CODEWITHSUNDEEP
dartfluttersdk
Flutter IO Dev
Flutter IO Dev

Reputation: 2187

How can I use two versions of Flutter on the same device for different projects?

I have a stable Flutter channel SDK located at C:\flutter. Which is set at the system environment variables to be the default path for Flutter.

And I'm using the path C:\flutter when creating new Flutter project in IntelliJ for our customers.

I also downloaded the Flutter master channel at C:\flutter_master and I need to use this Flutter SDK (master) for another project.

How can I correctly have two working Flutter versions on the same device for different projects without playing with the system environment variables each time?

Upvotes: 60

Views: 51163

Answers (14)

Ritika Bansal
Ritika Bansal

Reputation: 101

Put all the versions folders in the Documents folder. (as shown below:)

enter image description here

  1. Open Terminal.
  2. Type: nano ~/.bash_aliases
  3. Paste the aliases with the appropriate path in the file: 
    alias flutter_sn='~/Documents/flutter_3.10.5/flutter/bin/flutter'
alias flutter_rg='~/Documents/flutter_3.13.7/flutter/bin/flutter'
  4. Hit “Ctrl+X” & “Yes” for saving.
  5. Hit Enter.
  6. Quit Terminal & Reopen it.
  7. Type: vim ~/.zshrc & press “i” to edit.
  8. And Paste the below:
export PATH=”$PATH:/Users/yourUserName/Documents/flutter_3.13.9/flutter/bin”
if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then 
. ~/.bash_aliases 
fi
  1. Press “esc” & enter the command “:wq!”
  2. Again quit terminal and reopen it.
  3. Run this command: doctor -v (example: flutter_rg doctor -v)
  4. Now Go to VS Code => Code => Settings => SDK => Flutter SDK Paths => Add all the paths: example:
“/Users/yourUserName/Documents/flutter_3.10.5”
  1. Now at the bottom in vscode, we can change and switch the version of flutters according to the project need.enter image description here

Upvotes: 0

Imran Zahoor
Imran Zahoor

Reputation: 2797

I recommend using this tutorial over here. I made some changes for Mac:

For Unix/Mac-based OS users

Edit file $HOME/.bashrc (for me it was file $HOME/.bash_profile on Mac) file and add this line (if it doesn’t exist).

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi
  1. Create and edit file $HOME/.bash_aliases and add aliases as you want.
alias flutter2='~/development/sdks/flutter2/bin/flutter'
alias flutter='~/development/sdks/flutter/bin/flutter'

Using the same technique, I've kept the flutter2 setup separate from flutter1. Because in some projects I need two and in older projects the version 1.

Now open the specific project in Visual Studio Code and open command palette (on Mac, the command was Command + Shift + P) and search for flutter sdk.

Enter image description here

Now choose Auto-Detect, which will create a new file under root of your project's .vscode/settings.json file.

Enter image description here

Open this file and place the path of Flutter version you want to use like below:

{
  "dart.flutterSdkPath": "/Users/imran/flutter2"
}

Do remember to run flutter2 --doctor, to resolve any issues.

While setting up flutter2, I encountered an issue and fix for that is here: I am getting error "cmdline-tools component is missing" after installing Flutter and Android Studio... I added the Android SDK. How can I solve them?.

Upvotes: 4

abishek perera
abishek perera

Reputation: 29

Use Visual Studio Code to do that:

Download multiple Flutter versions from this Flutter official site flutter_archives.

Then set up those ZIP files like this:

Flutter paths

Open Visual Studio Code and go to settings. Change settings like this (use double slashes "\")

Enter image description here

Now you can easily switch between Flutter SDKs by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and searching for Flutter SDKs.

Enter image description here

Upvotes: 0

mselmany
mselmany

Reputation: 444

Having several versions of SDKs installed and adjusting project-specific IDE SDK settings seem reasonable, but I prefer commandline tools and when you call the flutter command, it always calls the one on the path. So I can't use this solution.

The alias solution mentioned in this post is preferable for me, but when used it, I often forgot to call with alias (such as flutterb), leading to calling the wrong version of Flutter. After accidentally doing this, I usually need to do a flutter clean as well.

What I use, inspired by alias solution, is that I added a flutter.bat file in the root folder of the project. It contains the following lines:

@echo off
C:\SDK\flutter1\bin\flutter %*

As you may guess, this location belongs to the specific Flutter installation for using with this project. It is not the version on the path, but since I call all flutter commands from the root folder of the project, my terminal session sees this Flutter first and it uses this version, rather than the global one on the path. You can confirm this by calling flutter doctor for the first time.

  • Note that this is for using constant versions for each project, rather than trying several versions on the same project. For that kind of use case, you can combine this with the alias solution.
  • Also note that this is a Windows solution.

Upvotes: 0

frederickha
frederickha

Reputation: 368

You can use FVM to manage versions of Flutter.

Upvotes: 3

Andrey Gordeev
Andrey Gordeev

Reputation: 32559

The Flutter SDK can be specified per workspace if you use Visual Studio Code. You need to:

  1. Clone the Flutter repository to a new folder:

    mkdir ~/flutter_dev
cd ~/flutter_dev
git clone https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git .

  2. Create .vscode/settings.json with the following content:

    {
  "dart.flutterSdkPath": "/Users/youruser/flutter_dev"
}

  3. Restart Visual Studio Code and you're good to go.

See more information in Dart Code - Quickly Switching Between SDK Versions.

Upvotes: 21

Mahesh Jamdade
Mahesh Jamdade

Reputation: 20379

Firstly, you need to download all the Flutter SDKs you would want to be able to switch locally and create aliases for it. This allows you to use multiple versions of the SDK through the command line or the terminal, Just like you use any flutter command, And in case you want to use these different versions of your SDK in your IDE, you need to add the SDK paths to the settings of your IDE. Below you can find the steps to add the path to Visual Studio Code. The below answer will help you setup the different versions of SDK regardless of whether you are on Windows, Linux, or Mac.

Creating alias on Mac/Linux

This is how I have done it on an M1 Mac,

I have different versions of Flutter SDKs downloaded in a Documents folder located at $HOME/Documents.

Enter image description here

In order to access the appropriate version of Flutter through the terminal, we need to create aliases. Think of aliases as a shortcut to accessing the SDK through the terminal.

  1. To create an alias you need to create .bash_aliases file inside your $HOME directory

    You can do this via a terminal by running

    nano ~/.bash_aliases

    Paste these aliases with the appropriate path in the file.

    alias flutterd='~/Documents/flutter_dev/bin/flutter'
alias flutterm='~/Documents/flutter_master/bin/flutter'
alias flutterb='~/Documents/flutter_beta/bin/flutter'

    Note that you can name the aliases as you like.

    I have used the name

    • flutterd to point to flutter_dev
    • flutterm to point to flutter_master
    • flutterb to point to flutter_beta

    That means when you type flutterd in the terminal then it will use the SDK located at ~/Documents/flutter_dev/bin/flutter and respectively for rest of the aliases.

    (Hit Ctrl + X and enter to save and exit.)

  2. And lastly, you need to add this in your shell file

    if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

    which is basically the rc file

    $HOME/.bashrc if you are using Bash.

    $HOME/.zshrc file if you are using Z shell (executable zsh)

    if you are not sure then typing echo $SHELL in your Terminal tells you which shell you’re using. This is the same file where you have added your Flutter SDK's path when you first installed it. And if the file doesn't exist you may create it.

  3. Run source $HOME/.<rc file> to refresh the current terminal window.

    Now you can verify by typing your alias names in the terminal flutterm, flutterd, etc. and it will respond from the respective SDK.

    You can verify this by running <alias name> doctor -v.

    For example, to verify flutterd is pointing to dev, run flutterd doctor -v.

    Here is my output when I run the command:

    Enter image description here

Creating an alias on Windows

On Windows, I have the Flutter SDKs stored in C:/flutter_sdk.

Enter image description here

And then create an Alias folder and create batch files corresponding to each flutter SDK, where each batch file contains the path to a Flutter SDK.

Enter image description here

For example, flutterd.bat contains the path to the dev SDK.

@echo off
C:\flutter_sdk\dev\bin\flutter %*

Name your batch files wisely, because you will be using them from the command line. e.g I have a batch file named as flutterb.bat to point to the beta channel, so to access the beta SDK I will use flutterb in the command line and not flutter.

And finally, we need to add the alias folder to the environment variable in order to make it accessible throughout Windows.

Go to Environment Variables* → User Variables → Path → Edit → New.

Enter image description here

Now you can verify if everything works fine by opening command prompt and enter flutterb doctor and it should show the SDK pointing to beta

enter image description here

Adding multiple SDK versions to Visual Studio Code

Now to access the appropriate version of the SDK in Visual Studio Code you need to add these SDK paths in settings.

  • In Visual Studio Code settings (Code → Preferences → Settings), search for SDK path

  • Under Flutter SDK paths, add all the paths

    Enter image description here

  • Now when you open a Flutter project, you can choose your desired version by clicking on the Flutter version at the bottom

    Enter image description here

  • And it will prompt you to choose the SDK to use.

    Enter image description here

Note that if you are changing versions from Visual Studio Code, you should also run flutter pub get from the right top icon in pubspec.yaml, so that the source code updates as per the chosen SDK. You may confirm this by looking at the class definition of the source code.

Upvotes: 64

I Made Mudita
I Made Mudita

Reputation: 570

If you are using Android Studio, you can set difference version of Flutter for each project from menu File → Setting → Languages & Frameworks → Flutter:

Enter image description here

And to run Flutter/Dart from the command line for multiple Flutter versions, you can follow the article Using two or more different versions of Flutter on a single machine.

Upvotes: 10

flarkmarup
flarkmarup

Reputation: 5439

According to this issue in Flutter's repository, iqbalmineraltown has the answer:

You might want to download multiple version as you need, because each Flutter SDK version is tightly coupled with specific Dart SDK.

You set the Flutter version for each project, and iqbalmineraltown highlights a way if you're using Visual Studio Code:

If you're using VSCode [sic], you can download multiple version of flutter SDK into different path and quickly switch between them using Dart&Flutter Plugin You can set default SDK for each project by providing default SDK path for each workspace. So when you open a project, VSCode [sic] will use the version you specified for that project.

Upvotes: 8

kinjal dhamat
kinjal dhamat

Reputation: 538

First the download the required flutter SDK.

enter image description here

If you are using Android Studio, you can change the Flutter version by navigating to Android Studio -> Settings -> Languages and Frameworks -> Flutter. After changing the version, apply the settings and check the bottom section to confirm the current version.

For double confirmation, you can also go to Tools -> Flutter -> Flutter Doctor, where you can see the Flutter version used by the project. enter image description here

Upvotes: 0

Randal Schwartz
Randal Schwartz

Reputation: 44220

The best answer these days is Puro. I've stopped using FVM entirely, and switched over to Puro. See the homepage for how it is better in many ways than FVM or by hand.

Upvotes: 1

thebiggestlebowski
thebiggestlebowski

Reputation: 2799

I don't think any of the answers so far are adequate. Operating systems created the PATH variable to solve just this problem. The problem with creating aliases, such as "flutterd" is that flutterd only works on your machine.

Here's a cleaner way to do things.

  1. Create a script called "setup-env.sh" in your project root directory:

    #!/bin/sh

export PATH=/path/to/your/flutter/version:$PATH

  2. Anytime you work on this project, just do "source ./setup-env.sh" and you will be pointing to the correct flutter version.

Upvotes: 1

Mohamed Reda
Mohamed Reda

Reputation: 1617

Now you can use “FVM”, and it's Flutter Version Management, A simple CLI to manage Flutter SDK versions per project.

1 you can use it by this command

pub global activate fvm

2 after that you can install any versions you want like

fvm install stable

fvm install 'flutter version'

it will be installed at

 /Users/'username'/fvm/versions/

3 to switch versions:

fvm use 'flutter version'

for more info, visit FVM.app

Upvotes: 18

Manoj Reddy
Manoj Reddy

Reputation: 127

You can simply rename the folder without playing with the system environment variables each time.

  1. Suppose you downloaded Flutter 2.0.5 under flutter folder & 2.2.2 under flutter_2.2.2 folder, added flutter to environment path as C:\src\flutter.
  2. Whenever you want 2.2.2 version rename flutter_2.2.2 to flutter & flutter to flutter_2.0.5. enter image description here

Upvotes: 3

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