Flutter Packages & Plugins
Information drawn from
The plugin API supports federated plugins that enable separation of different platform implementations. You can also now indicate which platforms a plugin supports, for example web and macOS.
Eventually, the old plugin APIs will be deprecated. In the short term, you will see a warning when the framework detects that you are using an old-style plugin. For information on how to upgrade your plugin, see Supporting the new Android plugins APIs.
Package introduction
Packages enable the creation of modular code that can be shared easily. A minimal package consists of the following:
pubspec.yaml A metadata file that declares the package name, version, author, and so on.
lib
The lib directory contains the public code in the package, minimally a single <package-name>.dart file.
Note: For a list of dos and don’ts when writing an effective plugin, see the Medium article by Mehmet Fidanboylu, Writing a good plugin.
Package types
Packages can contain more than one kind of content:
Dart packages
General packages written in Dart, for example the path package. Some of these might contain Flutter specific functionality and thus have a dependency on the Flutter framework, restricting their use to Flutter only, for example the fluro package.
Plugin packages
A specialized Dart package that contains an API written in Dart code combined with one or more platform-specific implementations. Plugin packages can be written for Android (using Kotlin or Java), iOS (using Swift or Objective-C), web, macOS, Windows, or Linux, or any combination thereof. A concrete example is the url_launcher plugin package. To see how to use the url_launcher package, and how it was extended to implement support for web, see the Medium article by Harry Terkelsen, How to Write a Flutter Web Plugin, Part 1.
FFI Plugin packages
A specialized Dart package that contains an API written in Dart code combined with one or more platform-specific implementations that use Dart FFI (Android, iOS, macOS).
Developing Dart packages
The following instructions explain how to write a Flutter package.
Step 1: Create the package
To create a starter Flutter package, use the –template=package flag with flutter create:
flutter create --template=package hello
This creates a package project in the hello folder with the following content:
LICENSE A (mostly) empty license text file. test/hello_test.dart The unit tests for the package. hello.iml A configuration file used by the IntelliJ IDEs. .gitignore A hidden file that tells Git which files or folders to ignore in a project. .metadata A hidden file used by IDEs to track the properties of the Flutter project. pubspec.yaml A yaml file containing metadata that specifies the package’s dependencies. Used by the pub tool. README.md A starter markdown file that briefly describes the package’s purpose. lib/hello.dart A starter app containing Dart code for the package. .idea/modules.xml, .idea/workspace.xml A hidden folder containing configuration files for the IntelliJ IDEs. CHANGELOG.md A (mostly) empty markdown file for tracking version changes to the package.
Step 2: Implement the package
For pure Dart packages, simply add the functionality inside the main lib/
To test the package, add unit tests in a test directory.
For additional details on how to organize the package contents, see the Dart library package documentation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last update on 15 Aug 2022
---