User Interface Improvements to FlutterFlow

I’ve settled in to using FlutterFlow as my no-code tool of choice. I’m trying to make a socially-edited hierarchical dictionary, whatever that is, and it’s a natural for a phone app. I tried a less full-featured tool earlier but moved on to FlutterFlow.

So I’ve started compiling this list of observations I’ve made about the UI. Flutterflow is, as with most of the similar tools, nothing less than a miracle in what it delivers… for free, no less, with a freemium model (pricing) that offers seemingly all “functionality.” Advanced features like code download and one-click store deploy are not free, but that’s perfectly reasonable… and precisely because that’s what enables the base to be free.

And in the case of FlutterFlow, “the base” appears (to this advanced beginner) to look like every damn function a modest developer could want. In other words, FlutterFlow does NOT appear to be a compromise product that only provides “cherry-picked” functionality, which in turn causes such products to have an endless battle between users’ wish lists and the delivered product. Its interface commensurately requires some number of hours to get comfortable with. In fact, its interface is also pretty awesome in terms of user experience, which to me comprises learnability and facility. So far, I’m just finding a smattering of minor items. Here it is:

• Enable interactive editing of more text labels, in place in the canvas (instead of only editing them indirectly in a property sheet/panel.
• Change the label, “Instant Reload” (of test mode) to “Quick Reload”.
• Should the Page Selector and Widget Tree functionality be combined so that you don’t feel like you’re pogo-sticking to navigate between pages?
• In many interface features where there are expandable rows, the user must click specifically and only on the expansion arrow, whereas one should be able to click anywhere in the entire row. For instance in Settings And Integrations>Firebase>… in the Advanced Settings item and every other row, one has to click on the little arrow way out on the right. You should be able to click anywhere on the row including the whitespace and the text “Advanced Settings.”
• In the clarification message entitled “Create Backend Query,” (telling the user how to stylize list items by editing only the first one), provide a checkbox, “Don’t show again.”
• On the right-side properties panel (and all other panels where there are multiple collapsible groups of settings) provide a function to expand/collapse all. For the new user, locating items within the groups will be much quicker with the ability to collapse them all.
• When the user starts to add an action but does not complete it (resulting in an error), prompt the user prior to exiting the Action Editor to keep or discard the incomplete action.
• When a test session has expired, the New Session button seems confusing in that it appears enabled but does nothing. If its intention is instructional, then make it look like a message, not a button.
• <I’ll be adding items on the fly.>