Hi is it possible i e has someone tried to compile a compose

Question

Hi is it possible i e has someone tried to compile a compose desktop application with GraalVM to native executable

Lukas K-G · Answer

I haven t tried it but it was briefly mentioned in the talking Kotlin episode about <https talkingkotlin com compose for desktop |Compose for Desktop>

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

I used to have a much simpler application without compose jb build with GraalVM and already hat a lot of very strange problems At this stage I really can t recommend GraalVM native image It s just not ready

uli · Answer

Thanks for your thoughts I also did some more research and found out that AWT is only yet supported by GraalVM on Linux

Michael Paus · Answer

In the JavaFX world GraalVM native image is used heavily if you build native images for desktop Mac Win Linux and mobile Android iOS with the Gluon tool chain and in general that works nicely if you do it right What makes things a bit tricky is the closed world assumption of GraalVM native image but with the native image agent this can be handled too I d also be interested to get Compose going with that because in contrast to the current solutions KMM this would in principle make it possible to get Compose applications working on all these platforms based on a common JVM backend My problem with KMM at the moment is that I would have to write a separate GUI with SwiftUI for iOS and I don t have a Kotlin replacement for all the Java libraries that I am using in my code With a GraalVM native image approach this would not be a problem anymore

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

Gluon is really ugly Tried that already

Michael Paus · Answer

What do you mean by ugly

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

It s badly documented for a start And of course closed source Looking for a RoboVM replacement we tried a really small prototype with Gluon Mobile but this was very complicated to do They do not even support Gradle After trying that out nobody wanted to go with Gluon

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

Yes you need separate iOS and Swift if you choose KMM But I think it s the best thing to do anyway because you have maximum control now

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

< Michael Paus> Are you affiliated Gluon It s the first time I hear someone say that Gluon works nicely sweat smile

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

The idea of Gluon enable JavaFX devs to go cross platform is really good I had my own cross platform framework before using native Android JavaFX and RoboVM for iOS Gluon hat RoboVM as iOS backend before and switched to GraalVM So I don t know how good it works before that man shrugging It s nice that Gluon repaired the Scene Builder and I would recommend that version but Gluon Mobile is really not a good product sadly

Michael Paus · Answer

The documentation is not that bad See yourself Here is the link to the Gradle plugin The core technology is not closed source It s all on GitHub There are only some higher level products which build on these technologies which are Gluon products And no I am not in any way affiliated with Gluon I know there are problems but they are not so much related to the base technology which would be relevant for Compose

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

Ok some time has passend since the evaluation Nice to see that they actually have a gradle plugin now and work on the docs +1

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

It s not Open Source to a level that when they close down the project you can take over A strong point for RoboVM was that it could be forked by the community and as you know exactly that had to be done If Gluon shuts down that will be a big problem People should also take that into consideration If I remember right there was also a problem with integration of native iOS frameworks RoboVM had the Bra Java to Native bridge which worked good but as time of evaluation we found no option with Gluon Mobile Beside strange compiling errors bad docs at least at that time and it s limits we choosed to avoid Gluon

Michael Paus · Answer

Sorry if I disagree All the core technology is Open Source It has either been donated to the OpenJFX project or to GraalVM itself which themselves are open projects The core tooling <https github com gluonhq substrate> is under GPL and even the plugins have a BSD license So what else do you need

Stefan Oltmann · Answer

Ok looks like you are right +1 In that case I wasn t aware that substrate actually contains that much So this point of mine is invalid Sorry for that

smallshen · Answer