Developer tools ISV JetBrains has launched a preview of the web version of its JetPack Compose tool — expected to follow the 1.0 release of JetPack Compose for Desktop, still in development.
“This is the next chapter in our multiplatform story for Jetpack Compose, bringing Google’s toolkit for building reactive user interfaces with Kotlin to the web,” writes JetBrains’ Sebastian Aigner in the announcement.
Jetpack Compose for Web will work with Kotlin Multiplatform, enabling developers to build Android, desktop, and web applications within the same project using a Jetpack Compose user interface.
“Kotlin Multiplatform allows you to share platform-agnostic code and functionality like your business logic through common code, while still being able to implement and use platform-specific functionality from Android, Desktop JVM, and the JavaScript ecosystem alike,” says Aigner.
JetBrains is inviting developers to freely reuse all the core Compose state management concepts across the platforms — but not to directly reuse existing widgets. Instead, they can use Kotlin Multiplatform to build their own common widgets for all three platforms, he writes.
The preview installation includes two types of APIs that JetBrains is exploring for declaring user interfaces in Kotlin code with Compose, he adds. The preview can be downloaded here.
“We don’t yet provide learning materials, tutorials, or documentation, and we have not done any performance optimisations yet (so hold your benchmarks). It is certainly not yet ready for use in any production application,” Aigner confirms.
JetBrains has also reported its Q1 2021 round of security fixes for multiple tools, which you can find here.
( Photo by Spencer Imbrock on Unsplash )
