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Flutter for Linux

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111–120 of 225 posts

Re: Flutter for Linux

#111
post #10

Google needs to release desktop apps in Flutter (Youtube Music, Chat, Meet etc..). a Webapp is fine for occasional use, but Google Chat can't compete with Slack without a real app.

I uninstalled Slack's desktop "app" a long time ago and never looked back. The browser version is much better, and doesn't require me to have an extra (often buggy, in my experience) browser instance open in order to use it.

Calling it an "app" is somewhat laughable, since it's just their website packaged up in a standalone web browser, plus a minimal amount of platform-specific glue.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#112
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "cultur…

>It's the best multi-platform solution for mobile They announced beta version for Windows in the last few weeks, so what to expect? I've been using it on linux desktop for 4 months so far, there were many problems, but it's absolutely the best framework so far. It's miles ahead of Qt (which I've been programming in since 2010). Dart and flutter are just years ahead of Java, C#, Qt and React Native in terms of positiv…

Dart is the reason I don't like flutter.

Why do you feel C# is worse then Dart?

Re: Flutter for Linux

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> command-line tools or local utilities. FFI is quite a PITA, though. Soomer or later you will have to interface some platform libraries, and Dart doesn't make that easy.

Curious what platforms you're interested in integrating with. We're experimenting here and looking for feedback. As a fun demonstration of the effectiveness of FFI, you can now build Petzold-style native Windows code with Dart: https://github.com/timsneath/win32/blob/master/example/hello... And here's a 500-line version of the Kilo console text editor built with Dart: https://github.com/timsneath/dart_console/blob/ma…

Tim, it should be possible that the main .exe (or binary on linux/osx) to export functions, and they can be found back through the flutter_engine.dll/.so, right? (At least on windows it's possible for the exe to __declspec(dllexport) things, not sure on Linux).

But even if not, if there is a way to (given might be slow and tedious) to compile what would've been flutter_engine.dll statically linked to your main (host) app, and maybe somewhat hinting here is how to find the "GetProcAddr/dlsym/etc." functions - if one is to look for them.

Further on, the generated from dart .so file can be embded (as resource? or slapped at the end of the binary/.exe?) + slapping all other resource - resulting in single app :)

I know it's possible, just not so easy to support it (I guess). It's similar to have java/python can be packed into one executable with all C/C++ ffi functions they call (at cost of some build time and effort to achieve so).

Then you'll have killer platform for video conferencing (zoom, bluejeans, etc.), messaging (slack, etc.) - and just single binary to deploy.

(Oh, on top of that slap a web server into it, and make it that if called with specific command-line option, now it acts as web-server, and the app is visible through the web).

Re: Flutter for Linux

#114
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.

The "Next" and "Next + 1" versions of React Native are starting to look quite exciting too. The Microsoft-backed full C++/WinRT rewrite of the Windows desktop support seems to be making good progress. With the Office team supposedly backing React Native as their preferred cross-platform toolkit moving forward, Microsoft looks like they'll be investing in RN for the long haul.

It seems good for everybody that Microsoft seems to be putting so much work into cross-platform dev in both .NET 6 and RN.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#115
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's the best multi-platform solution for mobile They announced beta version for Windows in the last few weeks, so what to expect? I've been using it on linux desktop for 4 months so far, there were many problems, but it's absolutely the best framework so far. It's miles ahead of Qt (which I've been programming in since 2010). Dart and flutter are just years ahead of Java, C#, Qt and React Native in terms of positiv…

Dart is the reason I don't like flutter. Why do you feel C# is worse then Dart?

Dart is...fine. The real value comes in its code generation features, which enable packages to add whatever language features they want even if the language maintainers don't (yet), such as algebraic data types, functional programming features, etc. You can argue this as being good or bad for future maintenance but it's nice to have the ability to add to the language.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#116

Having used Flutter extensively since I was first introduced to it 9 months ago, I can say that it is an absolute joy to use and build interfaces with. An easier way to install the Flutter SDK on linux is only good news and I hope it gets more developers to adopt it.

Agree, Flutter is top notch. I've had trouble pitching it as a technical solution, though. For one, I think word is out that Google will kill projects mercilessly, and there's an odd dynamic between the promotion Flutter and Kotlin/AndroidX. Generally, Kotlin comes out on top as the "safer" choice. It's a shame, though, because the primary advantage I see with Flutter is its superior UI framework. It's leagues better…

[deleted]

Re: Flutter for Linux

#117
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that none of that is really do do with Flutter, right? Like you're just taking it out on the designers of Flock.

This isn't true: Google preloads their design conceptions, namely Material, into Flutter at the ground level, and Material is a terrible set of UI patterns, such as the ones the parent comment was complaining about.

You don't have to use the material design stuff, you can just make your own components, all custom, just as you would on the web. Just replace MaterialApp with WidgetsApp at the root of the application tree.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#118
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…

My experience with Flutter was that making the UI itself was pretty great. But making the rest of the app sucked. FFI support is bad. Platform channels are miserable. Doing it all in Dart is awful because there's no cheap concurrency - it's the same multi-heap with expensive "IPC" shittiness that you get with webworkers, but way less justified since you're nearly always on platforms with native threads. It's a huge p…

> Platform channels are miserable

ya, I hear you. It's a very common annoyance. We've been adding some support in the form of https://pub.dev/packages/pigeon to make the interop calls and data class passing more "direct".

disclosure: in the Flutter team

Re: Flutter for Linux

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "cultur…

I wish the dart/flutter team would focus on improving dart for web (e.g. by updating/fixing the JS bindings) instead of chasing flutter for web which seems like a long shot and rather hacky (referring to using the canvas for rendering content)

+1 on this one. I've fiddled with angular dart for instance and tbh as someone who is horrible with doing frontend and hates js with a passion, this was enjoyable. Yet the release of the newer version[0] is taking forever.

[0] https://github.com/dart-lang/angular/pull/1892

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