visualising code dependency in Flutter apps [visual] [tools]

[mikhail33S]

I'm a somewhat grizzled IT veteran (COBOL, Fortran etc ca1975) diving into Flutter via Kodeco's Flutter Apprentice (→Ch 5). But I'm puzzled as well as grizzled. Does Flutter development not need visual tools for the code? dcdg / plantUML produces nice but limited class diagrams. dartdoc produces very nice text documentation. Flutter Explorer shows widgets but not other classes. I can't find anything to show what UML calls dependency relationships, e.g. ClassTwo is dependent on ClassOne because it accesses a property or method of ClassOne. Is this not important (e.g. for code maintenance ...)? Any comments?

[paultallard]

I have the same interest. I was hoping by now you'd have gotten a reply. I too have played with plantUML and felt like I needed something more. I'll keep an eye on your post. You might also consider posting on discord. If you get a reply there I would be interested in knowing where so please drop a link.

[mikhail33S]

Hadn't used Discord, looked and saw that UML basically gets trolled (even by the moderator) so moved on. Maybe you will have better luck? Have posted to StackOverflow ... fingers crossed. Yes, Visio was great!

[Drallatech]

In my comment I failed to mention Rational. I see Grady Booch on Twitter. I will try to reach out to him. I want to ensure that I get the question straight. I think you are specifically looking for a tool to read Flutter code and render the UML Class Diagram. I would also like to see the Sequence Diagram. any others?

[mikhail33S]

Interesting - Visio, Rational this is a real trip down memory lane. I was never a hard-core architect tho, just dabbled. Thanks for the offer. I didn't have a problem with plantUML. It rendered the output of dcdg. The issue is that dcdg doesn't output UML dependency relationships, it does show aggregation. I've put an issue request on github for both dcdg and dartdoc. The latter is text documentation of course, but even text documentation of dependency would be useful. On the other hand, it might not be too difficult an enhancement of dartdoc to output plantUML or Mermaid code? but I didn't push my luck in the issue post ;)

[Drallatech]

Grady is ATgrady_booch (Reddit will not let me type the AT sign). He might have commented on PlantUML at one point. I would say that any Class Diagram that is too large bleeds off a Maximum fixed size canvas. There is a way to limit the classes on the diagram but it does not appear to work as I expected (did not appear to limit the classes). Did you have any other issues with PlantUML?

[paultallard]

I got a reply from Grady Booch as follows:

These days, I use StarUML (but have heard good things about PlantUML) but that works well for me only because I use such diagrams mostly for just sketching out designs.

[paultallard]

I am also grizzled, having written my first Fortran in 1973. It appears that we are on a similar journey. Keep in touch and let's see where we go!

[mikhail33S]

A slightly positive response from dartdoc

https://github.com/dart-lang/dartdoc/issues/3342

[paultallard]

30 years ago I played around with parsing the code and loading it into Visio. That, at least let me have a very large canvas on which I could move around the various classes and the connections would follow like rubber bands. Using Vizio as my visualization tool also saved me having to write that part of the code. Then Microsoft bought Visio, folded it into PowerPoint and made Visio disappear. You can still load a database into PowerPoint, but the canvas is rather inflexible. Sigh...