Flutter (software)

Last updated
Flutter
Original author(s) Google
Developer(s) Google and community
Initial releaseAlpha (v0.0.6) / May 12, 2017;7 years ago (2017-05-12) [1]
Stable release
3.24.5 [2]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 13 November 2024;5 days ago (13 November 2024)
Repository
Written in C, C++, Dart [3]
Platform Android, iOS, Google Fuchsia, Web platform, Linux, macOS and Windows
Type Application framework
License New BSD License
Website flutter.dev

Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit created by Google. It can be used to develop cross platform applications from a single codebase for the web, [4] Fuchsia, Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. [5] First described in 2015, [6] [7] Flutter was released in May 2017. Flutter is used internally by Google in apps such as Google Pay [8] [9] and Google Earth [10] [11] as well as other software developers including ByteDance [12] [13] and Alibaba. [14] [15]

Contents

Flutter ships applications with its own rendering engine which directly outputs pixel data to the screen. [16] [17] This is in contrast to many other UI frameworks that rely on the target platform to provide a rendering engine, such as native Android apps which rely on the device-level Android SDK or React Native which dynamically uses the target platform's built-in UI stack. Flutter's control of its rendering pipeline simplifies multi-platform support as identical UI code can be used for all target platforms. [17]

Architecture

The basic component in a Flutter program is a "widget", which can in turn consist of other widgets. [18] A widget describes the logic, interaction, and design of a UI element with an implementation similar to React. [18] Unlike other cross-platform toolkits such as React Native and Xamarin which draw widgets using native platform components, Flutter renders widgets itself on a per-pixel basis. Flutter has two types of widgets: stateless and stateful. Stateless widgets only update if their inputs change, meaning they otherwise won't need to be rebuilt when other elements of the screen change, while stateful widgets can call the setState() method to update an internal state and redraw. [18] [19] Although widgets are the primary method of constructing Flutter applications, they can also be bypassed in favor of directly drawing on a canvas. This feature has been occasionally used to implement game engines in Flutter. [20]

The Flutter framework contains two sets of widgets that conform to specific design languages: Material Design widgets implement Google's design language of the same name, and Cupertino widgets implement Apple's iOS Human interface guidelines. [21] [22] Flutter allows the developer to use either set of widgets on either platform. Developers can use Cupertino widgets on Android.

Flutter apps are written in the Dart language. Release versions of Flutter apps on all platforms use ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation [23] except for on the Web where code is transpiled to JavaScript or WebAssembly. [24] [25] Flutter inherits Dart's Pub package manager and software repository, which allows users to publish and use custom packages as well as Flutter-specific plugins. [26] The Foundation library, written in Dart, provides basic classes and functions that are used to construct applications using Flutter, such as APIs to communicate with the engine. [22] [27]

Flutter's engine, written primarily in C++, provides low-level rendering support using either Google's Skia graphics library or the custom "Impeller" graphics layer, which is enabled by default on iOS and is in beta on Android. [28] [29] [30] The engine interfaces with platform-specific SDKs such as those provided by Android and iOS to implement features like accessibility, file and network I/O, native plugin support, etc. [22]

History

The first version of Flutter was known as "Sky" and ran on the Android operating system. [31] It was unveiled at the 2015 Dart developer summit with the stated intent of being able to render consistently at 120 frames per second. [31] On December 4, 2018, Flutter 1.0 was released at the Flutter conference in London. [32]

On May 6, 2020, the Dart software development kit (SDK) version 2.8 and Flutter 1.17.0 were released, adding support for the Metal API. [33]

On March 3, 2021, Google released Flutter 2 during an online Flutter Engage event. [8] [34] It added a Canvas-based renderer for web in addition to the HTML-based renderer and early-access desktop application support for Windows, macOS, and Linux. [34] [8] It also shipped with Dart 2.0 which included support for null-safety. [8] [35] Null safety was initially optional as it was a breaking change and was made mandatory in dart 3 released in 2023. [35] [36]

On May 12, 2022, Flutter 3 and Dart 2.17 were released with support for all desktop platforms as stable. [37]

On October 27, 2024, a number of Flutter community developers announced Flock, a fork of Flutter intended to be easier to contribute to while still keeping in sync with all changes made in the upstream code base. [38] [39]

See also

Related Research Articles

In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.

A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to a hardware platform and operating system combination. To create applications with advanced functionalities such as advertisements, push notifications, etc; most application software developers use specific software development kits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Web Toolkit</span> Free Java library

Google Web Toolkit, or GWT Web Toolkit, is an open-source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain JavaScript front-end applications in Java. It is licensed under Apache License 2.0.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe AIR</span> Cross-platform runtime system for building rich web applications

Adobe AIR is a cross-platform runtime system currently developed by Harman International, in collaboration with Adobe Inc., for building desktop applications and mobile applications, programmed using Adobe Animate, ActionScript, and optionally Apache Flex. It was originally released in 2008. The runtime supports installable applications on Windows, macOS, and mobile operating systems, including Android, iOS, and BlackBerry Tablet OS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pyjs</span> Rich Internet application framework

Pyjs, is a rich web application framework for developing client-side web and desktop applications in Python. The resulting applications can be run in a web browser or as standalone desktop applications.

A mobile development framework is a software framework that is designed to support mobile app development. It is a software library that provides a fundamental structure to support the development of applications for a specific environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skia Graphics Engine</span> Open source graphics library written in C++

The Skia Graphics Engine or Skia is an open-source 2D graphics library written in C++. Skia abstracts away platform-specific graphics APIs. Skia Inc. originally developed the library; Google acquired it in 2005, and then released the software as open source licensed under the New BSD free software license in 2008.

Apache Cordova is a mobile application development framework created by Nitobi. Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordova. Apache Cordova enables software programmers to build hybrid web applications for mobile devices using CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript, instead of relying on platform-specific APIs like those in Android, iOS, or Windows Phone. It enables the wrapping up of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code depending on the platform of the device. It extends the features of HTML and JavaScript to work with the device. The resulting applications are hybrid, meaning that they are neither truly native mobile application nor purely Web-based. They are not native because all layout rendering is done via Web views instead of the platform's native UI framework. They are not Web apps because they are packaged as apps for distribution and have access to native device APIs. Mixing native and hybrid code snippets has been possible since version 1.9.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MoSync</span>

MoSync is a discontinued free and open-source software development kit (SDK) for mobile applications. It is integrated with the Eclipse development environment. The framework produces native mobile applications for multiple platforms using C/C++, HTML5 scripting and any combination thereof. The target group for MoSync are both web developers looking to enter the mobile space, as well as the ordinary PC/Mac desktop developer with knowledge in C/C++ development.

Titanium SDK is an open-source framework that allows the creation of native mobile applications on platforms iOS and Android from a single JavaScript codebase. It is presently developed by non-profit software foundation TiDev, Inc.

Dart is a programming language designed by Lars Bak and Kasper Lund and developed by Google. It can be used to develop web and mobile apps as well as server and desktop applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kivy (framework)</span> Free and multi-platform graphical library for Python

Kivy is a free and open source Python framework for developing mobile apps and other multitouch application software with a natural user interface (NUI). It is distributed under the terms of the MIT License, and can run on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ionic (mobile app framework)</span> Open-source framework to develop hybrid mobile apps

Ionic is an open-source UI toolkit for building cross-platform mobile, web, and desktop applications using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/TypeScript. It provides a set of pre-designed UI components and tools for building high-quality, interactive applications. Ionic was originally built as a complete open-source SDK for hybrid mobile app development created by Max Lynch, Ben Sperry, and Adam Bradley of Drifty Co. in 2013. The original version was released in 2013 and built on top of AngularJS and Apache Cordova. However, the latest release was re-built as a set of Web Components using StencilJS, allowing the user to choose any user interface framework, such as Angular, React or Vue.js. It also allows the use of Ionic components with no user interface framework at all. Ionic provides tools and services for developing hybrid mobile, desktop, and progressive web apps based on modern web development technologies and practices, using Web technologies like CSS, HTML5, and Sass. In particular, mobile apps can be built with these Web technologies and then distributed through native app stores to be installed on devices by utilizing Cordova or Capacitor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">React Native</span> Open-source mobile application framework

React Native is an open-source UI software framework developed by Meta Platforms. It is used to develop applications for Android, Android TV, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Web, Windows and UWP by enabling developers to use the React framework along with native platform capabilities. It is used to develop Android and iOS applications at Facebook, Microsoft, and Shopify. It is also being used to develop virtual reality applications at Oculus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fuchsia (operating system)</span> Computer operating system by Google

Fuchsia is an open-source capability-based operating system developed by Google. In contrast to Google's Linux-based operating systems such as ChromeOS and Android, Fuchsia is based on a custom kernel named Zircon. It publicly debuted as a self-hosted git repository in August 2016 without any official corporate announcement. After years of development, its official product launch was in 2021 on the first-generation Google Nest Hub, replacing its original Linux-based Cast OS.

Avalonia is a free and open-source .NET cross-platform XAML-based UI framework inspired by WPF/UWP and distributed under the MIT License. Avalonia supports the MVVM pattern.

ArkUI is a declarative based user interface framework for building user interfaces on native HarmonyOS, OpenHarmony alongside Oniro OS applications developed by Huawei for the ArkTS and Cangjie programming language.

Project IDX is an online integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Google. It is based on Visual Studio Code, and the infrastructure runs on Google Cloud. In addition to including the features, languages and plugins supported by VS Code, it has unique functionality built by Google. These include a built-in generative artificial intelligence assistant powered by Gemini, Nix integrations, and iOS and Android emulators. Google also provides templates for JavaScript, Python, and Go projects, as well for as a number of web and cross-platform frameworks like Node, Angular, Flutter, Next.js, React, FireBase, Google Maps, and Flask.

Jetpack Compose is an open-source Kotlin-based declarative UI framework for Android developed by Google. The first preview was announced in May 2019, and the framework was made ready for production in July 2021.

References

  1. ↑ Chris Bracken. "Release v0.0.6: Rev alpha branch version to 0.0.6, flutter 0.0.26 (#10010) · flutter/flutter". GitHub . Archived from the original on 2019-02-05. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  2. ↑ https://github.com/flutter/flutter/releases/tag/3.24.5.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ↑ "FAQ - Flutter". Archived from the original on 2019-02-23. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  4. ↑ Amadeo, Ron (2018-02-27). "Google starts a push for cross-platform app development with Flutter SDK". Ars Technica . Archived from the original on 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
  5. ↑ Amadeo, Ron (8 May 2017). "Google's "Fuchsia" smartphone OS dumps Linux, has a wild new UI". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 26 September 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  6. ↑ "With Flutter, Google Aims Dart to Mobile App Cross-Development". InfoQ. Archived from the original on 2022-04-28. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
  7. ↑ "Google announces Flutter 1.0, the first stable release of its cross-platform mobile development toolkit". Android Police. 2018-12-05. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Claburn, Thomas (3 Mar 2021). "Google's multi-platform app framework Flutter reaches version 2, expands to the web". theregister.com.
  9. ↑ "Going global at Google Pay with Flutter". Archived from the original on 2024-03-31. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  10. ↑ Schoon, Ben (September 26, 2023). "Google Earth gets a redesigned Android app with Projects support, removes Voyager". 9to5google.com.
  11. ↑ "Check out the new @googleearth for iOS, Android, and web with UI built using Flutter, all from a single codebase". Archived from the original on 2024-04-02. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  12. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (11 May 2022). "Google's Flutter 3 adds support for macOS and Linux desktop apps". TechCrunch. On the mobile side, companies like WeChat, ByteDance, Betterment, SHEIN and BMW are now betting on Flutter — as does Google itself.
  13. ↑ "Increasing productivity by 33% at ByteDance with Flutter". Archived from the original on 2024-04-02. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  14. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (4 December 2018). "Google's cross-platform Flutter UI toolkit hits version 1.0". TechCrunch.
  15. ↑ "Alibaba scales China's largest second-hand marketplace with Flutter". Archived from the original on 2024-03-30. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  16. ↑ "Flutter architectural overview". docs.flutter.dev. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  17. 1 2 Claburn, Thomas (12 Nov 2021). "Apps made with Google's Flutter may fritter away CPU cycles. Here's what the web giant intends to do about it". theregister.com. It does so by relying heavily on Skia, a graphics-rendering engine written in C/C++ that uses a device's CPU or GPU to draw app interfaces on its own, without relying on native platform interface libraries.
  18. 1 2 3 Windmill, Eric; Rischpater, Ray (2020). Flutter in action. Shelter Island, NY: Manning Publications Co. pp. 12, 16. ISBN   9781617296147.
  19. ↑ "Introduction to widgets". docs.flutter.dev. Archived from the original on 2022-10-06. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  20. ↑ "Flame". flame-engine.org. Archived from the original on 2022-09-27. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  21. ↑ Anderson, Tim (5 Aug 2020). "Google reports 80% spike of Flutter-built apps in Play Store as 1.20 is released". theregister.com. In general the design style follows Google's Material Design guidelines, making it particularly at home on Android (as you would expect from Google), but there is also support for Cupertino widgets for a native iOS look and feel.
  22. 1 2 3 "Technical Overview - Flutter". flutter.dev. Archived from the original on 2020-06-16. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  23. ↑ stephenwzl (2018-08-01). "Flutter's Compilation Patterns". ProAndroidDev. Archived from the original on 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
  24. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (25 January 2023). "Google's Flutter showcases new graphics capabilities, WebAssembly and RISC-V support". TechCrunch.
  25. ↑ Thomsen, Michael (2024-05-14). "Landing Flutter 3.22 and Dart 3.4 at Google I/O 2024". Flutter. Retrieved 2024-05-17.
  26. ↑ "Using packages". docs.flutter.dev. Archived from the original on 2022-10-06. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  27. ↑ "foundation library - Dart API". docs.flutter.dev. Archived from the original on 2020-06-16. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  28. ↑ "Flutter architectural overview". docs.flutter.dev. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  29. ↑ "Impeller rendering engine". docs.flutter.dev. Retrieved 2024-05-17.
  30. ↑ Bradshaw, Kyle (January 25, 2023). "Google releases Flutter 3.7, teases future of app development framework". 9to5google.com.
  31. 1 2 Amadeo, Ron (1 May 2015). "Google's Dart language on Android aims for Java-free, 120 FPS apps". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 6 May 2015. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  32. ↑ Amadeo, Ron (4 December 2018). "Google bridges Android and iOS development with Flutter 1.0". Ars Technica.
  33. ↑ Siddiqui, Aamir (6 May 2020). "Google releases Flutter 1.17 and Dart 2.8 stable SDKs for app development". XDA. Flutter now uses Metal by default when building for supported iOS devices, making Flutter apps run faster.
  34. 1 2 Lardinois, Frederic (3 March 2021). "Version 2 of Google's Flutter toolkit adds support for desktop and web apps". TechCrunch.
  35. 1 2 Wander, Zachary (3 March 2021). "Dart 2.12 has been released, with null-safety and C interoperability". XDA.
  36. ↑ Claburn, Thomas (9 Dec 2022). "Google's Dart language soon won't take null for an answer". theregister.com.
  37. ↑ Claburn, Thomas (11 May 2022). "Google's Flutter app development framework now stable across platforms". theregister.com.
  38. ↑ Larabel, Michael (29 October 2024). "Google's Flutter UI Toolkit Forked As Flock". phoronix.com. Retrieved 30 October 2024.
  39. ↑ Krill, Paul. "Google's Flutter framework has been forked". InfoWorld.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.