`flutter build aar`
This new build command works just like `flutter build apk` or `flutter build appbundle`, but for plugin and module projects.
This PR also refactors how plugins are included in app or module projects. By building the plugins as AARs, the Android Gradle plugin is able to use Jetifier to translate support libraries into AndroidX libraries for all the plugin's native code. Thus, reducing the error rate when using AndroidX in apps.
This change also allows to build modules as AARs, so developers can take these artifacts and distribute them along with the native host app without the need of the Flutter tool. This is a requirement for add to app.
`flutter build aar` generates POM artifacts (XML files) which contain metadata about the native dependencies used by the plugin. This allows Gradle to resolve dependencies at the app level. The result of this new build command is a single build/outputs/repo, the local repository that contains all the generated AARs and POM files.
In a Flutter app project, this local repo is used by the Flutter Gradle plugin to resolve the plugin dependencies. In add to app case, the developer needs to configure the local repo and the dependency manually in `build.gradle`:
repositories {
maven {
url "<path-to-flutter-module>build/host/outputs/repo"
}
}
dependencies {
implementation("<package-name>:flutter_<build-mode>:1.0@aar") {
transitive = true
}
}
`flutter build aar`
This new build command works just like `flutter build apk` or `flutter build appbundle`, but for plugin and module projects.
This PR also refactors how plugins are included in app or module projects. By building the plugins as AARs, the Android Gradle plugin is able to use Jetifier to translate support libraries into AndroidX libraries for all the plugin's native code. Thus, reducing the error rate when using AndroidX in apps.
This change also allows to build modules as AARs, so developers can take these artifacts and distribute them along with the native host app without the need of the Flutter tool. This is a requirement for add to app.
`flutter build aar` generates POM artifacts (XML files) which contain metadata about the native dependencies used by the plugin. This allows Gradle to resolve dependencies at the app level. The result of this new build command is a single build/outputs/repo, the local repository that contains all the generated AARs and POM files.
In a Flutter app project, this local repo is used by the Flutter Gradle plugin to resolve the plugin dependencies. In add to app case, the developer needs to configure the local repo and the dependency manually in `build.gradle`:
repositories {
maven {
url "<path-to-flutter-module>build/host/outputs/repo"
}
}
dependencies {
implementation("<package-name>:flutter_<build-mode>:1.0@aar") {
transitive = true
}
}
We decided that redefining the default for templates was premature. We're going to go back to having "module" in experimental land again, and we'll try again when we have the feature set fully baked.
This keeps the writing of the .metadata files, and writing the template type to them, because that was a good improvement, and there are still a bunch of added tests that improve our coverage.
This renames the "module" template to the "application" template, and makes "application" the default. The existing "app" template is now deprecated.
flutter create also now recognizes the type of project in an existing directory, and is able to recreate it without having the template type explicitly specified (although you can still do that). It does this now by first looking in the .metadata file for the new project_type field, and if it doesn't find that, then it looks at the directory structure. Also, the .metadata file is now overwritten even on an existing directory so that 1) the project_type can be added to legacy projects, and 2) the version of Flutter that updated the project last is updated.
I also cleaned up a bunch of things in create_test.dart, added many more tests, and added an example test to the test/ directory in the generated output of the application template.
Fixes#22530Fixes#22344
