How to implement the Plugin Architecture in Flutter Dart

Question

I want to implement a plugin architecture in Flutter Dart. The process will be as follows: 1. User downloads the app. 2. The user loads plugins from our site. 3. The apps look if the plugin implements an interface. 4. If the interface is implemented then load information and widgets from the plugin to the app.

I've implemented the same process in C# using compiled DLL loading in runtime but unable to find it for Flutter.

I've looked into some of the previous questions and resource available on the internet and the closest one I found was this, https://pub.dev/packages/plugins but the plugin is not supported in Dart 2 and deprecated

This was the code I implemented in C#.

            int i = 0;

            if (Directory.Exists("Plugins"))
            {
                dllFileNames = Directory.GetFiles("Plugins", "*.dll");

                ICollection<Assembly> assemblies = new List<Assembly>(dllFileNames.Length);
                foreach (string dllFile in dllFileNames)
                {
                    AssemblyName an = AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(dllFile);
                    Assembly assembly = Assembly.Load(an);
                    assemblies.Add(assembly);
                }

                Type pluginType = typeof(IPlugin);
                List<Type> pluginTypes = new List<Type>();
                foreach (Assembly assembly in assemblies)
                {
                    if (assembly != null)
                    {
                        Type[] types = assembly.GetTypes();
                        foreach (Type type in types)
                        {
                            if (type.IsInterface || type.IsAbstract)
                            {
                                continue;
                            }
                            else if (pluginType.IsAssignableFrom(type))
                            {
                                pluginTypes.Add(type);
                            }
                        }
                    }

                    i++;
                }

                ICollection<IPlugin> plugins = new List<IPlugin>(pluginTypes.Count);
                foreach (Type type in pluginTypes)
                {
                    IPlugin plugin = (IPlugin)Activator.CreateInstance(type);
                    plugin.Initiate();
                    plugins.Add(plugin);
                }

                return plugins;
            }

            return null;

Answer 1

It's probably not possible.

Part of the AOT compilation preparing your app for upload to the stores is a tree-shaking, removing everything that isn't needed by the current build. So, anything your plugin would need to call is gone.