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Flutter for Linux

snapcraft.io

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Re: Flutter for Linux

#121

Post by sciurus »

timsneath wrote: post #101
vesinisa wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> using the canvas for rendering content This sounds like Flash all over again. Let me guess - no native text select, copy & paste supported? Scrolling is "wrong" in a subtle way?

We haven't reached perfection yet (that's why we're still in beta), but our goal is to be _very_ different to Flash in these kinds of areas. Here's an example of text fields: https://gallery.flutter.dev/#/demo/text-field Right-click and you have access to the browser context menu; choose Inspect and you can see a or control.

I loaded that page in both Chrome and Firefox Preview on a Pixel 3a and switching between text inputs or scrolling feels quite janky

Re: Flutter for Linux

#122

Post by galgalesh »

kelvie wrote: post #109
canada_dry wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until SNAP gives me full control (and not just: you can opt-out) over updates/upgrades they're a non-starter.

Also it's ridiculously annoying debugging issues with them, or finding out what source code compiled into a particular snap. Even with docker hub I can find the sourcecode easily linked 99% of the time.

Yeah, it would be useful to have a metadata field "packaging repository" or something.

Snaps built from GitHub with snapcraft.io include a manifest and the build recipe in the `meta` folder in the root of the snap. This includes all the info about the source code and allow you to reproduce it. Publishers can enable this on their own build infrastructure using an environment variable.

Many snaps also link to the source repository in the "contact " link.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#123

Post by galgalesh »

rst wrote: post #52

So, this makes Flutter apps available through Canonical's Snap store... which is Ubuntu-mostly right now, and controversial enough that the top item on the HN front page as I write is about an Ubuntu derivative (Linux Mint) explicitly dropping support for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23771847

The snap store support is a small part of what is announced here. The team developed a GTK+ based host for flutter, which works regardless of the packaging method you use.

The end of the blog post talks about modifications to the snapcraft build tool to fully support flutter.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#124

Post by zelly »

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.

Flutter implements a bespoke renderer called Skia. It is its own backend. For Qt to be compatible with Flutter you'd have to port Qt to Dart. There's nothing wrong with running Flutter apps and Qt apps simulatenously.

It would be an interesting project for someone to create a KDE type of desktop environment in Flutter. Can it be done?

Re: Flutter for Linux

#125

Post by kllrnohj »

The_rationalist wrote: post #102
kllrnohj wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/android-n-switch... The runtime remains ART, though, but that wasn't the issue in the lawsuit.

I had read that too and I do not understand at all. What is openjdk beyond a runtime VM ? They do not use what truly qualify as openjdk otherwise they would have C2 and G1 and therefore true java 8+ support, for free.

They're using the libraries - the part that Oracle is claiming is copyrighted. The java.* packages.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#126

Post by sciurus »

jeffbee wrote: post #94
dahfizz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I can't tell the difference between the slack app and slack open in my browser. It is literally identical. In Firefox, I can even go "full screen" but still control the size and location of the window, so I don't have to look at the tab bar. Side by side, I can't tell them apart visually or functionally. Maybe the Linux version of electron is neutered in some way? I read article you linked and I don't know…

Slack in the browser is visibly superior to the slack app. When I close the tab it's really dead. Great feature. The slack "app" is just their web site and a web browser zipped together in such a way that it doesn't actually quit when you tell it to quit. Why anyone wants that I cannot begin to imagine.

I'm not sure what you mean. On OS X quitting the app certainly seems to actually quit it

Re: Flutter for Linux

#127

Post by zelly »

andrepd wrote: post #64
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.

Judging by the example in TFA, we must have very different conceptions of what "beautiful" means. That is an atrocious application. * Ungodly amounts of whitespace (seriously, look at that sidebar, look at that search bar. WHY? too much optimisation for what "looks good on a screenshot", maybe?) * Undecipherable symbols where there's plenty of f#cking space to write labels god damn it * I bet bad/nonexistant keyboard…

You can style the widgets however you like. You don't have to use the default Material toolkit, the same way you can design Qt widgets in QML and don't have to use those default 1990s-style gray box widgets.

> remember alt-* to navigate menus?

I do, but most people reading this probably won't, or there will come a time shortly when most people won't remember. I think most people are used to everything being a web/Electron app. Users do not expect a standard design language (like Win32/Swing/Qt) for desktop apps anymore (and indeed a Win32-style desktop app will soon look as foreign as a webapp since even the Windows shell looks like a webapp now).

Flutter lets you create "webapps" (which is the new standard) but with native performance and ability to make syscalls (being native).

The only alternative tech stacks to this end are QML/QtQuick, JavaFX, an embedded WebView, or embedded Chromium (e.g. Electron or Chromium Emebedded Framework)--all of which having some sort of baggage. Flutter's baggage is you have to use Dart. The alternatives all also require that you use some sort of DSL (QML (Qt), FXML (JavaFX), JS (Electron)) so that's not a unique disadvantage. (It really isn't a disadvantage--imagine the hell if there weren't a DSL for the View layer and every language had to have bindings.)

GUI programming is downright suffering no matter which way you slice it. There are no interesting problems to solve, unless you're working on the GUI framework itself. Flutter makes this suffering slightly better. I don't see how it's not an absolute good.

Re: Flutter for Linux

#128

Post by [deleted] »

harikb wrote: post #28

I have a request for all the Flutter folks/fans - it would be great if you all can say something about how you can get over / stay sane with the staircase looking nesting of code blocks and how you manage to keep it all in your head to navigate the code base. I started my career writing single threaded Palm OS apps (64k limit) - there was like 10 possible widgets with 5 possible events on each widget and rest of it w…

[deleted]

Re: Flutter for Linux

#130

Post by 77pt77 »

skc wrote: post #73
colesantiago wrote: post #8

What is the off chance that Google will drop Flutter?

Google not too long ago released Jetpack Compose which has some overlap with flutter so it's anybody's guess. https://developer.android.com/jetpack/compose

The level of redundancy between all these projects never ceases to amaze me.
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