Performance improvements, Dismissible, widget capture, drawer and native image encoding (1.3.0)

This release brings performance improvements on both platforms,
Dismissible, widget capture, a native drawer on iPhone, and PNG and JPEG
encoding by the phone's own encoder. Simulator builds work again on
Xcode 26.

How to update. Run dn upgrade. This release needs a new version of
dn, so dn upgrade prints the install command for your system. Run that
command, then run dn upgrade again.

Code push. This release is a new framework build on a new engine.
After you update, the fixes you send reach only apps released with this
version. Make a new release of your app before you send fixes.

A change that can affect your code:

• If your app defines its own class named ElevatedButton, TextButton,
  OutlinedButton or FilledButton, that name now also comes from
  package:dartnative. Rename your class, or hide DartNative's:
  import 'package:dartnative/dartnative.dart' hide TextButton;.

New

• A native drawer on iPhone. On the root screen, Scaffold.drawer is
  now the drawer that UIKit apps use. The panel sits behind the app, and
  opening it slides the whole screen aside, navigation bar and tab bar
  included. The app bar stays the system bar, so its buttons morph into the
  next screen's buttons when you push a screen, and back when you pop it,
  also in an app with a drawer. Both styles remain: DrawerStyle.push, and
  slideOver with its shadow and rounded corners. Swipe to open, tap to
  close, Scaffold.of(context).openDrawer() and onDrawerChanged work as
  before. You do not need to change your app. A screen pushed on top that
  has its own drawer keeps that drawer.
• Dismissible. Flutter's widget for swiping a row away. Drag a row
  and its background shows in the space it leaves. If you release the row
  past its threshold, or fling it, it slides off, unless confirmDismiss
  keeps it. The list then closes the gap and calls onDismissed. All of
  Flutter's fields work, in a ListView, a FastList or anywhere else.
• Capture a widget as an image. Wrap the widget in a RepaintBoundary
  with a GlobalKey, then call
  (key.currentContext!.findRenderObject() as RenderRepaintBoundary).toImage(pixelRatio: 3),
  as in Flutter. Import package:dartnative/canvas.dart as ui where
  Flutter code imports dart:ui.
• Native image encoding, PNG and JPEG. image.toByteData(format: ui.ImageByteFormat.png) gives a PNG file, as in Flutter.
  image.toJpeg(quality: 90) gives a JPEG file, at a quality from 0 to
  100. Flutter has no JPEG encoder, so Flutter apps add a package for it.
  We built it into DartNative, because encoding an image, like decoding
  one, is a core feature that should not need a plugin. The phone's own
  encoder makes both files, without holding up the screen. On an iPhone 16 Pro
  and a Xiaomi 11 Lite, a JPEG took 2 to 10 ms, about four times faster
  than Flutter with the image package. A PNG took 14 to 27 ms, three to
  four times faster than Flutter's own encoder. On iPhone the PNG is made
  for speed rather than size, so use a JPEG when you need a small file. A
  JPEG has no transparency: transparent areas come out white.
• context.size and findRenderObject() work on any widget. In a
  StatelessWidget or a StatefulWidget they now answer as in Flutter.
  Before, they returned null.
• FastList.cacheExtent. Keeps rows built up to a distance in points
  beyond the screen, as in Flutter. Unlike keepAliveCount, which counts
  rows, it holds the same memory whatever your rows contain.
• Reused rows in FastList. Set recycleItems: true together with
  keepAliveCount or cacheExtent. Rows that leave the screen are then
  reused for the rows that scroll in, as the platform's own lists do.
• The buttons come with the main import. ElevatedButton,
  TextButton, OutlinedButton and FilledButton now come with
  package:dartnative/dartnative.dart, so that one import is enough for a
  new app or a ported Flutter app. flutter_compat.dart still works. It is
  now the same library, marked as deprecated, so your editor suggests the
  new import.
• IconButton shows a press on Android. Pressing it draws the
  platform's ripple, the circle that toolbar icons show under your finger.
• Interval. Flutter's curve that runs over part of an animation.
• The soft scroll edge on iPhone. Under a bar with a title, iOS 27
  draws a hard edge with a line, where iOS 26 faded the content softly. To
  keep the soft fade, use
  Scaffold(ios: ScaffoldIOSConfig(scrollEdgeEffectStyle: ScrollEdgeEffectStyle.soft)).
  It applies to the screen's lists and scroll views where they run under a
  bar: a clear or frosted app bar with extendBodyBehindAppBar, or the tab
  bar with extendBody. hard asks for the hard edge. The default,
  automatic, leaves the choice to the system.
• An adaptive launcher icon for new Android apps. The logo fills the
  phone's icon shape and follows themed icons. Before, it was a square
  shrunk inside a white circle. To give an existing app the same icon, copy
  packages/flutter_tools/templates/app/tool/generate_app_assets.dart.copy.tmpl
  from the folder where DartNative is installed (~/zero by default) over
  your app's tool/generate_app_assets.dart. Then run it again:
  dn pub run tool/generate_app_assets.dart --source=assets/your-logo.png.
  The logo needs a transparent background. --bg=#RRGGBB sets the colour
  behind it.
• For plugin authors on Android: mayDrawIntoSurface. If your plugin's
  view draws onto the canvas it is given, return false from your
  provider's mayDrawIntoSurface, and lists that hold the view do less
  work. The default, true, keeps a video or a Rive animation ready before
  its row scrolls in.
• Benchmarks. A new benchmarks folder in the repository compares
  scrolling in DartNative with each platform's own code and with React
  Native, on an iPhone and an Android phone.

Performance

• Faster launch on iPhone. Apps show their first screen sooner. The
  launch logo no longer stays for a minimum time: it disappears as soon as
  the first screen is ready. To keep a minimum time, set
  DNSplashMinDuration in Info.plist, in milliseconds.
• Faster launch on Android. Apps show their first screen sooner. The
  launch logo's minimum time (dartnative.splash.min_duration_ms in the
  manifest) now works on Android 12 and later.
• Screens with a list appear sooner. A screen with a FastList shows
  its first rows sooner when it opens.
• Smoother scrolling in FastList. Lists scroll more smoothly on both
  platforms.
• 120 Hz while a list moves on iPhone. A moving list runs at the
  display's full refresh rate, and slows down with the content as the
  platform's own lists do.
• Lists use less memory. Lists hold fewer rows in memory on both
  platforms, including a list inside each row of another list.
• Memory is freed while the app is idle. Unused memory is released
  when the app is idle, never during a scroll.
• Images appear sooner on iPhone. Network images are ready sooner, and
  an image shown in several places at once is downloaded only once.

Plugins

To get a new plugin version, raise its constraint in pubspec.yaml or run
dn pub upgrade.

• dartnative_lottie 1.3.2. A chat full of stickers scrolls more
  smoothly and uses less memory on both platforms. On Android, a sticker
  that leaves the screen stops playing.
• dartnative_background, dartnative_camera,
  dartnative_notifications and dartnative_revenuecat 1.0.2. Simulator
  builds work with Xcode 26 again (see Fixed). dartnative_camera also
  prints its log lines only when verbose logging is on.
• dartnative_audio, dartnative_connectivity, dartnative_firebase,
  dartnative_permissions and dartnative_system 1.0.1,
  dartnative_media_picker 1.1.1, dartnative_onnxruntime 1.6.5 and
  dartnative_share 1.0.3. They no longer print log lines at launch in
  an Android release build.
• dartnative_splash 1.0.2. On iPhone, apps use less memory once
  they have started. To get this, run dn run-tool dartnative_splash:setup
  in your app again.

Fixed

• Simulator builds work again on Xcode 26. Since 1.2.0, building for
  the iOS simulator with Xcode 26 failed with "Slice is not page aligned".
  If your app uses dartnative_background, dartnative_camera,
  dartnative_lottie, dartnative_notifications or
  dartnative_revenuecat, also run dn pub upgrade after you update,
  because their new versions carry the same fix.
• Android release builds no longer print DartNative's startup lines.
  They now print only when verbose logging is on, as on iPhone. The plugin
  versions listed above stop their own launch lines too, and
  dn pub upgrade brings them.
• Clean installs on Linux. The SDK download contained a hidden macOS
  file next to every file. On Linux these became real files in the SDK,
  and tar printed a warning for each one. The new download has none, and
  installing again removes the old ones.
• Scrolling to an item lands on it. On Android, scrollToIndex and
  jumpToItem now place the item where alignment asks, as on iPhone. On
  both platforms, the list finishes the move even when rows it passes
  change size. On Android, an animated scroll to an item
  a few tall rows away goes straight to it, without passing it and coming
  back. In a reversed list, such as a chat, the last part of the scroll
  glides as in the platform's own reversed list. The scroll also starts
  immediately: on a screen of heavy rows, the list used to wait up to half
  a second after the tap.
• cacheWidth and cacheHeight work on every image. Image.asset,
  Image.file and Image.memory now decode at the size you give, as
  Image.network already did, so a large photo shown small uses little
  memory. On Android, the longest side now comes out at that size, as on
  iPhone. Before, a wide photo came out about a third larger than asked.
• An image fills a box that is fixed on both sides. An image in a
  Container with a height, in a Column that stretches its children, or
  in a ListView, kept its own proportions and sat at the top of the box.
  It now fills the box, and fit places the picture inside it, centred,
  as in Flutter. When only the height is fixed, as in a Row, the image
  keeps its proportions.
• Image.memory on Android, in a box that takes its size from the
  image. The image never appeared. It now shows at its own size, as
  Image.file and Image.asset do.
• An item builder gets the list's context. In ListView.builder,
  FastList, the grids and the sliver lists, the context passed to
  itemBuilder had nothing above it. So Theme.of(context) returned the
  default theme, and Navigator.of(context), showDialog and showAlert
  failed. It is now the list's own context, as in Flutter.
• ListTile.onTap and InkWell work. ListTile accepted onTap but
  never called it, and InkWell did not show its child. Both now respond
  to a press with the platform's feedback: the grey highlight of a table
  row on iPhone, the ripple of a Material list item on Android. ListTile
  adds onLongPress and enabled, and InkWell accepts splashColor,
  highlightColor and borderRadius.
• ListTile has Material's height on Android. A one-line tile was
  48 dp tall, while Flutter's and Material's are 56 dp. It is now at least
  56 dp, or 72 dp with a subtitle, with its content centred, as in Flutter.
  On iPhone it keeps the 70 pt row of a plain list.
• ElevatedButton looks like Material's elevated button on Android. It
  used to be filled with the theme colour. It now has the light surface
  colour, a label in the theme colour and a soft shadow, as in Flutter. On
  iPhone it stays a filled button. Button(variant: ButtonVariant.elevated)
  gives the same look.
• Back returns to the previous screen on Android. On a screen pushed
  without a route name, for example with
  Navigator.push(context, PageRoute(builder: ...)), the system Back
  gesture or button closed the app. It now returns to the screen below, as
  it already did for named screens.
• A sideways drag in a list keeps the touch on Android. A horizontal
  drag on a row that drifted slightly up or down was taken over by the
  list, which scrolled while the row snapped back. A drag that starts in
  its own direction now keeps the touch, as on iPhone. A drag's end speed
  is now the finger's speed as it lifts, not its average speed over the
  whole drag.
• CustomPaint and Hero with flutter_compat.dart. That import gave
  placeholder widgets that asked for Skia. It now gives the native widgets.
• TalkBack reads the names of app bar buttons on Android.

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Build: SDK 48fca8fe44f · engine 88fce5ef2577. Install or update: curl -fsSL https://cdn.dartnative.com/install.sh | sh