Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart • Hacker News Board

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#31

Post by ameliaquining » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

roughike wrote: post #21

discreteevent wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness Qt also gets this right: It renders every pixel and it has a fast rendering architecture. Having used Qt, flutter is very attractive to me for the case where you have to work with a team. It can be hard to get together enough people nowadays who will want to work with even a little C++. The Qt libraries make it very easy IMO (most stuff is ref counted) but not everyone is going to buy that.

Qt is one of those things that I've heard of before, but did not know was still used for mobile development today. The monthly commercial license fee is a bit of a downer though. I feel that a lot of software development agencies (my workplace included) are just not gonna bother with it and just use something free instead. I agree about the C++ point with you. I have to confess I'm also one of those people who genera…

The free license for Qt is the LGPL, which, although more restrictive than a fully permissive license like BSD or MIT, is still suitable for many commercial applications. (You can't ship proprietary modifications to Qt, but you can ship a proprietary app that includes Qt as a dependency. Your app can use a modified version of Qt if you open source your modifications.)

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#32

Post by sethladd » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #22

roughike wrote: post #15

As a native mobile developer of several years, I've always been somewhat skeptical of the various cross-platform solutions that have emerged over the years. The WebView-based solutions weren't fast enough and sometimes behaved differently across devices because of different WebView versions. With React Native, the impression was far better because the performance actually can be quite good. But it's still hard to abs…

There are pros and cons. One of my big concerns around something like Flutter is accessibility. When you render everything on your own you lose the ability to hook into system-level frameworks for accessible content discovery. Their FAQ mentions it briefly but looking at the API support seems pretty sparse.

(disclaimer: I work on the Flutter team)

We're working on accessibility right now, it's incredibly important to us and our users. A big driver here is Google's usage of Flutter. There are business-critical teams at Google right now using Flutter, and they can't launch until a11y is finished. So we're working to finish and ship it. Stay tuned!

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#33

Post by sethladd » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

matt2000 wrote: post #16

bsaul wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue is when your customer (or boss) ask you for this very simple feature that's found everywhere ( because it's a native sdk feature) and you suddenly realize you'll have the spend days if not weeks implementing it. I wouldn't be surprised if maps weren't as powerful in flutter as in native android or ios sdk for a long time. Still, i think the "low level / pixel level" approach that flutter took is the onl…

I’ve been writing a new project in Flutter and so far it’s been dramatically faster than writing an app with either of the native SDKs. The issue you mention here is the key downside though. For example, as far as I know there is no map component or video player. I don’t happen to need those, but if you did it’d be a deal breaker probably.

(disclaimer: I work on Flutter)

Thanks for the feedback. We're currently exploring how to do inline video, which we think will teach us about techniques for inline maps. These are very top requested features. Stay tuned! :)

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#34

Post by sethladd » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:19 PM UTC

Illniyar wrote: post #26

roughike wrote: post #15

As a native mobile developer of several years, I've always been somewhat skeptical of the various cross-platform solutions that have emerged over the years. The WebView-based solutions weren't fast enough and sometimes behaved differently across devices because of different WebView versions. With React Native, the impression was far better because the performance actually can be quite good. But it's still hard to abs…

"Since every pixel on the UI is rendered by the framework" This is a deal breaker for me. It's not about the ui feeling a bit off - the drawer going over instead of pushing things or some such, it's about losing the integration with the native OS. For example the android version of the gallery app shown elsewhere doesn't adjust to font size changes (which can be done at the system level), won't make a sound when clic…

(disclaimer: I'm on the Flutter team)

Thanks for the feedback! We are working on improving our accessibility now, which is required for our business-critical Google users and others. For example, you can follow this issue if you're interested: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/12311

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#35

Post by sethladd » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:21 PM UTC

Illniyar wrote: post #27

discreteevent wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair points. It's worth stating though that this only matters if you have a requirement to look 100% native. Many apps don't have this requirement whether mobile or desktop and so they may use a web ui. In our case we didn't have the 100% native requirement and used Qt. We still had a really slick user interface, it just wasn't native. Note that our customers are primarily concerned about the functionality of the app…

It's not just about the look, it's about the feel. From looking at the "gallery app" on android: Flutter's input-text has their own custom mark text handler - no double tap, long press opens a custom menu that is missing native options (Such as translate text). Changing the font size in the OS does nothing in the app. Clicking on buttons doesn't make a tap sound if the "sound on tap" option is set. I'm guessing no ac…

(disclaimer: I work on Flutter)

Thanks for your feedback! I opened https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/12438 to track the "not playing a sound when tapped". We're currently working on improving our accessibility support.

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#36

Post by symlinkk » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

discreteevent wrote: post #18

roughike wrote: post #15

As a native mobile developer of several years, I've always been somewhat skeptical of the various cross-platform solutions that have emerged over the years. The WebView-based solutions weren't fast enough and sometimes behaved differently across devices because of different WebView versions. With React Native, the impression was far better because the performance actually can be quite good. But it's still hard to abs…

In fairness Qt also gets this right: It renders every pixel and it has a fast rendering architecture. Having used Qt, flutter is very attractive to me for the case where you have to work with a team. It can be hard to get together enough people nowadays who will want to work with even a little C++. The Qt libraries make it very easy IMO (most stuff is ref counted) but not everyone is going to buy that.

> It renders every pixel

I thought Qt was "native"? That's what's parroted around here when comparing it to Electron.

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#37

Post by lilactown » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:45 PM UTC

symlinkk wrote: post #36

discreteevent wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness Qt also gets this right: It renders every pixel and it has a fast rendering architecture. Having used Qt, flutter is very attractive to me for the case where you have to work with a team. It can be hard to get together enough people nowadays who will want to work with even a little C++. The Qt libraries make it very easy IMO (most stuff is ref counted) but not everyone is going to buy that.

> It renders every pixel I thought Qt was "native"? That's what's parroted around here when comparing it to Electron.

It's native in the sense that it doesn't bundle an entire Chrome browser runtime with it. But it does not interact with native APIs; it re-implements the native platform's look and feel.

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#38

Post by bjano » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

Illniyar wrote: post #26

roughike wrote: post #15

As a native mobile developer of several years, I've always been somewhat skeptical of the various cross-platform solutions that have emerged over the years. The WebView-based solutions weren't fast enough and sometimes behaved differently across devices because of different WebView versions. With React Native, the impression was far better because the performance actually can be quite good. But it's still hard to abs…

"Since every pixel on the UI is rendered by the framework" This is a deal breaker for me. It's not about the ui feeling a bit off - the drawer going over instead of pushing things or some such, it's about losing the integration with the native OS. For example the android version of the gallery app shown elsewhere doesn't adjust to font size changes (which can be done at the system level), won't make a sound when clic…

I also use a cross-platform framework that "renders every pixel". The two major problems I had are the lack of native input and the integration with native ad SDKs. I solved the input with overlaying a native input view on top of everything but it's very clunky and have to be careful to keep it the topmost in the view hierarchy. I haven't found a solution for native ads.

Most of the other things are relatively easy to solve if they come up as actual problem.

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#39

Post by pavlov » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 8:13 PM UTC

Illniyar wrote: post #26

roughike wrote: post #15

As a native mobile developer of several years, I've always been somewhat skeptical of the various cross-platform solutions that have emerged over the years. The WebView-based solutions weren't fast enough and sometimes behaved differently across devices because of different WebView versions. With React Native, the impression was far better because the performance actually can be quite good. But it's still hard to abs…

"Since every pixel on the UI is rendered by the framework" This is a deal breaker for me. It's not about the ui feeling a bit off - the drawer going over instead of pushing things or some such, it's about losing the integration with the native OS. For example the android version of the gallery app shown elsewhere doesn't adjust to font size changes (which can be done at the system level), won't make a sound when clic…

I don't like the approach either, and the point about accessibility is an important one that's very much non-trivial (but developers often ignore it completely at first).

It's like making a web page that renders everything inside Canvas elements. If that doesn't seem like a good idea to you -- why would you build your mobile apps that way?

Re: Initial experience creating cross-platform apps with Flutter and Dart

#40

Post by ape4 » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 8:25 PM UTC

sethladd wrote: post #14

yawn wrote: post #2

> So Flutter is actually pushing pixels itself, sounds strange, but it works The siren song of cross-platform development sounds so sweet to the ears and I've fallen for it quite a few times only to get bitten in the end. Introducing another layer between you and the source has several drawbacks: it's an additional source for bugs, it makes you reliant on the middle man to be timely with updates to keep pace of the n…

(disclaimer: I work on the Flutter team) > What do I see when I'm running an older native version? You will see exactly the pixels that your designer intended and your developer coded. :) Apps built with Flutter ship the renderer and framework inside the app, which helps ensure consistency and fidelity across devices, OEMs, OS, and platform. This is particularly important for brands that want a brand-first design del…

Not to diminish your amazing work. I'm not sure brand-first is user-first. Its most user-friendly to use the standard phone OS controls that they are already familiar with.