The Flutter Linux Desktop Embedder

This framework provides the basic functionality for embedding a Flutter app on the Linux desktop. This currently includes support for:

• Drawing a Flutter view.
• Mouse event handling.

How to Use This Code

Note that the example build here is host_debug_unopt (you'll find more info on what that means in this section). This can be changed to whatever version of the Flutter Engine you end up building.

First you will need to install the relevant dependencies.

Dependencies

Requires GLFW3 on your system (example for debian-based systems):

$ sudo apt-get install libglfw3-dev

Also requires a checkout of the Flutter repo and Flutter Engine repo. For the most straightforward build make sure to set up all checkouts with the same parent directory like so:

<parent dir>
  ├─ flutter/ (from http://github.com/flutter/flutter)
  ├─ engine/ (from https://github.com/flutter/engine)
  └─ flutter-desktop-embedding/ (from https://github.com/google/flutter-desktop-embedding)

Next you will need to follow the steps outlined on the flutter engine's contributing document so that you can build a copy of libflutter_engine.so.

Then copy it in the linux/library/ directory.

$ cp <path_to_flutter_engine>/src/out/host_debug_unopt/libflutter_engine.so \
       <path_to_flutter_desktop_embedding_repo>/linux/library

Then copy embedder.h into the include directory (the file can be found under the the flutter engine checkout).

$ cp <path_to_flutter_engine>/src/flutter/shell/platform/embedder/embedder.h \
     <path_to_flutter_desktop_embedding_repo>/linux/library/include

Building and Running a Flutter App

This assumes you're using the existing example app contained in the repo.

You should be able to run make within the linux directory and have access to a flutter_embedder_example binary.

$ make

This should generate all the files necessary to run the example application.

Running the Example Code

Once the directories are setup like above and you've built everything, the flutter_embedder_example code expects to be run from the linux/ directory like so:

$ ./example/flutter_embedder_example

Caveats

Platform-specific features like a file chooser, menu bar interaction, etc, are not yet present, but will be added over time.

While GLFW is in use in the current iteration, this is not going to be the final state for Linux support.

Stay tuned for more documentation.