This is a non-breaking addition to the stable Flutter Embedder API and exposes a
subset of the functionality provided by Dart_PostCObject API in a stable and
tested manner to custom embedder implementations.
Send port acquisition can currently be done as described in the unit-test but
there may be opportunities to extend this API in the future to access ports more
easily or create ports from the native side.
The following capabilities of the the Dart_PostCObject API are explicitly NOT
exposed:
* Object arrays: This allows callers to create complex object graphs but only
using the primitives specified in the native API. I could find no current use
case for this and would have made the implementation a lot more complex. This
is something we can add in the future if necessary however.
* Capabilities and ports: Again no use cases and I honestly I didn’t understand
how to use capabilities. If needed, these can be added at a later point by
appending to the union.
Fixes https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/46624
Fixes b/145982720
This patch allows embedders to split the Flutter layer tree into multiple
chunks. These chunks are meant to be composed one on top of another. This gives
embedders a chance to interleave their own contents between these chunks.
The Flutter embedder API already provides hooks for the specification of
textures for the Flutter engine to compose within its own hierarchy (for camera
feeds, video, etc..). However, not all embedders can render the contents of such
sources into textures the Flutter engine can accept. Moreover, this composition
model may have overheads that are non-trivial for certain use cases. In such
cases, the embedder may choose to specify multiple render target for Flutter to
render into instead of just one.
The use of this API allows embedders to perform composition very similar to the
iOS embedder. This composition model is used on that platform for the embedding
of UIKit view such and web view and map views within the Flutter hierarchy.
However, do note that iOS also has threading configurations that are currently
not available to custom embedders.
The embedder API updates in this patch are ABI stable and existing embedders
will continue to work are normal. For embedders that want to enable this
composition mode, the API is designed to make it easy to opt into the same in an
incremental manner.
Rendering of contents into the “root” rendering surface remains unchanged.
However, now the application can push “platform views” via a scene builder.
These platform views need to handled by a FlutterCompositor specified in a new
field at the end of the FlutterProjectArgs struct.
When a new platform view in introduced within the layer tree, the compositor
will ask the embedder to create a new render target for that platform view.
Render targets can currently be OpenGL framebuffers, OpenGL textures or software
buffers. The type of the render target returned by the embedder must be
compatible with the root render surface. That is, if the root render surface is
an OpenGL framebuffer, the render target for each platform view must either be a
texture or a framebuffer in the same OpenGL context. New render target types as
well as root renderers for newer APIs like Metal & Vulkan can and will be added
in the future. The addition of these APIs will be done in an ABI & API stable
manner.
As Flutter renders frames, it gives the embedder a callback with information
about the position of the various platform views in the effective hierarchy.
The embedder is then meant to put the contents of the render targets that it
setup and had previously given to the engine onto the screen (of course
interleaving the contents of the platform views).
Unit-tests have been added that test not only the structure and properties of
layer hierarchy given to the compositor, but also the contents of the texels
rendered by a test compositor using both the OpenGL and software rendering
backends.
Fixes b/132812775
Fixesflutter/flutter#35410
