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Whenever I discover a new GUI toolkit, my first question is always “is it more native than the Web?” For reference, here are some ways Web apps have better system integration than Flutter:

  • System fonts, font hinting settings, and font fallback settings.
  • System text navigation shortcuts.
  • System scrollbar visibility, thickness, and click settings/behavior.
  • System highlight menus and controls (on touchscreens).
  • System display scaling settings.
  • System reduced-motion settings (An API is documented, but I have never used a Flutter app that actually disables animations. I may be wrong).
  • System reduced-transparency settings.
  • System forced-colors mode (Windows High Contrast Mode).
  • System color palettes (some browsers support setting default colors without necessarily forcing the palette).
  • System media controls (play/pause/skip, current track, e.g. using MPRIS on freedesktop platforms).

It’s an easier question to answer than my second question: “What WCAG conformance level can I hope for?

Originally posted on https://seirdy.one/notes/2023/11/21/more-native-than-web/ (POSSE). #Flutter #Accessibility


More native than a Web app

Seirdy’s Home
#Accessibility #flutter
in reply to Seirdy

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •
Sadly, not all of these features are automatically available to the user in an Electron app. So in some ways, a real web app is more accessible by default than an Electron app. But some apps have to run outside the browser sandbox.
in reply to Seirdy

Seirdy
Seirdy
• •
My experience with Fluffychat tells me that it’s possible to make a reasonably-usable mobile app for Flutter if you excuse the shoddy support for reduced-motion (note that I have not evaluated its experience with assistive technologies like screen readers). But yeah, don’t even bother with Flutter for Desktop or Web.
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