Flutter Desktop Apps: Getting Started

Xcode

Many Desktop apps deal with files from the file system. If you want the user to be able to save their data to their local computer, you will need to provide a way to do that. One of the best ways to do that is through a file picker. This is a plugin that provides access to the local file system and allows the user to choose the file to open or where to save the file.

On the Mac, there is a good amount of security involved. You cannot build a Mac app without setting up “Entitlements”. This is just a set of permissions that you need for your app. There are two entitlement files you can find in the macOS -> Runner folder:

DebugProfile.entitlements and Release.entitlements. These are “dictionary” files that have key/value pairs. You can edit these in xcode but there is an easier way.

Android Studio

Open up Android Studio and open up DebugProfile.entitlements from the macOS -> Runner folder.

To add open permissions you would add:

<key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write</key>
<true/>

To add write permission you would add:

<key>com.apple.security.exception.files.absolute-path.read-write</key>
<true/>

Let’s add these now to the Release.entitlements file as well. For the next video you will be using a plugin that reads and writes to a local file system and so does not need the permissions described above. This plugin is named filesystem_picker.