With flutter-desktop-embedding, we are now able to build apps to desktop environments. However, most of the plugins won't work, because they aren't written to these platforms yet. Is there a way to use platform channels to write platform-specific code for the desktop environments?
Yes, there are MethodChannel APIs for all three platforms, although Windows and Linux APIs are still subject to change. See https://flutter.dev/desktop#plugins-1 for more information, and the flutter-desktop-embedding repository for examples.
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There are a lot of questions on this topic, but they don't seem to distinguish between executables for desktop or server-side apps. I suppose my first question would be: what's the difference? For example, Zeit/pkg says they are a "node.js binary compiler", whereas nwjs (formerly node-webkit) says they are a "an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js".
I tried zeit/pkg and it works great, but have read that there can be performance issues unless it's configured properly. I wanted to make sure I was choosing the right tool and came across nwjs. It seems to do a lot of the same stuff pkg does, but has a larger following, as well as more docs and a robust api. Can I use nwjs as a server-side executable (i.e. not using the desktop feature) the same way I would use pkg?
This answer states that nwjs "is an option, but it really isn't set-up to do a server - client type relationship", but then a comment says "you can launch a server from node-webkit just in the way you launch it in Node.js. It's just that node-webkit provide another way beyond B/S architecture".
So, is nwjs effectively the same as pkg, or fundamentally different?
I realize that there's also Electron, which states "build cross platform desktop apps" and appears similar to nwjs. I'm not trying to get into a Electron vs nwjs debate, but rather desktop vs. server, if there's a difference.
you got most things already, only few clarifications are needed. Reason nw.js / Electron declares itself as for desktop application is, it's core architectural design is intended to integrate node.js with chromium to have UI enables create application does have UI. You can still use part of those framework (node.js side) without initiating visible ui, in that case behaviorwise it'll be similar to plain node.js does. Still there is caveat, like as it tightly integrated with chromium in core already for some cases you should have screen to chromium correctly initiates (or creating virtual buffer as lot of CI does, or etcs).
Also, when your concern is performance, I'd doubt using UI framework for server side work achieves what you desire - while there won't be huge, integration between node to chromium have overhead compare to bare node.js obvioulsy.
Getting back to original question, I feel question itself is somewhat vague. If the intention is truly server side application probably you won't need to package it but correctly deploy node and its dependency modules or packaging it sort of installable manner instead of creating single binary as pkg does.
I would like to build my dynamic library on different Linux platforms (e.g. RHEL 5/6/7, ...). I use https://drone.io at the moment, but it provides only Ubuntu.
Could you recommend something please?
It'll be perfect, if it can provide some "cool" features, e.g.:
free for open source projects
github integration (hooks)
CI/tests
artifact download
Jenkins or Travis-CI should suit your purposes
I'm using Mono For Android (probably will use MonoTouch too soon) and MVVM-Cross to port of a Windows Store app (Work on progress by another team, in Parallel).
Unfortunately the Windows store app team started of without using MVVM-Cross. That lead to some Windows specific libraries (like Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources) being scattered across code that should be portable across other platforms (for eg "Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.ResourceLoader" was used for localization).
I was wondering if there's a cross-platform alternative (or may be a mvvm-cross plugin) for some of these windows libraries. Or may be guidance on how to create my own plugin/alternative.
There is a resourceloader plugin which uses windows package content files and android asset files.
See https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross/blob/v3/Plugins/Cirrious/ResourceLoader/Cirrious.MvvmCross.Plugins.ResourceLoader.WindowsStore/MvxStoreResourceLoader.cs
It is used in (for example) the customer management sample in order to load an XML data file - see https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross-Tutorials/blob/master/Sample%20-%20CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement/Models/SimpleDataStore.cs
It's also used internally in the json i18n plugin.
If you want a different implementation on one platform, then you can override the plugin for just that platform.
If you want a different implementation on all platforms, then it should be easy to create your own plugin, or to inject implementation of an interface on each platform. See the explanation of mvvmcross IOC in Instantiation of ViewModels and Service classes
There is an API in windows called URLDownloadToCacheFile that downloads data to the Internet cache and returns the file name of the cache location for retrieving the bits.
Is there any API (C/C++) in linux that downloads a file from internet?
There are some libraries (eg. curl, ...) that useful for downloading but I want a simpler API that does not deponds on any other libraries except browser.
Note that I want a C/C++ API, not a command line tool.
Thanks
A browser is an external application. On a typical Linux system, there's nothing which has the status comparable to that of IE on Windows. You can use Firefox as your browser; you can also completely uninstall Firefox and use only Chrome; you can even use w3m exclusively and no single GUI-based browser.
You seem to be somewhat confused about the differences between Windows and other operating systems.
There's no monolithic "browser" or "Internet cache" built into linux. In Windows you're simply using a function from a library they provide, but it's integrated into the OS (along with Internet Explorer).
There's really no parallel in linux. The OS is not tightly coupled with applications running on it. Using cURL, etc is how you approach what you're trying to do.
Like the other answers noted, there is no such thing as a built-in HTTP API on Linux systems, and you should be quick to accept that you need a HTTP library to do the task. But fear not, linking to libraries and deploying programs linked to libraries is much easier and less error-prone than under windows systems, so library dependencies are not that much of an issue.
libcurl is a well-established solution for HTTP and HTTPS.
Is there any UI library that can be to build both a text user interface (ncurses) and graphical user interface (GTK? QT?) from the same source?
I know that debconf can be used with various frontends, I would like to build something similar but programmable.
The library that powers YaST independence to do ncurses, gtk and qt with one codebase provides what you are looking for, and it is not tied to YaST itself.
Actually libyui only requires the standard C++ library and phtreads (IIRC). The UI plugins require of course the respective libraries (Qt, ncurses). YaST uses libyui via a set of YCP bindings that export a YCP like API on top of libyui.
The library is a bit lowlevel (one layer below an event loop), my colleage Klaus Kämpf wrote about using it some time ago in his blog, including binding to scripting languages it using swig.
The only part that is SUSE specific is the packaging, so you would need to package it yourself. Stackoverflow did not allow me to link more than once. The code of the library is linked from Klaus blog. Replace libyui for "qt" and "ncurses" for the plugin's code.
Also google for "YaST Independence From YCP" to find a blog entry from Andreas Jäger on the subject.
you could write your program to uses ncurses, and then use PDCurses to convert it to an X11 application - as the readme advertise.
I know it because I've used it as portable curses, though I've never tested its X11 capabilities
Not exactly a library but you could consider writing a web app that degrades well to Lynx
The GoboLinux guys have created their own toolkit for python called AbsTK, they use it for their installer, which actually works really good. I have never used the toolkit myself, but the apps built with it seems solid.
There's Cursed GTK, but it seems a bit dated. I found some references to a port of Qt to ncurses called Qt Console, but it seems to have disappeared.
By using a library that targets both the text-mode and GUI environments, you have a big risk of getting stuck with the worst of both worlds.
You will be better off structuring your code using the MVC pattern, and providing separate views and controllers for each platform you target. Pushing all the logic down to the model classes has several other benefits:
The code will be easier to test because you are forced to keep the user interface out of the actual domain logic.
Your program can have user interfaces that have very little in common, e.g. a web UI, or an UI driven by speech.
You can run the program easily with no UI at all (i.e. script it) by accessing the model classes directly in the same way that the controller classes do.
I think what's used for configuring the linux kernel when compiling is dialog/cdialog/xdialog. But it's been a while since I've compiled a kernel, so my memory may be off. The most promising link I can find is this one for Xdialog.
Maybe tcl/tk would provide what you want http://www.tcl.tk/
Here's the page on interfacing with curses. There is a claim there of integration with ncurses.
http://www2.tcl.tk/2372