Flutter Flash News (08/2024)

Flutter 3.24

The most important update came in the form of a new stable version of Flutter, introducing an improved impeller and lots of bug fixes. Which one made us the happiest?

Finally, Swift Package Manager, the iOS library management, should completely replace CocoaPods. Say goodbye to the endless frustration around "pods". Instead, we can finally focus on actual development rather than the repeated struggles with CocoaPods. 🥊

Dart 3.5

The new version of Flutter is accompanied by a Dart update. We're very pleased to hear that pub.dev will eventually be able to provide download statistics for libraries. This is a much requested feature that other ecosystems have supported for a long time. Having created several open-source libraries, we're thrilled to glimpse the real numbers finally.

New Dart formatter

The Dart team is also preparing a rewrite of the Dart formatter that will be more flexible and cover the needs for writing Flutter applications. 

Improved null-promotion

As of Dart 3.5, the analyzer can correctly account for private nullable fields when evaluating null-check conditions.

class Before {
   final int? _nullableField;
   
   void doSomeWork() {
      if(_nullableField != null) {
         // Zde nutný null-bang operator !
         int a = _nullableField!;    
      } 
      
      // alternativa
      if(_nullableField case final x?) {
        int a = x;
      }
   }
}

// Od Dartu 3.5
class After {
    final int? _nullableField;
   
   void doSomeWork() {
      if(_nullableField != null) {
        int a = _nullableField;    
      }
   }
}

Spacing argument for Row a Column widgets

Sometimes, it's all about the little things.

The Row and Column widgets finally have a spacing argument! 🎉

Spaces are now added automatically between widgets. Time to bid farewell to SizedBoxes or extension methods over List<Widget>.

See GitHub - Pull Request 152472: Introduce double Flex.spacing parameter for Row/Column spacing

That’s it for our monthly round-up! 🌀

See you in September! 👋