[Hover] Feature: Support/Document setting initialRoute similar to --route

[devkabiir]

When running apps on android flutter supports passing --route argument and sets that as the initial route. This is currently not possible for iOS.

However during testing/debugging, it's more productive to directly launch the app in the correct route. Can this be supported?
Example use
hover run --route="/post/5/edit"

[pchampio]

Not duplicate nor related, but it does overlaps #240.

More information is available in #240 (comment).

To implement this feature, it is likely that we will need to write a custom plugin that calls the 'flutter/navigation' Method channel.

I don't know how do design this into hover as this plugin should only be loaded when using hover run. I've looked at the flutter source code, I couldn't find how they implemented flag.

[pchampio]

The cleanest way might simply be to add another Options into go-flutter that calls the InvokeMethod on initialization.
The path of the route could be set using hover by injecting a build-time variable with Golang CC.

The second cleanest way might be to have a venv GOFLUTTER_ROUTE="/post/5/edit" hover run or GOFLUTTER_ROUTE="/post/5/edit" MyCompiledGoFlutterApp.exe.
The venv would be check from go-flutter code and if present, call the correct 'flutter/navigation' Method channel

[pchampio]

@devkabiir you can test #288 by running:
env GOFLUTTER_ROUTE="/post/5/edit" hover run -b '@feature/initial-route'

[pchampio]

PR for the hover flag done.

[devkabiir]

Thanks @Drakirus!, While using a env variable is a good way, they are handled differently based on the host process. So for example, if the host process escapes " quotes and my route contains quotes, it will always provide incorrect route to flutter. Or for example if my route contains $ (special meaning in many shells) it will either be escaped or it will be processed by the host process/shell. I think using the env variable is a good start. It works for simple routes very well. But we will definitely need a better way.

Please consider exposing the functionality to set initialRoute in a more general purpose way. An example usage will be, my-app://token:123/?confirm_login, myapp can register a special url schema my-app:// and anything on the host OS can launch my app. This might require setting the initialRoute programmatically. And this will also require the already running myapp to intercept the my-app:// url and propely switch the route using pushRoute or something similar. (Maybe this should be a separate plugin, what do you think?)

Your initial implementation for setting initialRoute using hover and env variable works nice. Thanks and feel free to close this issue.

[pchampio]

Please consider exposing the functionality to set initialRoute in a more general purpose way. An example usage will be, my-app://token:123/?confirm_login, myapp can register a special url schema my-app:// and anything on the host OS can launch my app. This might require setting the initialRoute programmatically. And this will also require the already running myapp to intercept the my-app:// url and propely switch the route using pushRoute or something similar. (Maybe this should be a separate plugin, what do you think?)

That's another issue: #240

I think the use of venv is good enough for development purposes. (which was your initial request ^^)

[pchampio]

While I see to need for 'uni_links' I don't plan to work on it.
Mainly because it cannot be done without platform specific configuration/code.

I'll be happy to have a plug-in for url-links, please consider contributing on #240 😊😁

[pchampio]

Feature available in go-flutter: v0.31.0 and hover v0.36.0.
Please run: go get -u github.com/go-flutter-desktop/hover to update hover, and then hover bumpversion to upgrade hover and the project in which your are.

Then the hover run --route "/XXX" cmd will be available!