Flutter 2.0- Learn everything about Flutter in a nutshell
Google launched Flutter2.0 on 3rd March 2021 in an event named Flutter Engage. Many IT experts and experienced developers call this launch a landmark launch. This new update comes with features that are extraordinary in their own way.
Developers used Flutter for iOS and Android development, but this recent version has extended its mobile app development services to other platforms such as mac, windows, Linux, and embedded systems. Additionally, developers can also use Flutter for web app developmenti.e.; the applications which can be used on the browsers.
It is a very tedious task to work across the different platforms for the same project, and thus it has brought a sigh of relief to developers. As per the operating system logic needs to change.
The stable updated version boasts of closing 24,541 issues, merging 17,039 PRs from 765 contributors. Furthermore, voluntary PR reviews contributed to the review of 1525 PRs.
This article will explain version 2.0, breaking changes it brings, and how it affects current apps and future projects. We will also learn what all those changes mean for the future of Flutter.
Flutter 2.0. What’s new?
There are lots of new Flutter features available. Let’s have a look at the highlighted ones.
Web
The most exciting part of this release is Flutter’s support for the web. Flutter has pushed the reusability of code to the next level. The approach has proved crucial as it has moved from a document-centric to an app-centric framework. For Flutter developers, the web had just become an option to build apps on.
It has allowed developers to build interactive web applications and enhanced the platform APIs for building flexible and interactive 2D and 3D graphics.
Flutter has come up with a Canvas-kit-based render and the HTML renderer. It has also come up with a Link widget, which enables developers to give web-apps-like feel in the browser.
Sound Null Safety
It is an addition to the Dart language and enables developers to distinguish between non-nullable and nullable types. With this, developers can prevent null error crashes during development.
Desktop
Flutter also has extended support to desktop applications likewise web. Flutter enables developers to offer native-like experiences on different platforms. This experience includes several key things: accurate mouse dragging, text selection pivot points, and a built-in context menu.
This Flutter version helps developers stop the keyboard events even once it is initiated. It is elementary for developers to move items in the RecorderableListView widget effortlessly. The updated scrollbar widget adds the cherry on the top of the cake as it offers top-notch interactiveness in the desktop app. The desktop Flutter apps show page and down tracks, and the mouse hovers in the new ScrollbarTheme class.
The latest version of Flutter helps developers in the smoother resizing for macOS and Windows. When it comes to production-quality release is concerned the Flutter community has moved forward. Now developers can accept support for various things, including native-like text editing, native top-level menus, and accessibility support.
Latest iOS features
Flutter 2.0 version is strengthening its iOS support with its newly launched iOS feature. Flutter has come up with 17039 PRs and out of all, 1878 PRs are iOS related. It also includes 23495 state restoration to iOS. Also, 67781 helps developers build an IPA directly without opening Xcode.
In order to match with the latest tooling, Flutter came up with 69809 updates the CoCoaPods version. Let’s have a look at important widgets:
CupertinoSearchTextField provides iOS search bar UI. CupertinoFormRow, CupertinoFormSection, and CupertinoTextFormFieldRow widgets help in generating validated from visual aesthetics of iOS.
Autocomplete and ScaffoldMessenger
With Flutter2.0, developers can access two new widgets like Autocomplete and ScaffoldMessenger. Autocomplete core represents the minimal functionality that comes in use to get auto-complete functionality in the Flutter app. Autocomplete feature was long in demand by developers. So in one line, this feature allows inducing auto-complete features in your native apps, which are built using Flutter.
ScaffoldMessenger helps in the easy creation of a snack bar for the action between the Scaffold transitions.
Multiple Flutter instances with Add-to-App
Flutter has become the first choice of many mobile app developers as it enables the reuse of the same code for both Android and iOS. Along with this you can add Flutter to an existing application using a feature named App-to-App. It is an essential feature as it helps developers to execute the code for all platforms.
FlutterDevTools
The community’s name has changed from DevTools to FlutterDevTools when it comes to debugging after the launch of Flutter 2.0. The new FlutterDevToll enables Visual StudioCode, IntelliJ, and AndroidStudio and helps developers debug by checking exceptions. The extraordinary feature is that Flutter 2.0 can recognize images with higher resolution.
Google Mobile Ads
The new version of Flutter has come up with the Google Mobile Ads SDK beta version that helps developers to include native ads and inline banners. This can be done with existing overlay formats. Now developers can easily customize ads using Admob
and Ad Manager.
Platform adaptive apps
Flutter now supports Linux, macOS, and Android as well. However, many developers have queries about how they can write an application that can adapt to different screens, such as small, medium, and large.
Developers also wonder about idioms (mobile, web, and desktop) and input modes as the screen is not the only factor in question.
In a Nutshell – Future is bright for Flutter.
We hope this blog helped you understand the Flutter 2.0 release in a nutshell. One should not forget that there are many things released in the Flutter 2.0 note, and organizations should consider taking expert help to understand it deeply. If you are looking to hire Flutter mobile application developers for your upcoming project, contact GKMIT, one of the leading mobile application development company inIndia. We provide remote offshore developers who can give the highest quality at the lowest possible rate.
