Hello everyone! The Flutter world continues to evolve and the newest release, Flutter 3.29, takes the development experience to the next level! From performance improvements to Material 3 updates and enhancements to the Impeller rendering engine, there’s a lot in store for you. How can you use these updates to make your apps faster, more modern and more powerful? Let’s take a look at the details together!
1. Material 3 Improvements
With Flutter 3.29, Material 3 (M3) support has been further enhanced. With color palettes, dynamic theme support and new components, Material 3 now offers a more flexible and modern user experience.
Highlights:
- Material You support expanded
- New button designs and shadow effects
- Improved dynamic color support
- Material 3 activated by default
- Updated Slider, Progress Indicator and Golden File Comparator
In particular, dynamic theme support significantly improves the user experience by automatically adapting to the system theme on Android 12 and later devices.
Use Cases
Using Material 3 Theme
You can enable the Material 3 theme in your app with the code below:
MaterialApp(
theme: ThemeData(
useMaterial3: true,
colorSchemeSeed: Colors.blue,
),
home: MyHomePage(),
);If you want to use dynamic colors, you can also use the dynamicColorSchemeproperty:
final theme = ThemeData.from(colorScheme: dynamicColorScheme);This way you can create a modern interface that adapts to the user’s system theme!
New Slider Widget Usage
With Material 3, the Slider component has become more modern and flexible. Now track height and colors can be customized better.
Slider(
value: sliderValue,
min: 0,
max: 100,
onChanged: (value) {
setState(() {
sliderValue = value;
});
},
)In the new version, the Slider component is more in line with the M3 design and offers a better UI/UX experience.
Progress Indicator Update
With Flutter 3.29, the CircularProgressIndicator and LinearProgressIndicator components have also been updated.
CircularProgressIndicator(
color: Colors.blue,
strokeWidth: 6,
);Smoother animation transitions and dynamic theme harmony are now available.
Golden File Comparator Update
Golden File Comparator is a tool used to perform UI tests in Flutter. This tool takes screenshots of the application and checks if the design has changed by comparing it with the correct images already saved.
With Flutter 3.29 this system uses less memory and runs faster. This means:
- Tests now take less time to complete.
- Even larger and more complex screen tests consume less memory.
- It detects small pixel differences more accurately and better detects errors.
In a nutshell, UI testing has become faster and more efficient, so it will be easier to catch design bugs!
2. Updated Cupertino Widgets
Cupertino widgets, which include Flutter’s iOS-like components, have been updated to provide a more natural experience for iOS app developers. In particular, significant changes have been made to the CupertinoActionSheet and CupertinoListSection widgets.
Use Case: CupertinoActionSheet
showCupertinoModalPopup(
context: context,
builder: (BuildContext context) {
return CupertinoActionSheet(
title: Text('Choose One'),
actions: [
CupertinoActionSheetAction(
onPressed: () {},
child: Text('Option 1'),
),
CupertinoActionSheetAction(
onPressed: () {},
child: Text('Option 2'),
),
],
cancelButton: CupertinoActionSheetAction(
onPressed: () => Navigator.pop(context),
child: Text('Cancel'),
),
);
},
);With Flutter 3.29, the look of these widgets has been modernized and performance optimizations and tweaks have been made, especially to better adapt to iOS 17. If you use Cupertino widgets, don’t forget to test the new updates!
3. Impeller Render Engine Enhancements
Impeller is Flutter’s default graphics rendering engine, and with Flutter 3.29 it provides significant performance improvements. Now animations are smoother and images load faster. This is a big advantage especially for those developing games or animation-heavy applications!
Use Case:
If you use a game engine like Flame or do custom artwork on Canvas, you’ll feel the performance boost with this update. Impeller reduces CPU load, making animations run smoother.
You can access the article I wrote about Flame from the link below:
For example, when we create a simple animation:
AnimatedContainer(
duration: Duration(seconds: 1),
curve: Curves.easeInOut,
color: Colors.blue,
width: 100,
height: 100,
);In previous versions, this animation could cause performance loss on many screens. But with Flutter 3.29, it has become more stable and faster.
4. Flutter DevTools Updates
With Flutter 3.29, Flutter DevTools has become even more advanced. Debugging, analyzing performance and analyzing widget trees are now much easier!
You can access my article about using DevTools in Flutter from the link below:
Highlights:
- More detailed debugging options
- Performance optimizations in the widget tree
- Better UI and analytics tools
For example, you can use Timeline View or Memory Profiler to analyze a widget that you are having performance issues with. This way, you can identify bottlenecks in your application and find solutions faster!
5. New Documentation and Resources
The Flutter team has updated their documentation to make it easier for developers to learn the new features. I have listed the updated documentation with links below.
- Architectural Overview: Updated the architecture overview page to better understand Flutter’s internal structure.
- Flutter for Jetpack Compose Developers: A new guide for Android developers to ease the transition from Jetpack Compose to Flutter has been added.
If you want to get more detailed information about Jetpack, you can also take a look at the video below:
- Testing Widget’s Routing: A new recipe for testing the orientation of widgets has been added.
- Kritik Değişiklikler: Bu sürümdeki önemli değişiklikler ve geçiş bilgileri için kritik değişiklikler sayfası güncellenmiştir.
Especially for Jetpack Compose users, a migration guide to Flutter has been added. If you are an Android developer and want to migrate from Jetpack Compose to Flutter, be sure to check out this guide.
Also, new guides for widget routing tests have been added. It can be very useful for those who get stuck when writing tests!
6. Platform Integration
Previously, when Flutter apps communicated with Android and iOS, the Dart code ran in a separate thread. This could sometimes cause delays and extra processing.
With Flutter 3.29, Dart code is now executed directly in the app’s main thread. This means that the data flow between Flutter and the platform’s own systems (Android/iOS) has become faster and smoother.
The main advantage is that synchronous transactions respond faster and data transfer delays are reduced. For example:
- When you read data from the platform (e.g. battery status, sensor data) you get a faster response.
- Calls to the Native side (e.g. opening the camera, sending notifications) work with less latency.
In short, this update speeds up the interaction between Flutter and native components, making apps run smoother.
With these updates and improvements, Flutter 3.29 provides developers with a more powerful and flexible platform. For more detailed information, please see the official Flutter 3.29 release notes.
You can also take a look at the videos below for a more visual explanation:
The Flutter 3.29 update includes major improvements in both performance and development experience. Here’s what we’ve gained in a nutshell:
- Material 3 improvements and dynamic theme support
- More streamlined Cupertino components
- Faster graphics performance with Impeller
- Advanced debugging tools
- More comprehensive documentation and guidelines
If you’re working with Flutter, you can update your project to Flutter 3.29 to take advantage of these improvements immediately.
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Selin.
