Flutter 2.8: Performance Improvements and Introducing Firebase Features with Tooling Updates
On December 9, 2021, the Flutter team announced another big update for the Flutter and Dart lovers. In that release, they covered very specific and usable updates. Some of the best examples are new Firebase features and tooling updates.
This is the final stable release of the year 2021.
Highlights
- Performance improvement in both the engine and DevTools
- New Firebase features
- WebView 3.0
- Updates for desktop
- A new version of DartPad
Performance Improvement in Engine and DevTools Engine
- In this release, the Flutter team made improvements on application startup latency.
- Improvements on the Dart VM garbage collection policy for managing memory.
- Attractive addition on Android native tracing events.
- On the side of animations, they introduced a lifetime tract for the raster cached images.
DevTools
- Enhance tracing features added.
- New support for profiling the performance of startup apps.
Flutter Firebase Features
- All FlutterFire packages are now available in a stable version.
- Support added on DartPad for Firebase services.
- Improvements in the Firebase UI.
- Maintain production quality.
- Firebase initialization attribute added.
- Firebase with DartPad.
- Improvement in Firestore objects and document mapping.
WebView 3.0
- The hybrid composition mode has defaulted from this release.
- Additional features added on webview_Flutter.
- Also, webview_Flutter_web is available on pub.dev.
Update for Desktop
- Stable release available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Supports internationalization and localization.
- Improvements in visual density and alignments for dialogs.
- Easy to build desktop-friendly UI.
New Version of DartPad
- The flutter team also focuses on tooling improvements.
- A larger number of packages are supported on DartPad by using import.
- Firebase service plugins also support this release.
- Channel menu added on the status bar.
Improved Performances of Flutter Release 2.8
Web Platform Views
- This release also improves the platform views performance for the Flutter web.
- Improvement in HtmlElementView widget .
Ecosystem
- There are more than 20,000 Flutter-compatible packages available in pub.dev.
- In this larger ecosystem, developers interact with each other daily, which helps to build a stronger community of Flutter.
- Increased Flutter favourites packages.
GA of Flutter Ads
- 5 ad formats are supported on both AdMob and Ad Manager.
- This release includes a beta of a new mediation feature for performance optimization.
Flutter 2.10: Windows Stable and Many More
In February 2022, the Flutter team released another stable version, the biggest announcement for the Windows application. From this release, developers no longer need to flip flags when building for Windows.
Adaptions of Flutter 2.10 in:
Windows
- Improvements in text handling and keyboard shortcuts.
- New integrations in Windows with support of command line arguments.
- Introduction of an internal picture recording format with optimization.
- Faster implementation of type flow analysis.
iOS
- Smoother keyboard animations in iOS from luckysmg.
- Maintenance of camera plugins.
- Edge case crashes fixes on this release.
- Introduction of compressed pointers for 64-bit iOS architectures.
Android
- From this release, the default app supports the latest version of Android, version 12 (API level 31).
- Multidex support from Flutter 2.10.
- Improvements in Gradle error messages.
Web
- Improvements in edge scrolling for text selection.
- Introduction of non-painting platform view for removing overhead.
- Enhancement of link widgets.
Material 3
- Improvements in the colour scheme.
- Availability of ThemeData.useMaterial3 flag.
- Updated material icons.
Integration Testing
- Bundling integration_test package added on Flutter SDK.
- Other improvements on integration testing from this release.
- Replace the Flutter_driver package with the integration_test package.
DevTools
- Usability updates
- Dart DevTools was added for the common line user.
- Improvements on support for the large lists and maps in the Debugger variables.
VS code
- Enhancements on colour previews for codes.
- Colour picker available for picking colour shade values.
- Switch to pre-release version features added.
Flutter 3.0: macOS and Linux Stable Support
In May 2022, the Flutter team announced another release on the stable channel with support for macOS and Linux with additions on Windows.
Adaptions on Flutter 3.0
- Cascading menus and support for macOS system by using PlatformMenuBar widget.
- Full support for international text input methods with languages.
- Screen readers, accessible navigation and inverted colours are supported on all desktop platforms.
- Universal binaries by default for both the Intel-based Macs and Apple's silicon devices.
- Deprecation on Windows 7 and Windows 8 for development.
Flutter 3.0 for Different Platforms
Android and iOS
- Foldable phone support.
- Variables refresh rate support for iOS devices.
- New options are available for the Flutter build IPA command.
- Improvements on the Gradle version.
- Removed support for 32-bit iOS (iOS 9 and iOS 10).
Web
- Image decoding API in the browser's support.
- Improved web app lifecycle with HTML landing page, splash screen and a loading indicator.
Tooling
- Lint package updated.
- Migration guide and upgrade updated for Flutter_lints.
Performance Improvements
- Improvements in
AnimatedOpacity. - Improvements on Dart VM background garbage collection threads.
- Introduces a mechanism for the rendering complexity of pictures.
- Bug fixes on frame scheduling.
- Supports for material design 3 with opt-in.
- Improvements in theme extensions.
- User Messaging Platform(UMP) supports SDK.
The Future of Flutter SDK
Flutter 3.0 is the latest release provided by the Flutter team. There are lots of open source contributors who work for the awesome community which we have nowadays. There are so many contributors and community helpers who are continually working for the community.
I have covered Flutter releases with announcements and highlighted points in this series. I will provide more information on other releases as soon as it drops.
Want to know more about Flutter and Flutter coming releases? Stay with us for more. Meanwhile, you can check Flutter's official documentation.
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