This matters only if Flutter is a closed source project

Nonsense. Even though it is open source, if Google drops it it will be effectively a dead project since the vast majority of the work is done by Google, and Flutter still isn't a mature project.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#33

Post by CSharpRon »

jayd16 wrote: post #13
oaiey wrote: post #5

Microsoft really has to speed up the Xamarin.Forms / Maui development. The omission of Linux is a really a pity.

They said they'll have a preview by the end of the year. I'm excited to see it but I'd rather they do it right instead of right now.

TIL about Maui. From my light researching, it looks like any Linux implementation of Maui will be community-led instead of Microsoft led like the Windows and MacOS implementations.

https://github.com/dotnet/maui

Re: Flutter for Linux

#34

Post by RivieraKid »

eklavya wrote: post #6

I am so excited about flutter ecosystem. Hopefully linux gets first class beautiful native apps now. I also hope against hope that qt is officially supported as a backend so KDE is not left out.

I wouldn't call Material UI on the desktop beautiful. Mac OS is beautiful. Gnome 2 too relative to other Linux DEs. It won't use Qt but Skia.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#35

Post by The_rationalist »

mikece wrote: post #29
dathinab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only iff they drop Fuchisa. And if they drop Fuchisa and flutter has enough (relevant) apps using it in the Android Ecosystem they probably would keep it still around. But my guess is that one long play Google want's to keep open for them is to start replacing Android with Fuchisa and push for a ecosystem where they have control more similar to apple. I.e. directly push updates to phones without the phone manufacture…

"Only if they drop Fuchsia." I hate to say it, but this is beginning to look like a real possibility. It looks like Google has been implementing into Android a lot of the modular, "make the system easier to update" aspects of Fuchsia with each release of Android. I think Oracle's continuing fight to make Google pay financially for using Java is doing more to keep Fuchsia alive anything else. If Oracle relents then it…

If Android switch to openjdk like everybody else, they'll be lawsuit proof

Re: Flutter for Linux

#36

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

skratlo wrote: post #12

Yay, Macromedia Flash for desktop is here, made in Google, Dart instead of ActionScript, wow, just wow.

I assume that this is meant as a criticism, but Flash was quite good at easy-to-make portable graphical apps; they had massive security issues and some lack of polish, but there's a reason why Flash dominated its era. (Also, "Macromedia Flash for desktop" was already a thing, no?) So yeah, "Flash but modern and safe" would be a pretty strong selling point.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#37

Post by sly010 »

k__ wrote: post #16
me551ah wrote: post #9

The future of cross platform desktop development looks bright. Microsoft is coming up with .NET 6 and Google has flutter. I just hope that these frameworks can replace bulky electron apps.

Revery also looks nice. I wish they had more funding, tho. I find Reason/OCaml more compelling than Dart.

How is OCaml's multithreading story? Google says it's basically GIL-ed.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#39

Post by dakna »

plq wrote: post #23
colesantiago wrote: post #8

What is the off chance that Google will drop Flutter?

My hunch is that Google is trying to migrate away from Android. Flutter is both the abstraction layer to do that and the new SDK for the new platform. If that's the case, it's higly unlikely.

I think Google realized they needed a compelling cross-plattform solution because React Native started to gain so much traction.

In terms of migrating away from Android, I think they will use the newer AndroidX packages as the future abstraction layer, which would enable them to replace the underlying runtime with something more native for each platform. It would be a compilation target for Kotlin as well as Dart. All while not deprecating the massive amount of production code out there. But, this is also just a guess.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#40

Post by heavyset_go »

Having recently chosen a Qt stack for cross-platform desktop development over Electron, I'm happy to see that Flutter is now a real contender in this space.

I'm curious about Flutter and Dart bindings and calling interfaces for other languages. If you can integrate a Flutter front end with a back end language of your choice, that would change a lot of things for the better. The only reactive UI offerings for cross-platform desktop development with multiple language bindings are QML, which is great, or Electron with React, which is not so great if you want to use anything but JavaScript for your back end.

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