flet-github-action-workflows

A collection of useful GitHub Action Workflows to ease the building of Flet applications.

VIDEO TUTORIAL: https://youtu.be/ObO-D2TD_wo

Feel free to adapt all the workflows in this repo to your own projects: flet.dev/publish

File Structure

As you might know, Flet is a cross-platform framework. This means, from a single codebase you can target multiple platforms: Android (AAB, APK), iOS (IPA), Linux, macOS, Windows, and Web.

The repository contains the following workflows (located in the .github/workflows directory):

File Name	Builds	Runs on
aab-build.yml	Android App Bundle (AAB)	macos-latest
apk-build.yml	Android Application Package (APK)	ubuntu-latest
desktop-and-mobile-builds.yml	desktop [linux, macOS, windows] and mobile [Android (AAB, APK), iOS (IPA)] apps	ubuntu-latest, macos-latest, windows-latest
desktop-build.yml	desktop [Linux, macOS, windows] apps	ubuntu-latest, macos-latest, windows-latest
ipa-build.yml	iOS Package App Store (IPA)	macos-latest
linux-build.yml	linux app	ubuntu-latest
macos-build.yml	macOS app	macos-latest
web-build-and-github-pages-deploy.yml	static web app and deploys it to GitHub Pages	ubuntu-latest
windows-build.yml	windows app	windows-latest

GitHub Actions

All the workflows in this repository are based on GitHub Actions. Read it's documentation to get started. Understanding the syntax will be very useful if you want to customize the workflows to suit your specific needs.

The following actions from the GitHub marketplace are used in one or more of the workflows in this repository:

• actions/checkout: checks-out your repository for use in the workflow
• actions/configure-pages: configures the GitHub Pages action for web deployment
• actions/deploy-page: deploys your static site to GitHub Pages
• actions/setup-python: sets up a Python environment
• actions/setup-java: sets up Java JDK
• actions/upload-artifact: uploads a build artifact for a workflow run
• subosito/flutter-action: sets up a Flutter environment

See their respective documentation for more information on how to further customize their execution.

Thanks to their creators! :)

Usage

• Choose the workflow that suits your needs. For example, if you are building an Linux app, you can choose the linux-build.yml workflow.
• Copy the content of the chosen workflow file.
• Create a new file in your repository under the .github/workflows directory and paste the copied content into it.
• Modify the file as needed. For example, you might want to change the event that triggers the workflow, the name of the workflow, the name of the job, etc. It's up to you.
• Name the file to your liking, but make sure it ends with .yml extension, else it won't be recognized as a workflow file.
• Commit the changes and push them to your repository.
• Go to the Actions tab in your repository. If you haven't modified the file, you should see the workflow running, as a result of a push to main/master branch. Else, you can trigger it manually by clicking on the Run workflow button.

For Your Information (FYI)

• Customize the build command for your specific needs: flet.dev/publish

• All workflows are based on Flutter version 3.22.2 and Python version 3.12.2.

• You might find the below in some of the workflows:

  • workflow_dispatch: used to trigger the workflow manually from the Actions tab
  • flutter config --no-analytics: disables Flutter analytics
  • flet build [platform] --no-rich-output: disables rich output (ex: ✅) when running the build command. This is must be used for jobs running on Windows OS, else a UnicodeDecodeError is raised.

• The below error occured on Linux when flutter doctor was run:

  [✗] Linux toolchain - develop for Linux desktop
      ✗ ninja is required for Linux development.
        It is likely available from your distribution (e.g.: apt install ninja-build), or can be downloaded from https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases
      ✗ GTK 3.0 development libraries are required for Linux development.
        They are likely available from your distribution (e.g.: apt install libgtk-3-dev)
  

  A step named Patch for linux build was added to the linux-related jobs/workflows which resolves this issue by installing the required dependencies.

• The build commands are run in verbose mode (--verbose) to provide more information about the build process. Provide these logs when you are willing to report an issue on the Flet repo.

Contribution

You can contribute by adding more workflows or improving the existing ones.

Improvements ideas:

• Add a step for releasing the built artifacts to the GitHub releases
• At the moment, apk-build.yml, for example, runs on macos-latest. Is it better (in terms of size/speed) to run it on ubuntu-latest or windows-latest?
• It will be nice if we could take advantage of caching to speed up the builds.