pub.dev — the go-to website for developers using the Dart language and frameworks like Flutter to search for packages and plugins to use in their applications without having to write all the code themselves — has received a major update today. Not only has the look and feel changed, but new convenience features have been added as well!

New Metrics

The new version of the website was developed to address a problem quite similar to npmjs.com: there are too many packages that do the same thing. This is quite different from pub.dev’s early days, when there weren’t enough packages to cover every use case. In this new version, the metrics display has been improved to help you choose the best package for your specific use case. The three main metrics — Likes, Pub Points, and Popularity — are defined as follows:

  • Likes — The number of likes given by developers who use the package, which roughly indicates how much developers appreciate this package.
  • Pub Points — A score calculated by Pub’s own system. The main criteria primarily relate to the quality of the package’s code, such as using secure API endpoints, consistent syntax, how often the package is maintained and updated, and whether it has good documentation and examples. One notable criterion that was added is multi-platform support — a point that Flutter itself has been increasingly pushing for, just like Flutter itself.
  • Popularity — The popularity of a given package over the past 60 days, normalized to a value from 100% (very popular) to 0% (no one uses it). In the future, this may be adjusted to show actual download counts instead of normalized percentages.

Design

Beyond improving the scoring system and adding various features for developer convenience, the pub.dev development team has also given the design a fresh overhaul. The new design aligns more closely with dart.dev and dartpad.dev, and incorporates more Material Design elements such as cards and chips. Not only is the design more beautiful and cohesive, but this round also brings better categorization, as you can see on the homepage which now highlights:

  • Flutter Favorites — High-quality packages curated by a committee
  • Most Popular Packages — Packages with the highest downloads in the past 60 days
  • Top Flutter Packages — Packages that add new capabilities to Flutter
  • Top Dart Packages — Packages that add new capabilities to Dart

Other Pages

Other pages have also been improved to look even better, especially in terms of typography, where a type scale has been introduced to bring greater consistency to the text throughout the site. For those interested in the full details, you can follow along in the original article.

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