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by Narretz 476 days ago
Wow, they still render to canvas? That's terrible. Just looked at this website: https://payamzahedi.com/toastification/

Feels janky just when scrolling. This is supposed to be the future?

Last time I used a flutter app they didn't even update the url for different screens.
3 comments
a2128 476 days ago
I'm shocked every time I use a Flutter web app. Not even one of the highest-end desktop GPUs on the market is enough to animate a dark mode toggle at more than a choppy 2fps. In one app with a login page, my password manager fills out the password into the username field, though I'm surprised it's able to fill anything at all. You'll be lucky if you can even select text on the screen or copy a link, though I know some websites would love if they can prevent you from doing that at a technical level. Text editing feels sluggish and doesn't behave the same way as standard web text fields when using advanced keyboard controls. I'm thankful that technologies like Flutter never took off on the web, and I hope they never will.
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johnecheck 476 days ago
The goal isn't the wholesale replacement of html webpages. I have a traditional website for SEO and such that links to my Flutter game app on the same domain. It's exactly what the parent described: a way to ship executable code. A lot of features supported for websites don't work, sure. But that's not the point. It's a single build that practically any user on the planet can execute without needing to install something.

The idea that an app distribution method needs to natively support every feature and analysis method that works for a website is nonsense. You don't expect all that from every app on the play store, for instance. The browser isn't just for visiting html websites anymore. It's also the app distribution method with the widest reach.

On your specific complaints: it's easy to make your screens have different urls. An app that doesn't is built by a novice or lazy developer.

Skipping frames while scrolling is a fair complaint. In my experience, flutter is performant enough but always just a little short of the performance I'd like. Definitely an area that could use improvement.

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kevmoo1 476 days ago
It's using a Flutter web build that's over 2 years old. We've gotten a LOT better.

Context: I'm a product manager on the team.

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