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The cool thing about Flutter is that it draws components to the Skia canvas. I wasn't even aware it had a WebView. I'm not sure why you would use Flutter if you

The cool thing about Flutter is that it draws components to the Skia canvas. I wasn't even aware it had a WebView. I'm not sure why you would use Flutter if your app consists mostly of a WebView. The bugs that were found are probably not fixed because they are very low priority. You don't save a whole lot by using a WebView in Flutter rather than building a simple shell around the iOS and Android WebView. Without knowing the details, I'd guess that the programmer is using the wrong tool for the job.

_0w8t 5y ago
Yep. Webview itself is a cross-platform way to develop things. Adding few native UI elements in addition should not take much efforts. Flutter is when one do not want to use Webview in the first place.
- ToddWBurgess 5y ago
  Flutter dev here. The Flutter webview is basically a wrapper for the native iOS and Android implementations. A native Android app using a webview and a Flutter app running on Android using a webview is using the same native webview. It is like that for a lot of the Flutter libraries. They basically implement native versions of the functionality and make it available to Flutter. The Dart language has FFI so if you want to get "even more native" you can do Android and iOS system calls in your Flutter app using languages like C, C++, Rust or even Assembly.
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    I was really drawn to Dart when it came out in 2012 and still use it for hobby projects. I know Google uses it internally a lot and is used in the experimental Fuchsia OS. And of course Flutter. I wish Google would put more resources into doing the next version. It appears Bob Nystrom is the only person working on it https://old.reddit.com/r/dartlang/comments/rvqivf/what_is_the_fate_of_the_records_feature/hrahfwa/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dartlang/comments/rvqivf/what_is_th... I wrote a fairly complicated web app in 2013 in Dart. I just updated it to Dart 2.0 and nullability and it still works, which impressed me. Someday people will catch on to Dart, probably if and when Fuchsia gets popular https://fuchsia.dev/ https://fuchsia.dev/
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Fuchsia for the time being is the Nest OS, if it ever gets used somewhere else remains to be seen, given Google's attention span.
    - Hixie 5y ago
      There's a lot more than one person working on Dart!
  - anakaine 5y ago
    Got any advice on how to lay out a design for Flutter? I'm a back end dev mostly, but I'd like to have a go at making a small mobile app. My sticking point is building the interface. Doing it all in code without a layout design tool to help feels pretty agricultural.
  - _0w8t 5y ago
    If one uses a webview, then typically there is JavaScript running there that does non-trivial things. So the application becomes a mixture of JS and Flutter. That already defeats the goal of using a single language and framework to develop the application. And when there is a mixture of two, the value of Flutter is reduced, as the mixture can be as well developed as JS + Android + IOS. For me the strong point of Flutter is not to use the webview in the first place delegating the latter to the original cases of showing help pages etc.
- johnyzee 5y ago
  Sometimes you need a webview, like for an OAuth authentication flow, which is critical to lots of apps.
alvarlagerlof 5y ago
Doesn't it just use skia natively?
- user249 5y ago
  Webview uses Skia but it uses HTML5/JS/CSS to draw on it. Flutter uses Skia in a different way, using a declarative component language and Dart in place of HTML and JavaScript

_0w8t 5y ago

Yep. Webview itself is a cross-platform way to develop things. Adding few native UI elements in addition should not take much efforts. Flutter is when one do not want to use Webview in the first place.

ToddWBurgess 5y ago
Flutter dev here. The Flutter webview is basically a wrapper for the native iOS and Android implementations. A native Android app using a webview and a Flutter app running on Android using a webview is using the same native webview. It is like that for a lot of the Flutter libraries. They basically implement native versions of the functionality and make it available to Flutter. The Dart language has FFI so if you want to get "even more native" you can do Android and iOS system calls in your Flutter app using languages like C, C++, Rust or even Assembly.
- mwattsun 5y ago
  I was really drawn to Dart when it came out in 2012 and still use it for hobby projects. I know Google uses it internally a lot and is used in the experimental Fuchsia OS. And of course Flutter. I wish Google would put more resources into doing the next version. It appears Bob Nystrom is the only person working on it https://old.reddit.com/r/dartlang/comments/rvqivf/what_is_the_fate_of_the_records_feature/hrahfwa/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dartlang/comments/rvqivf/what_is_th... I wrote a fairly complicated web app in 2013 in Dart. I just updated it to Dart 2.0 and nullability and it still works, which impressed me. Someday people will catch on to Dart, probably if and when Fuchsia gets popular https://fuchsia.dev/ https://fuchsia.dev/
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Fuchsia for the time being is the Nest OS, if it ever gets used somewhere else remains to be seen, given Google's attention span.
  - Hixie 5y ago
    There's a lot more than one person working on Dart!
- anakaine 5y ago
  Got any advice on how to lay out a design for Flutter? I'm a back end dev mostly, but I'd like to have a go at making a small mobile app. My sticking point is building the interface. Doing it all in code without a layout design tool to help feels pretty agricultural.
- _0w8t 5y ago
  If one uses a webview, then typically there is JavaScript running there that does non-trivial things. So the application becomes a mixture of JS and Flutter. That already defeats the goal of using a single language and framework to develop the application. And when there is a mixture of two, the value of Flutter is reduced, as the mixture can be as well developed as JS + Android + IOS. For me the strong point of Flutter is not to use the webview in the first place delegating the latter to the original cases of showing help pages etc.
johnyzee 5y ago
Sometimes you need a webview, like for an OAuth authentication flow, which is critical to lots of apps.

alvarlagerlof 5y ago

Doesn't it just use skia natively?

user249 5y ago
Webview uses Skia but it uses HTML5/JS/CSS to draw on it. Flutter uses Skia in a different way, using a declarative component language and Dart in place of HTML and JavaScript