is `addTo` method of Zdog really not needed?

[aytunc]

Just wow, this is definitely a game changer for Flutter. The possibilities are endless and graphics look very cute. Thank you for porting Zdog.

My question is: is it better to do modelling with nesting or is it a better strategy to use Zdog addTo: method? I thought if we had addTo, we could have the ability to reuse parts of our models instead of copy pasting code inside nested structure. I might be missing something. Please correct me if I am wrong. Keep up the great work.

One last thing. How is the performance? is there a limit on maximum number of Zshapes we should use? Would it be smart to make an application fully constructed with ZFlutter using ZToBoxAdapters?

[Jaime Blasco]

Thanks!
About the first question:
The initial project was an exact port from Zdog to CustomPainter canvas, but I thought it would be more powerful if it could take full advantage of the Flutter framework.
One of the keys is that Flutter widgets are nested and immutable. That's why I implemented this way. While this solution generates more code it comes with more benefits (eg you can more than just canvas paths, and it will only re-paint what it is needed)

To reuse part of the code, you can do it as it was a normal widget.
Check the dice code for an example.

class Dot extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return ZCircle(
      diameter: 15,
      stroke: 0,
      fill: true,
      color: Colors.white,
    );
  }
}

About the second question, the performance is not as good as I would want. I tried a ZIlustration with around 100 shapes and works good in mobile, but starts to lag in the browser. I want to work on some optimizations about how and when the z-index sorting is done. I expect to work on this later this year, as now I am focused on other projects.

I don't recommend to use ZFlutter for a production application yet, just to play with it. Also using just ZToBoxAdapters wouldn't bring you a lot of benefits; normally an app needs complex layouts as stacks, row, column, list. But with few ZToBoxAdapters the performance should be similar to wrapping your app with a Transform widget.