Flutter and Linux

Flutter support for Linux is ok at best. Which leads to to a subpar developer experience. Unlike that’s of the Windows and Macos platforms.

The Problem

For the Longest time the flutter team refused to give the developer the ability to customize the titlebar of the app from the dart code. This is a big problem for linux users because the default titlebar is old (Gtk3) and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the desktop.

The Solution

To solve this we can use this package gtk_window.

gtk_window is a flutter “fake” appbar that works as a drop in replacement for the Material AppBar. It will allow us to add flutter widgets like these examples from the official app.

Before	After

It just feels right to have full control over the headerbar of your linux app and it allows you adopt styles like gtk4 without waiting for google to implement them.

Disclaimer

I am actually the developer of this plugin. I just wanted to share it with the community because I think it’s a great tool for linux developers. I hope you find it useful.