Flutter 2: An alternative addon to AnyScreen?

#1

Having a look at this Google Developers Blog: Announcing Flutter 2 (googleblog.com) to see if it might work with Clarion.

I dont really want to learn another tool or language, but this might be something I can use Clarion to control and “use the same codebase to ship native apps to five operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux; as well as web experiences targeting browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge”.

Native apps tick my box for helping to keep the speed and responsiveness reasonable.

Its a Google tool to produce for different devices including cars. MS seem to be on board " Announcing Flutter support for foldable devices | Surface Duo Blog (microsoft.com)"
Flutter web support hits the stable milestone | Flutter (medium.com)

There seems to be some DB interaction:
android - How to connect Ms SQL from a Flutter App? - Stack Overflow
Flutter - Database Concepts - Tutorialspoint
How to use Flutter + MSSQL Database? (google.com)

It seems to be possible to CLI automate Flutter 2 which is what I probably would want Clarion templates to do for me, ie design in Clarion, templates export screen, code etc, then build in Flutter 2 at least thats the thinking.
GitHub - lohanidamodar/flutter_automation: An automation package for flutter firebase auth, android signing, google maps and more coming soon

Havent looked at their IDE yet though, but I wont need it if Clarion is doing the heavylifting at the CLI.

Edit:
Build a Flutter Application on AWS (amazon.com)

#### Tutorial Prereqs

** Flutter version 1.20.0 or higher*
** An editor* that is compatible with Flutter*
** Install the Amplify-Flutter Developer Preview version of the Amplify CLI by running: npm install -g @aws-amplify/[email protected]*

** An AWS Account** with at least these permissions (an Administrator role or root account will also work, but we recommend a least-privileges approach).*
** An Android or iOS devices so you can take pictures*

[]This tutorial assumes using Visual Studio Code, but using a different editor is okay.*

[**]Accounts created within the past 24 hours might not yet have access to the services required for this tutorial.

Edit 2
Might be relevant for tracking down stuff to integrate.
Back by popular demand: Google Cloud products in 4 words or less (2021 edition) | Google Cloud Blog

2 Likes
#2

As far as I remember, Android Studio or IntelliJ can be used as IDE to Flutter and Visual Studio Code too

#4

Yes, the IntelliJ product for all in one IDE editor is paid, but Android Studio is based on that IDE just for Android Apps.

https://developer.android.com/studio

In my case,for Android Development, Android Studio can cover my needs.

#5

I forgot to mention, Android Studio or IntelliJ both supports Flutter, so no need to pay for the subscription I think but, Android Studio is focused on well, Android only. At least is a quick start

#7

Honestly in my case, I am working with the Android IDE for near 3 years, so I do not have a comparison point for older IDEs.

Based on my experience, Eclipse was a nightmare, and that motivate me to use Android Studio. I never look back. What I do not like about Android Studio is a memory hungry specially for the Android Emulator. Thinks are better now, but still memory hungry.

When i saw Flutter for the first time, what I liked is, create one app to rule them all. At least for mobile development one base code for iOS and Android is a huge thing. What i does not like, at that moment was an early technology and was not so mature for my case. Now with the release of Flutter 2, things are moving forward to a better horizon and more possibilities.

Is exiting to think to be able to use Flutter with the Clarion we all love.

#9

@Richard_R, I think in all that time, definitely Android Studio has evolve to be a better tool that it was. Still is a memory hunger one, it works nice.

In my case, Flutter at some point was tempting, because one code base to rule them all sounds great at least in mobile terms. Did I used it? Well, in my case, not. The app I am developing for some time have support for a series of multimedia options that at the end, are more easy for me to maintain with a native code in the long run.

Curiously, Google is focused in three main languages as far as I know. Java. Kotlin and Flutter (DART). Java, well is Java. Well tested and proven over time with the problems and benefits it caries out. Kotlin for me is the response of Google to move Java to a more modern language with null safe options and make it more stable in the long run and compatible with Java. Flutter for what is perceive, is a response to React and give the developers a cross platform tool.

Interestingly, people tend to think Apple Sherlocked Flutter with SwiftUI. In my experience, if the SwiftUI framework was compatible cross platform, Flutter will had no chance. As today, I prefer Swift with SwiftUI for Apple devices even is not as mature as UIKit, Apple is making big steps forward to make it more usable and attractive to Apple developers.

And yes, some Flutter developers has success stories and other nightmares with it.

Even with what I use today, it would be interesting to use a Flutter implementation with Clarion if that’s possible. Who knows what the future has in that matter.

#11

This is one of the most interesting things with SwiftUI and it really works. The same controls adapts to the device used and almost the same code can be used in all Apple devices. The advantage of Apple is, well, they have control over their hardware, resolutions etc etc etc. Alas, is very good, better than the story board.

Check this from Apple, I think there’s a trick or two that can be used no matter the platform.
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/

And this one how with SwiftUI with minimal changes the same code can be used with iOS, Desktop, TVOS and WatchOS
https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/swiftui/

Yes and the thing is, this is not new at all. This is what Microsoft have been trying to do with VS, and all the components that can handle (Xamarin for example). One base code shared across the platforms and just have the specific code at minimal for every device. But in this case, and something i do not like from VS, the setup in the computer at the end is huge.

About the CPU instructions, I think Apple just used the iPad users as a live experiment on something that break all we know and as we know it. I have a friend that buy one in a recent days. He is not a programmer and use the M1 for video editing, coming from a Mac with Intel CPU with more ram and his words are… this thing is FAST, really really fast. For programmers like me that do not enter in the logic inside the CPU and let the compiler do their work, I think we are gonna be fine. For drivers developers, well, like you said, new instructions sets to be learn and maybe new programing languages and so on.

I don’t know if you are aware that Swift can be run and compile code from Windows. Obviously does not have the UIKit framework from Apple, but thinking that the language is oriented to most of the Apple products, I think most of the people can start from that or wait till new compilers gain support for that instructions sets.

#12

[quote=“urayoan, post:11, topic:3912”] And this one how with SwiftUI with minimal changes the same code can be used with iOS, Desktop, TVOS and WatchOS
https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/swiftui/
[/quote]

That link just crashed my Win10 machine and I’m on the latest update, which was installed a few minutes before hand and rebooted.

Swift Crash
Swift Crash5760×1080 131 KB

The screen shot is all that is left of my browser, but what was interesting, they even managed to wipe the Search Box next to the start button for a period of time. They killed the Win10 Blue Light so my white colour’s went from the Financial Time’s orange paper colour to brilliant blinding white again and my graphics card is setup to only do GPU computing, it shouldnt be doing anything else like mining bitcoins and other general purpose computing tasks.

It’s taken me a few minutes to get control of my computer again. Wouldnt have expected that from Apple, but nothing surprises me in todays Clown world. Although I do wonder if it ties up with the malware installed on this computer which so far no AV has picked up yet, but has been wiping my disaster recovery instruction manual.

I’m also amazed, I am 4 months in to trying to lock down a Win10 Pro machine. How hard is it to secure a Windows PC now a days? Its an effing joke!

Alot of these languages which claim to work on many OS’s like Swift use one or more libraries, like GTK The GTK Project - A free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit to run on *nix or windows.

So I learnt a trick the other day, so there’s this malware knocking around and one way to defeat VirusTotal detection is to remove a CLI option and build it into the library #defines. I’ve seen this before where even Clarion takes a hex value and converts it into an incorrect decimal value, which will then bugger up the result coming from the windows API! Posted that one on the SV ngs, but I dont even trust the ng’s anymore having seen posts being tampered with.
Anyway, the AV software just isnt clever enough to spot a malicious library define and a genuine library define, not even VirusTotal was detecting this trick until someone pointed it out!

This then makes all the cutdown tuned tiny/lite versions of an app especially *nix apps, the sort of stuff you see running low ability computing devices like routers, dangerous and harder to detect.

I dont know how true this link is
In-depth dive into the security features of the Intel/Windows platform secure boot process - Igor’s Blog (igor-blue.github.io)

I’m not seeing their reality here.

Edit: This is the blog post claiming the library defines/CLI option removal, plays its part at hiding malware from Googles VirusTotal detection, which means we are buggered when it comes to relying on just one anti virus solution. I really do wonder about the decisions MS have taken with the design of windows, its like a highly intellectual white collar crime. :laughing:
In this case its a Meltdown/Spectre exploit in the wild. Purportedly!
Spectre exploits in the “wild” (dustri.org)

I dotnt know how true this blog post is as I’ve not tried it, and when listening to any claim, I’m always reminded that introducing doubt into someone’s argument/claim when debating lowers the validity of the claim. Its not like Intel are going to admit more than they have too, and things like Boeings 777 plane crashes tells me global brands will keep criminality hidden and politicians are sometimes complicit in this crime. What a life!

#13

Weird. The link sended was opened in my Windows Machine before it was posted. I did try the link in my browsers and opened fine here.

Today it seems more hard than expected. Is a thin line between security and convinience. For example, who in this days does not turn off or at least try to turn of UAC in Windows since Windows 7 ?

Yes, GTK and the Mono Project it was supposed to be a milestone for Linux users and all. Xamarin is based in the Mono Project to link the .NET libraries and make wonders. Like you said in a previous post, the holy grail. How convenient would was to run (at that time) ASP pages in Apache.

Oh yes, not just Microsoft. Something like this

image
image675×673 133 KB

#14

Normally its can you reboot the computer and try again. LOL. :grinning:

1 Like
#15

Google are lowering their Play stores fees to 15% for devs earning upto $1m each year to help them reach critical mass.

Press release from yesterday.
Android Developers Blog: Boosting developer success on Google Play (googleblog.com)

[quote=“urayoan, post:11, topic:3912”] And this one how with SwiftUI with minimal changes the same code can be used with iOS, Desktop, TVOS and WatchOS
https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/swiftui/
[/quote]
A few windows updates later and MS Edge doesnt throw a wobbly on the apple links now. I’m sure some of the info can be translated to other languages. :slightly_smiling_face:

Edit:
And to be fair, it seems MS Store Apps excluding games only costs devs 5%.
Blog from 2018.
A new Microsoft Store revenue share is coming - Windows Developer Blog

#16

Nice! Looks like had a tantrum at the moment.

Apple did the same in the recent days. But… and not a bad but :slight_smile:

In this case, Microsoft hadn’t be successful as the Apple Store or the Google Playstore. I think they are trying to make it more attractive to developers.

I was reading that 30% is not that high compared with the reality of the market at the release of the Apple Store.

#17

In this case, Microsoft hadn’t be successful as the Apple Store or the Google Playstore. I think they are trying to make it more attractive to developers.

Microsoft has different history to Apple and Google. MS is desktop, Apple is desktop and phone, google is just phone.

People have always got their software on disc/cd with MS, changing that habit to the app store will be harder.Google pretty much delivered their software through their apps stores from inception so people are used to that and devs for phone platform just used it.

Apple are in between both. :grinning:

#18

True. Microsoft does have something that others not, and is not at his favor, they need to run in a plethora of computers and public. To move to just an app store takes more time definitively.

#19

Apple has always had a cult like following amongst the creative industries, who happen to also be closely aligned with early adopters and the marketing industry, so in a way they had this sort of advantage over MS who were often seen as the Borg. :wink:

Yes MS had a disadvantage which was not having an Apple cult and its place in certain sectors of society.

#20

Apple fan boys? Naw! :rofl: :rofl: