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Opportunity: Signal Boost other widget packs and design systems

Open sethladd opened this issue 1 year ago • 7 comments

What information needs to be added?

We're starting to see more "widget packs" or "design systems" appear on Github and pub, which is awesome! People evaluating Flutter, and current new Flutter users, would benefit from learning that there is a rich world of widget systems out there. And that there are more widgets than just what comes out of the box with Flutter.

Some that we've found recently:

https://pub.dev/packages/macos_ui https://github.com/forus-labs/forui

It would be helpful to, via our Flutter docs, show that:

  • There are other widget packs and design systems out there
  • There are official widgets from Flutter, and many other widgets from the community that aren't officially from Flutter but are worth knowing about to explore and evaluate.
  • The community widget packs and systems are built on Flutter's lower-level widgets, which is a great thing

We could tie this into "Flutter Favorites" from pub. We can use those guidelines to tell us which widget packs/systems we link to from docs.flutter.dev. If a widget pack/system on pub reached a Favorites bar, or some other point score we're clear about, we can then add to (presumably) docs.flutter.dev/ui/widgets as a "other widget packs and design systems from the Flutter ecosystem" to help with discoverability.

Where should this new content appear?

Potentially from /ui/widgets , but there may be other places, too. Or different places on the site!

I would like to fix this problem.

  • [ ] I will try and fix this problem on docs.flutter.dev.

sethladd avatar Aug 08 '24 16:08 sethladd

cc @mit-mit @Piinks

sethladd avatar Aug 08 '24 16:08 sethladd

There are many! Other design languages include:

  • https://pub.dev/packages/arna
  • https://pub.dev/packages/chicago
  • https://pub.dev/packages/fluent_ui
  • https://pub.dev/packages/getwidget
  • https://pub.dev/packages/glassmorphism_widgets
  • https://pub.dev/packages/libadwaita
  • https://pub.dev/packages/neon_widgets
  • https://pub.dev/packages/one_ui
  • https://pub.dev/packages/phoenix_widgets
  • https://pub.dev/packages/ud_widgets
  • https://pub.dev/packages/yaru_widgets

Also might be good for context: https://flutter.dev/go/blankcanvas

I was also talking to @khanhnwin this week about the concept of design languages and how we can better share that with developers.

Piinks avatar Aug 08 '24 16:08 Piinks

Awesome! That lists hints that there's a "critical mass" here we can help people see when "browsing for widgets from our docs.flutter.dev site".

sethladd avatar Aug 08 '24 16:08 sethladd

How about something like https://github.com/flutter/website/pull/11032 to start?

Then next we work on better highlighting the community design systems (I have some ideas about that I need to write down).

mit-mit avatar Aug 09 '24 09:08 mit-mit

How about something like #11032 to start?

Looks good as a first step, thanks!

Then next we work on better highlighting the community design systems (I have some ideas about that I need to write down).

Thanks!

sethladd avatar Aug 12 '24 19:08 sethladd

I'd like to keep this open until we can link to some listing of "packages in pub that are in the Design System topic (or whatever name we want to go with) and have been vetted/reviewed to some degree". That page could be on docs.flutter.dev or on pub.dev, or both!

sethladd avatar Aug 12 '24 19:08 sethladd

A great first step would be to decide on a pub topic (or two) to standardize on and suggest to package authors. For package:lints, we suggest the lints topic in its README: https://github.com/dart-lang/lints#:~:text=consider%20adding%20the%20lints%20topic.

I see a variety currently in use: design-system, ui-library, ui-kit, components, just ui, and others. None seem particularly favored, and many widget packs don't have any topics yet.

parlough avatar Aug 27 '24 22:08 parlough