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}<code_end>
|
More information about the constraint and layout system,
|
along with working examples, can be found in the
|
Understanding constraints topic.The root of all RenderObjects is the RenderView, which represents the total
|
output of the render tree. When the platform demands a new frame to be rendered
|
(for example, because of a
|
vsync or because
|
a texture decompression/upload is complete), a call is made to the
|
compositeFrame() method, which is part of the RenderView object at the root
|
of the render tree. This creates a SceneBuilder to trigger an update of the
|
scene. When the scene is complete, the RenderView object passes the composited
|
scene to the Window.render() method in dart:ui, which passes control to the
|
GPU to render it.Further details of the composition and rasterization stages of the pipeline are
|
beyond the scope of this high-level article, but more information can be found
|
in this talk on the Flutter rendering
|
pipeline.<topic_end>
|
<topic_start>
|
Platform embedding
|
As we’ve seen, rather than being translated into the equivalent OS widgets,
|
Flutter user interfaces are built, laid out, composited, and painted by Flutter
|
itself. The mechanism for obtaining the texture and participating in the app
|
lifecycle of the underlying operating system inevitably varies depending on the
|
unique concerns of that platform. The engine is platform-agnostic, presenting a
|
stable ABI (Application Binary
|
Interface)
|
that provides a platform embedder with a way to set up and use Flutter.The platform embedder is the native OS application that hosts all Flutter
|
content, and acts as the glue between the host operating system and Flutter.
|
When you start a Flutter app, the embedder provides the entrypoint, initializes
|
the Flutter engine, obtains threads for UI and rastering, and creates a texture
|
that Flutter can write to. The embedder is also responsible for the app
|
lifecycle, including input gestures (such as mouse, keyboard, touch), window
|
sizing, thread management, and platform messages. Flutter includes platform
|
embedders for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux; you can also create a
|
custom platform embedder, as in this worked
|
example that supports remoting
|
Flutter sessions through a VNC-style framebuffer or this worked example for
|
Raspberry Pi.Each platform has its own set of APIs and constraints. Some brief
|
platform-specific notes:<topic_end>
|
<topic_start>
|
Integrating with other code
|
Flutter provides a variety of interoperability mechanisms, whether you’re
|
accessing code or APIs written in a language like Kotlin or Swift, calling a
|
native C-based API, embedding native controls in a Flutter app, or embedding
|
Flutter in an existing application.<topic_end>
|
<topic_start>
|
Platform channels
|
For mobile and desktop apps, Flutter allows you to call into custom code through
|
a platform channel, which is a mechanism for communicating between your
|
Dart code and the platform-specific code of your host app. By creating a common
|
channel (encapsulating a name and a codec), you can send and receive messages
|
between Dart and a platform component written in a language like Kotlin or
|
Swift. Data is serialized from a Dart type like Map into a standard format,
|
and then deserialized into an equivalent representation in Kotlin (such as
|
HashMap) or Swift (such as Dictionary).The following is a short platform channel example of a Dart call to a receiving
|
event handler in Kotlin (Android) or Swift (iOS):
|
<code_start>// Dart side
|
const channel = MethodChannel('foo');
|
final greeting = await channel.invokeMethod('bar', 'world') as String;
|
print(greeting);<code_end>
|
Further examples of using platform channels, including examples for desktop
|
platforms, can be found in the flutter/packages
|
repository. There are also thousands of plugins
|
already available for Flutter that cover many common
|
scenarios, ranging from Firebase to ads to device hardware like camera and
|
Bluetooth.<topic_end>
|
<topic_start>
|
Foreign Function Interface
|
For C-based APIs, including those that can be generated for code written in
|
modern languages like Rust or Go, Dart provides a direct mechanism for binding
|
to native code using the dart:ffi library. The foreign function interface
|
(FFI) model can be considerably faster than platform channels, because no
|
serialization is required to pass data. Instead, the Dart runtime provides the
|
ability to allocate memory on the heap that is backed by a Dart object and make
|
calls to statically or dynamically linked libraries. FFI is available for all
|
platforms other than web, where the js package
|
serves an equivalent purpose.To use FFI, you create a typedef for each of the Dart and unmanaged method
|
signatures, and instruct the Dart VM to map between them. As an example,
|
here’s a fragment of code to call the traditional Win32 MessageBox() API:
|
<code_start>import 'dart:ffi';
|
import 'package:ffi/ffi.dart'; // contains .toNativeUtf16() extension method
|
typedef MessageBoxNative = Int32 Function(
|
IntPtr hWnd,
|
Pointer<Utf16> lpText,
|
Pointer<Utf16> lpCaption,
|
Int32 uType,
|
);
|
typedef MessageBoxDart = int Function(
|
int hWnd,
|
Pointer<Utf16> lpText,
|
Pointer<Utf16> lpCaption,
|
int uType,
|
);
|
void exampleFfi() {
|
final user32 = DynamicLibrary.open('user32.dll');
|
final messageBox =
|
user32.lookupFunction<MessageBoxNative, MessageBoxDart>('MessageBoxW');
|
final result = messageBox(
|
0, // No owner window
|
'Test message'.toNativeUtf16(), // Message
|
'Window caption'.toNativeUtf16(), // Window title
|
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