Introducing the Backendless Native Mobile App Flutter Shell
Backendless has just made it even easier to create and publish mobile apps. With the new Flutter-based mobile app shell, you can compile your Backendless app built with our no-code UI Builder into a native mobile app!
This new release means your app can be published to the Apple App Store and Google Play store with ease. Previously, Backendless apps could only be published as web apps, but now you can add a native wrapper for an even better user experience.
Building a Flutter Shell For UI Builder
We have created a native mobile app wrapper using Flutter that allows you to compile your app built with UI Builder into a native mobile app. You can find the project including the shell in this GitHub repository. There, you will also find detailed instructions for implementation.
The native shell is a Flutter project that can be compiled to run natively on Android and iOS devices. It includes support for native device features and enables integration between a UI Builder application and native mobile capabilities.
Using the native app shell, you can achieve the following capabilities:
- Run your UI Builder app in a native mobile container
- Register your app to receive push notifications
- Request user permissions for features available natively, such as obtaining the user’s contact list
- Enable bidirectional communication between the native code and the code in a UI Builder app (even when built with Codeless)
Of course, your Flutter app also retains all of the incredible functionality of your Codeless Backendless backend: real-time database, Codeless business logic and APIs, push notification console, pub-sub messaging, and everything else.
Benefits of Publishing a Native App
Previously, Backendless apps could (and still can) be easily published directly from Backendless Console for use on the web. As a web app, your Backendless application can be accessed by any device with a web browser.
All UI Builder components are designed to be responsive, meaning that they will automatically adjust in size and appearance based on the size of the screen.
Developers could preview their UI Builder app in a native mobile environment using Backendless Viewer, but there remained one big limitation:
Backendless UI Builder apps could not easily be published to the app stores.
Until now.
With the native mobile app shell, your app is wrapped inside a Flutter wrapper. This Flutter wrapper provides all of the functionality of a Flutter app, allowing you to deploy the app on an Android device via an Android APK.
More importantly, the shell enables you to submit your app to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, eliminating the last barrier to full mobile development on Backendless.
Closing
We are so excited to see Backendless apps on the app stores! If you’ve been building with Backendless for years, you may have felt that you have to build your frontend elsewhere to get the full mobile experience.
Now you can do it all with Backendless!
We want to hear about your experience with this new release. Post your questions at our support forum, share your app store links, and let us see what you publish!
Originally published at https://backendless.com on January 27, 2022.
