Flutter 2 is Now Available with its Desktop Update

Latitude Technolabs
5 min readMay 28, 2021

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Flutter 2 Is Now Available For A Variety Of Platforms

Flutter 2 Is Now Available For A Variety Of Platforms — Latitude Technolabs

Flutter 2.0 was officially published on March 3 during an event called Flutter Engage by Google. It’s an open-source user interface development kit that allows app developers to create cross-platform apps using a shared codebase.

With this update, Google enhanced Flutter’s capabilities and created the new version to enable apps across all platforms, including desktop, online, and emerging form factors like Foldables. You may use a comparable codebase for distributing native apps to macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android using Flutter 2.0

It also provides online experiences for browsers, including Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. Flutter can be embedded in TVs, vehicles, and smart home devices, providing the most portable and pervasive computing experience possible. If you are a business and want a perfect service for your project, you can hire mobile app developers for your cross-platform app development.

Flutter 2.0 : What’s New?

As part of the introduction of Flutter 2, there are a slew of new features. Here are all the new things in flutter 2.O

  • Web Support in Flutter

The introductory statement in Flutter 2 is the production-quality web support. Previously, the web was built on a document-centric base. However, the web platform has evolved to allow for the distribution of richer platform APIs that enable very sophisticated apps to be built utilizing hardware-accelerated 3D and 2D graphics, paint APIs, and flexible layout.

Flutter’s web support lays the groundwork for future advancements, giving an app-focused architecture that takes full use of what the new web should have to offer.

This version is focused on three app scenarios:

  • SPAs — Single Page Apps
  • PWAs — Progressive Web Apps
  • Flutter mobile apps are being ported to the web

Google primarily focused on rendering quality improvements and performance. They’ve included a new Canvas Kit-based WebAssembly rendering.

They also included web-specific functionality like URL management in the address bar, text autofill, PWA manifests, and routing. They also incorporated a Link Widget to make a browser-based mobile app seem like a web app.

  • Desktop Support in Flutter

Flutter’s desktop support may be used as a deployment target for all Flutter apps by Google. Many improvements have been made to bring the Flutter desktop up to par, including ensuring that text editing works like a native experience on all supported platforms and implementing basic capabilities such as text selection pivot points.

The TextFormField and TextFieldWidgets for Cupertino and Material design languages now include a built-in context menu. adding to that, the ReorderableListView widget now has grab handles.

Another upgrade for platform-idiomatic functionality that shows specifically for the desktop form factor is an upgraded scrollbar. The revised scrollbar widget has many of the same features as the desktop version, such as the ability to click on the track to page up and down and slide the thumb to reveal a track when the mouse hovers over the scrollbar.

The Flutter 2 version additionally allows Flutter apps to manage command-line arguments. Simple actions such as double-clicking a data file in Windows File Explorer may be used to open the file in your app.

  • The Extended Portability of Flutter

Flutter is rapidly being used on platforms other than the web and traditional mobile smartphones.

To begin, Canonical and Google are collaborating to bring to the desktop, with engineers supplying code to facilitate deployment and development on Linux. Canonical aspires to provide a dependable appealing experience across a wide range of hardware configurations.

Microsoft also will expand its flutter support. Microsoft will provide contributions to the flutter engine that support the increasing class of foldable android devices, in addition to the present partnership for delivering high-quality windows support in Flutter.

Finally, Toyota, the world’s best-selling vehicle manufacturer, announced its plans to provide best-in-class digital experiences to automobiles using Flutter-enabled infotainment systems.

  • Flutter Fix

Flutter Fix integrates several elements. Dart Fix, a unique command-line option to the Dart CLI tool, understands where to look for a list of obsolete APIs and how to update code that uses those APIs. Then there’s the list of available fixes that comes with version 2 of the Flutter SDK.

Finally, it’s an updated collection of Flutter extensions for IntelliJ and Visual Studio Code.

  • Flutter Folio

For production apps, Flutter supports three platforms (Web, iOS, and android), with three more in beta (Linux, macOS, and Windows), so How is it possible to create an app that adapts to different screen sizes? The scrapbooking software “Flutter Folio” was commissioned by Google to solve that topic.

Folio is a simple example of an application that can operate on several platforms using the same codebase. This program is referred to as platform adaptable since it adjusts to the platform it is operating on.

  • Add-to-App

Developers can now profit from Flutter by incorporating it into their existing Android and iOS apps. It’s a fantastic method to reuse Flutter code on multiple platforms while keeping your existing native codebase. On the beta channel, the new APIs that enable this are in preview.

  • Google Mobile Ads for Flutter

Flutter 2, the updated UI development SDK, is Ad Manager and compatible. Flutter apps can now use Google Ads in a variety of ways. Google Mobile Advertisements for this SDK now support native-looking advertisements, video ads for incentives, interstitials, and banners.

  • Flutter DevTools

Google has put a lot of effort into bringing Flutter to the stage where DevTools can compete with Flutter 2.0 IntelliJ, Android Studio, or Visual Studio Code can detect a simple error and bring it up in DevTools for debugging. It is a new feature that helps developers decrease their difficulties before they release DevTools.

Another new feature in DevTools is the ability to see a photograph at a more excellent resolution than the one now shown. It makes it easier to keep track of extra memory use and program size. Turn on this function by allowing the Invert Oversized Images option in the Flutter Inspector.

The following are some more of the new features in Flutter DevTools 2:

  • The new memory view charts are smaller, faster, and simpler to use, and they include a new hovercard for describing activities at a certain period
  • The Flutter Frames Chart has been updated with usability improvements and average FPS statistics
  • The ‘Performance’ view has been changed to ‘CPU Profiler,’ making the functions it provides more explicit
  • The Logging tab now includes search and filtering
  • The “timeline’ view has been changed to “performance” which clarifies the functions it provides
  • The CPU profiler flame charts now provide a timing grid
  • The track Logs form is launched before DevTools, allowing developers to examine the whole logging history right away
  • In the network profiler, highlighting failed network requests with red error flags

To Conclude

The new version of Flutter, on the other hand, will reduce deployment time and development work. The latest flutter 2 version adds more options for app development. It now has extra features, as well as a new long future. In short, the Flutter is more capable now.

If you are new in flutter development then you can learn flutter and also If you are from a business or in a project want to make a cross-platform app, you can hire mobile app developers for the best cross-platform app development.

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Latitude Technolabs

Latitude Technolabs Pvt. Ltd. is a leading service provider with extensive experience in providing IT outsourcing services to enterprises across the globe.