“Keep calm and great things will come”Why? Link to heading
I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who has been trying to bring the software projects from local IDEs (VS Code, Jetbrains …) to cloud IDEs (mainly VS Code Web at this time). The idea that we can get rid of a heavy macbook and be able to work from anywhere where we just need a web browser with internet connection is really attractive. In the recent years, the tools like GitPod (https://www.gitpod.io/) or Github Codespaces (https://github.com/features/codespaces/) has been greatly improved and we can nearly implement any web applications directly from the web browser. The only thing that those tools are not able to handle at the time of this article is mobile development. The main reason is the need of mobile emulators (iOS or Android) and the Cloud IDEs like GitPod and Codespaces cannot provide it.
And Google IDX comes Link to heading
Project IDX (https://idx.google.com/) solves the problem I mentioned above. Basically, it provides us a Cloud VS Code bundled with a customizable environment (using Nix). The most important thing is the ability to run the Flutter app on an Android emulator right in the browser (https://developers.google.com/idx/guides/preview-apps). Of course, it cannot be as good as developing the app in your local environment but you can do 70-80% of your works with just your browser and it’s a good enough option for me. In addition, Gemini (AI assistant from Google) is pre-installed and ready to use. It’s also a plus.
In order to play with Project IDX, just go to https://idx.google.com/ and request the access. After logging in to it, you will see a dashboard and can start create your first workspace there:
Just go ahead and create a Flutter project. Wait a while for your workspace to be created. After that, everything will be up and ready. The cool things like Hot Reload are also included so that you don’t have to worry about it.
Does it look familiar?
You can examine the Nix config (located in .idx/dev.nix) to understand more about how your workspace is configured.
But nothing is perfect. What are the disadvantages?
- It just supports Android emulator at this time (but I think iOS support will come very soon).
- Its settings cannot be synced with your VS Code settings storing in your GitHub or Microsoft account. You have to manually re-install your favorite extensions and configure your settings.
- It’s from Google and who knows when Google decides to turn it down :D .
And what next? Link to heading
The developer experience has been greatly improved since the first days of my career a decade ago. Nowadays, there are many great tools to support the software engineering tasks and I believe that we can do almost everything right inside our web browser very very soon. Looking forward to it!
Keep calm and good things will come!
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