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Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

plei.one

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Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#11

Post by latchkey »

It is great to point out things that need improvement, but going so far as saying 'it isn't there yet', seems extreme.

If your use case requires these specific issues to be sorted, then it is great to know about them in advance. Nothing is perfect and every single app across every single framework is going to need to make trade offs.

If I needed text selection to be faster than what the built in component offers, I'd just develop my own component or spend some time debugging why the existing component is slow. Flutter itself doesn't prevent you from doing this.

If I needed multiple monitor support in my app, I'd probably not write it in Flutter because I looked at my app requirements in advance and realized that it doesn't support that.

The rest of the post seem to revolve around not having enough built-in ways of doing things. Again... you can't expect someone else to write your code for you and then call the whole framework lacking.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#12

Post by invpt »

latchkey wrote: post #11

It is great to point out things that need improvement, but going so far as saying 'it isn't there yet', seems extreme. If your use case requires these specific issues to be sorted, then it is great to know about them in advance. Nothing is perfect and every single app across every single framework is going to need to make trade offs. If I needed text selection to be faster than what the built in component offers, I'd…

I guess I'm thinking of Flutter's desktop support in relation to how it is on mobile. Flutter mobile does have a lot of built in stuff.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#13

Post by makestuff »

friedman23 wrote: post #7
lpa22 wrote: post #2

i am greatful for Flutter if only to motivate the React Native team

One single platform for cross platform development is enough motivation and react native has improved a lot in the past year. The entire concept of developing the same app multiple times for different platforms is just so mind numbingly dumb. 3x the engineering team, 3 different platforms with all their different idiosyncrasies. The impossibility of maintaining feature parity across all three platforms. 3x the testin…

I can see some apps needing to be native (ex: using AR/ML libraries where you need to squeeze everything out of the phone). However, for most apps I use, they could easily be mobile optimized websites wrapped in an app.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#14

Post by amelius »

killjoywashere wrote: post #10

I feel like this is similar the conversations we heard about Rust and Go 5-10 years ago. late edit: 5-10 years ago people were complaining about these languages having issues binding databases, network protocols, etc.

Do Rust and Go have good (complete) Desktop UI libraries yet?

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#15

Post by twawaaay »

CharlesW wrote: post #6

For me, Flutter mobile isn't there yet either. I can see where it might be great for games with completely custom UIs, but I find the uncanny valley of pretend native controls a very uncomfortable place to be. Flutter could be a fantastic solution if it supported native controls and used JavaScript. I don't understand why Flutter's creators are so seemingly religious about Dart and reimplementing OS UI capabilities.

Every technology is a set of tradeoffs, including Flutter.

For me -- I am using Flutter to build internal productivity tools available on multiple platforms (web, desktop, mobile). Users do not necessarily care if the application looks pixel perfect (but, still, Flutter is definitively an improvement from Oracle Forms :)

What users and the management does care, on the other hand, is that the features can be delivered quickly and on multiple platforms.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#17

Post by hbn »

The more "solutions" that are developed for desktop + mobile cross-platform applications, the more I see highlighted how different the paradigms are, and how the streams really shouldn't be crossed.

They're both UIs viewed on a screen that you interact with by pointing and clicking, but the similarities end there. The entire output of this cross-platform effort has been awkward applications that run everywhere but feel right nowhere. It's sad that even Apple has fallen victim to this idea that with their horrible Catalyst apps. Though I understand why the sales pitch of "one codebase" makes management of so many companies salivate.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#18

Post by layer8 »

latchkey wrote: post #11

It is great to point out things that need improvement, but going so far as saying 'it isn't there yet', seems extreme. If your use case requires these specific issues to be sorted, then it is great to know about them in advance. Nothing is perfect and every single app across every single framework is going to need to make trade offs. If I needed text selection to be faster than what the built in component offers, I'd…

I’m sorry, but not supporting multiple windows (not monitors!) in a single process, and not supporting bog-standard desktop features like context menus, rightfully qualifies as “not there yet”.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#19

Post by izacus »

CharlesW wrote: post #6

For me, Flutter mobile isn't there yet either. I can see where it might be great for games with completely custom UIs, but I find the uncanny valley of pretend native controls a very uncomfortable place to be. Flutter could be a fantastic solution if it supported native controls and used JavaScript. I don't understand why Flutter's creators are so seemingly religious about Dart and reimplementing OS UI capabilities.

Sure, but most common mobile apps ARE completely custom UIs which insist on their own branding and look. The UI designers usually really hate if they have to use standard components and are unable to express themselves.

Flutter just recognises that.

Re: Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

#20

Post by hobofan »

I most recently tried out Flutter about a month ago and "not there yet" feels like my overall experience. Sadly for a project of Flutter's age one has to wonder whether the "yet"-phase will ever end (just like some libraries are bound to always be buggy due to their architecture, while others feel smooth).

In onboarding to the tooling, there are so many paper cuts that it's not really a "I'll try this out for fun" thing like e.g. Next.js is, that you would recommend to your co-workers.

I tried it out for desktop, where I found it okay-ish (but lacking in desktop-related libraries, as the article points out), and for web, where the debugging experience compared to web-native solutions really takes a hit due to the lack of DOM.

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