Flutter 3.16: Everything You Need to Know About it
Flutter is a renowned open-source User Interface (UI) software development kit. Google designed this tool in May 2017. It helps users develop cross-platform applications from a single codebase. Since the initial release, this UI kit has gone through several upgrades. In this post, we are exploring its recently released version, called Flutter 3.16. Let’s learn what new features it brings to users. Flutter 3.16: New Additions and Improvements Material 3 Has Become the Default Visual Style One of the major changes you can notice in Flutter 3.16 is its framework. The Material 3 Visual style is the default setting on Flutter apps now. Since the launch of version 3.10, Flutter’s Material library has been upgraded to align with current Material Design guidelines. Thankfully, it happened in this new version. Earlier, users had to enable these updates by setting a theme flag. Nevertheless, now they can relish the Material 3 visual style as a default setting on Flutter apps. Material 3 expresses Google’s evolution of Material Design Guidelines. This design follows grid-based layouts and supports responsive animations and transitions. Impeller Graphics Engine Another significant addition you can witness in Flutter 3.16 is the Impeller Graphics Engine. This graphic rendering engine employs the next-generation GPUs to render colors on the screen. Currently, it is available in preview on Android. Impeller utilizes Vulkan, a cross-platform 3D graphic API, to access the GPU acceleration features available on mobile devices. This graphic engine improves the graphical performance of Flutter to a great extent. It ensures smooth UI rendering, minimum jank, and higher frame rates. Therefore, users get a smoother scrolling experience. Compared to the Skia graphic engine, Impeller is better at handling applications with intense graphics requirements. Although the Impeller engine is only available in preview for now, it has the potential to bring meaningful improvement to Flutter’s graphical capabilities. TextScaler Flutter 3.16 features a new TextScaler widget that controls text sizing. Web developers can adjust the text sizes depending on the screen sizes and resolutions. The feature improves the visibility and visual appeal of text across different devices. Predictive Back Navigation Another primary advancement in Flutter 3.16 is predictive back navigation on Android 14 devices. You can see the home screen preview while swiping back using Android’s gesture. The feature makes the navigation quicker and easier. It helps users determine whether they should continue with the back gesture or stay in the current view. The navigation system utilizes the animations and transitions framework released in Android 14. Support for iOS App Extension Flutter 3.16 is capable of rendering UI and graphics for specific app extension points on iOS, such as share sheets. Earlier, Flutter code was able to function within a limited environment of the iOS app extension. This new Flutter version can fuel UI elements in specific app extension scenarios. Updates in Casual Games Toolkit Developers also use Flutter to develop standard 2D games. This new version has brought substantial updates to the Casual Games Toolkit. Gaming developers get different types of support, ranging from new game ideas to finished games. They can build games in Flutter with one code base. The good thing is that developers can deploy games across different devices. The toolkit offers templates for various games, including endless runners, puzzles, cards, match 3, and more. Developers can accelerate gaming development using built-in integrations. Improvement in Scrolling Functionality Users can notice numerous improvements in the scrolling system as well. Flutter 3.16 features an improved 2-dimensional scrolling experience. There is excellent support for KeepAlive widgets. Users get more natural navigation that fits the users’ expectations. DevTools Extensions Flutter 3.16 enables developers to create custom extensions for DevTools. It is a robust suite of profiling and debugging tools. Users can now create custom DevTools to meet the precise requirements. DevTool Extensions support seamless integration with different development environments. It makes the setup process simpler. Moreover, it enables developers to use all these tools during the development process. Canvas Testing Users also get the PaintPattern class in the Flutter Test package. It is a crucial update for all the developers who do unit testing on custom painting code. PaintPattern allows developers to confirm the properties of paint calls without the cumbersome process of making golden files. These files help capture and compare visual renderings. Updated Gesture Support Flutter 3.16 improves SelectableRegion and SelectionArea widgets to support natural gesture controls for text selection. These advancements are streamlining the text interaction experience across various devices. Now users can place the cursor with a single click and select the word with a double click. And if they have to choose multiple words, they can combine double-click with a drag. Using long-pressing and dragging on a touch device, they can block text selection. Conclusion Flutter has introduced its new version with a myriad of improvements. Flutter 3.16 focuses on enhancing the user interface. Moreover, enhancements like Framework stability, motion support, TextScaler, and other performance optimization elevate the development experience. All-in-all, we can mention that this new version of Flutter is an excellent framework for creating cross-platform applications. If you haven’t used it yet, give it a try.
Bun 1.0: Unveiling the Ultimate Development Tool
Since its launch, Bun 1.0 has become the talk of town in the web development community. It is gaining popularity as an all-in-one tool for JavaScript and TypeScript development. If you haven’t used it yet and want to explore Bun 1.0 features, this post is for you. Before we jump into the Bun 1.0 features, let’s learn about it briefly. Overview of Bun and its Significance Bun is a renowned open-source bundler for JavaScript and TypeScript. Jarred Sumner is the key person behind the foundation of this JavaScript runtime. Unlike Node.js and Deno, the bundler uses JavaScriptCore as the JavaScript engine. Bun 1.0 was launched on September 8, 2023. It is a versatile tool to build, test, debug, and run JavaScript and TypeScript applications. Bun 1.0 is quite fast in comparison to Node.js and Deno. Let us uncover all the Bun 1.0 features one by one. Features of Bun 1.0 Universal Tool Bun 1.0 meets the requirements of both JavaScript and TypeScript developers. Whether you are working on a single-file project or developing a full-stack application, Bun provides an efficient development environment. Below are some features that make Bun 1.0 worth using: Bun supports quick command execution, thanks to npx. NPX is part of Bun. It eliminates the requirement of nodemon as it features a built-in watch mode. It is an ideal replacement for Node.js. Bun is capable of reading .env files. It means you don’t need any 3rd party configuration. You get support for various file formats such as .js, .ts, .cjs, .mjs., tsx, etc. Bun provides you with an integrated bundling solution. It replaces web pack, parcel, rollup, rebuild, etc. Bun 1.0 also features testing libraries that remove the requirement for jest and similar tools. Bun is an npm-compatible package manager. Therefore, it naturally reduces the need for yarn and npm. High Speed and Performance Speed and performance are other aspects of Bun impressing JavaScript developers. It lets you run your code at an excellent speed. Bun 1.0 is several times faster. You won’t need to use tools like yarn, npm, and pnpm. Bun takes about 0.36 seconds to compile a code. In the case of pnpm, compilation may take up to 6.44 seconds. With npm, code compilation takes 10.58 seconds, while Yarn takes 12.08 seconds for the same task. Compared to Node.js, Bun is about four times faster. Bun 1.0 provides top-notch performance, thanks to its advanced optimization technology and efficient code bundling. In addition, it minimizes the load times for web applications. As a result, it provides a better user experience. Built-in Support for JavaScript and TypeScript Bun 1.0 provides complete support for JavaScript and TypeScript. Developers can work with both languages without using any third-party transpilers. Bun makes it easy to set up your development process. You do not need to struggle with various tools. Bun handles everything so that you can focus on coding entirely. Hot Reloading Bun 1.0 allows you to see instant updates in applications as you make changes. All credit goes to hot reloading. Bun features built-in hot reloading that enhances the development process by providing real-time updates to code and configurations. As a result, you can quickly spot all issues and fix them. With Bun, you do not need Nodemon. It automatically refreshes the server when developers run TypeScript or JavaScript code. If you have been using npm rum, you can replace it with bun run. It will reduce command execution time by at least 150 milliseconds on every run. Installation Speed It can be frustrating and time-consuming to install development tools. Fortunately, Bun 1.0 supports lightning-fast installation that reduces the setup hassle. Bun uses a global module cache system to avoid redundant downloads from the npm registry. Consequently, it uses quick system calls, available in different operating systems. Compatibility Adaptability is one of the primary Bun 1.0 features that users appreciate. This open-source bundler can effortlessly integrate with well-known server frameworks such as Hono, Koa, and Express. Web developers also get support for applications built using full-stack frameworks, including Next.js, Nuxt, Astro, Vite, Remix, etc. In addition to this, Bun 1.0 is also compatible with ESM and CommonJS. It means you can use both of them together in the same file. This feature was missing in Node.js. Conclusion Bun 1.0 is an ideal choice for developers working on JavaScript and TypeScript. It has numerous built-in features, making it a game-changer in the ever-evolving web development era. The bundle ends your dependency on complex and slow fragmented tool chains. It won’t be wrong to mention that Bun has brought revolutionary changes in the development of JavaScript projects. So these are a few worth mentioning Bun 1.0 features.
