This week in Flutter #9

26 June 2021

Flutter for web has been a game-changer for my team. When a client mentioned that they would like to have a web version of the app we had already built for them, we were glad we used Flutter. Soon we will be able to create desktop apps as well, but should we?

The desktop experience is much different from the mobile one. A feature like undo, is not common in mobile applications, but it is in desktop ones. Furthermore, you have a full keyboard available to you on desktop, will you make your desktop app working without a mouse?

What do you think?

- Michele Volpato

🧑‍💻 Development

Using Cubit for Managing States in Flutter

Bloc is a well-known library that helps with state management, but using the Bloc package can result in a lot of boilerplate. Cubit is a lighter version of Bloc. Neil Ruaro shows in a simple tutorial how to use it.

flutter_witai: ^0.0.1

Amey Sunu published a package to query Wit.ai, an API that helps with adding natural language experience to your products. The package is at an early stage, but I like to see a student being active in the open-source community.

Calling Native Libraries in Flutter with Dart FFI

I remember some years ago, I was working on an iOS app that used machine learning models to identify some specific sounds. The model, and the functions to use it, was in C code. It was a nightmare. Now, whit Dart FFI it would be much simpler.This new tutorial on raywenderlich.com explains what Dart FFI is and shows how to use it to access native libraries that support C-interoperability.

Migrating an old app to Flutter 2

The Boring Flutter Development Show is back with a new episode. In this one, Filip and Fitz update the old Hacker News app to Flutter 2. Not without problems. When we migrated a relatively new app to Flutter 2, we did not use the sound null safety migration tool, we migrated manually, to keep everything under control.

How we make Flutter work with CallKit Call Directory

With CallKit you can integrate your calling services with other call-related apps. In this (long) article the authors of the flutter_callkit_voximplant package explain why they needed to create a new package, and how they implemented it. It is not common to read articles about how a package is conceived and implemented.

🗄 Backend

Announcing HarperDB Hackathon on Hashnode!

Hashnode, in collaboration with HarperDB, announced a hackathon. The goal is to build an app in your favorite language (Dart?) and framework (Flutter?), using the HarperDB backend service. You still have some days until the 30th of June, so hurry up.

🤷‍♂️ Others

Flutter Web: Should I use it? (Part 1 — SEO)

Reme Le Hane gives his opinion on why SEO is not that important (for now) for Flutter web apps. I would add to his reasons that the usual Flutter web app does not need to be indexed by a search engine. Your content is probably behind a login screen, and if it is not, it is generated depending on some state the app is in. If your content is static, why using a web app? Just publish an HTML website. If you need your app to be discoverable by search engines, you could have a marketing website with a link to the login screen.

Version Management In Flutter

My team makes and maintains Flutter apps for several clients. Some of these apps are not yet migrated to Flutter 2. Some other apps are using Flutter 2. This means that we need two different versions of Flutter, or even more, on the same machine to maintain such apps. How do we do it? Flutter Version Manager. In this article, Naveen Srivastava shows us how to get started.

Dart the perfect CLI language

Ruby is not my favorite language. Let me rephrase it: Ruby is my second to last favorite language. When I need to work on a Fastlane file, I first check if one of my colleagues is online, hoping to unload the job to them (they read this newsletter, so now I am in trouble). So why not using one of your preferred languages for command-line applications? Brett Sutton tells us why we should use Dart.

That’s it for this week.

If you want to comment on any of this week’s entries, you can do it in the comment section below.

Have a bug-free week,