[proposal] make rust-in-flutter usable for dart-only projects

[iapicca]

Report

rust-in-flutter requires flutter

Proposal

add support for dart-only projects

Steps to Reproduce

dart create -t package deleteme && \
cd deleteme && \
dart pub add  rust_in_flutter

Resolving dependencies...
+ build 2.4.1
+ build_config 1.1.1
+ build_daemon 4.0.0
+ build_resolvers 2.4.0
+ build_runner 2.4.6
+ build_runner_core 7.2.11
+ built_collection 5.1.1
+ built_value 8.6.3
+ checked_yaml 2.0.3
+ cli_util 0.4.0
+ code_builder 4.7.0
+ dart_style 2.3.3
+ ffi 2.1.0
+ ffigen 9.0.1
+ fixnum 1.1.0
+ freezed 2.4.2
+ freezed_annotation 2.4.1
+ graphs 2.3.1
+ json_annotation 4.8.1
+ pubspec_parse 1.2.3
+ quiver 3.2.1
+ source_gen 1.4.0
+ stream_transform 2.1.0
+ timing 1.0.1
+ yaml_edit 2.1.1
Changed 25 dependencies!
Because deleteme depends on rust_in_flutter any which requires the Flutter SDK, version solving failed.

Flutter users should run `flutter pub get` instead of `dart pub get`.

System Information

rustc --version && \
protoc --version && \
flutter doctor
rustc 1.72.1 (d5c2e9c34 2023-09-13) (Homebrew)
libprotoc 24.3
Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[!] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.13.5, on macOS 13.6 22G120 darwin-arm64, locale en-EE)
    ! Warning: `dart` on your path resolves to /opt/homebrew/Cellar/dart/3.1.2/libexec/bin/dart, which is not inside your current Flutter SDK checkout at
      /Users/yakforward/fvm/versions/stable. Consider adding /Users/yakforward/fvm/versions/stable/bin to the front of your path.
[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 33.0.2)
[!] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 15.0)
    ✗ Unable to get list of installed Simulator runtimes.
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Android Studio (version 2022.2)
[✓] VS Code (version 1.82.2)
[✓] Connected device (2 available)
[✓] Network resources

! Doctor found issues in 2 categories.

[temeddix]

That's an interesting idea and it was also suggested before. However, because the main build process of RIF hooks onto the Flutter SDK's build mechanism, Dart SDK cannot really help us. This is not a design choice but more like a technical limitation.

If you want to make a CLI app, we recommend you to purely use Rust, rather than combining Dart and Rust. We do acknowledge that your project will have specific requirements that will probably require Dart, so it's actually yours to decide :) If you really need to make Dart-Rust app, flutter_rust_bridge would be a better choice.

More information is available here: #67

Thank you for participating in the RIF project 🙂