A 2026-feel pass on the visual language. Three structural
moves that change how the editor reads at a glance.
1. Wires now carry the colour of the data they transport.
Every edge leaving the inputs endpoint takes the
declared input's type accent — blue for text, orange
for bytes, purple for json, green for file, amber for
number. The operator can trace "this is the document
path, this is the prompt" by following colour, no
labels needed. Edges leaving step outputs stay neutral
(we don't have module manifests to look up the output
type yet — once the hub exposes them, this lookup
grows).
Hover / selection still wins the colour treatment so
the "I'm pointing at this one" signal isn't lost in
the type palette.
2. Edges entering a currently-running step animate.
New AnimationController on the canvas loops a 0..1
phase at 1.5 s when ANY step is running, stopped
otherwise (no idle cost). EdgePainter takes the phase
and renders animated edges as marching dashes in the
wire's accent colour over a 35%-alpha base — the
operator literally sees data moving along the wire in
the direction of flow while a step executes. When the
step completes, the animation stops, the wire returns
to a static stroke. Run a flow with a slow step and
the canvas comes alive.
3. Canvas gets depth.
- Background is now a subtle top-left → bottom-right
gradient between surfaceContainer and surface,
giving the working area a "lit centre, recessed
corners" cue instead of one flat dark page.
- Node cards swap their Material widget for an
AnimatedContainer with two-layer shadows: a sharp
short-blur shadow gives the card a real footprint,
a soft long-blur shadow casts depth onto the canvas
behind. Selected nodes get a third accent-coloured
halo so selection state reads from across the canvas.
- 180 ms ease-out-cubic transitions on the
AnimatedContainer mean hover-into-select and
run-status-changes morph smoothly instead of
snapping.
Edge stroke widths bumped slightly (2.1 / 2.8 from 2.0 /
2.6) so the typed wires read at a confident weight against
the new gradient backdrop.
Version 0.6.0 -> 0.7.0 — visible visual language change.
Signed-off-by: flemming-it <sf@flemming.it>
|
||
|---|---|---|
| lib | ||
| test | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| pubspec.yaml | ||
| README.md | ||
fai_studio_flow_editor
Swappable in-Studio flow editor for the F∆I Platform. Hosts a three-tab editing surface on top of one in-memory flow YAML:
- Graph — drag-and-drop WYSIWYG canvas of step nodes and
their input / output ports, edges derived live from
$refexpressions in the YAML. - Text — full-screen YAML editor with line numbers and syntax highlighting, anchored at the top of the viewport.
- Run — inputs form, Start button, live step-progress list driven by the host's event stream, typed outputs once the run resolves.
The package is intentionally host-agnostic. Studio depends
on it via a git: ref: main pubspec entry; replacing the
editor is one pubspec change and a rebuild.
Public surface
import 'package:fai_studio_flow_editor/fai_studio_flow_editor.dart';
FlowEditorPage(
initialFlowName: String?, // preload this flow
locale: FlowEditorLocale, // en | de
runDriver: FlowRunDriver?, // host-supplied hub bridge
availableCapabilities: List<String>, // for the Add-step picker
)
Host implements FlowRunDriver to bridge the editor's
runFlow + events calls to whatever talks to the hub:
abstract class FlowRunDriver {
Future<Map<String, FlowOutputValue>> runFlow({
required String flowName,
required Map<String, String> textInputs,
required Map<String, Uint8List> fileInputs,
required Map<String, String> fileMimes,
});
Stream<FlowRunEvent> events();
}
Event types: StepStarted, StepCompleted, StepFailed,
StepAwaitingApproval. Output types: FlowOutputText,
FlowOutputJson, FlowOutputBytes.
Source-of-truth model
YAML text is the canonical state. The graph view derives a
FlowGraph object from the YAML on every change (debounced
350 ms). Graph edits emit fresh YAML into the shared
CodeController via FlowGraph.toYaml(). The two tabs
cannot fall out of sync because both observe the same
FlowEditorController.
Node positions are the one piece NOT in the YAML — they
live in a per-flow sidecar JSON file at
~/.fai/data/flows/.layout/<name>.json. This keeps the
YAML byte-stable for the hub's audit log and avoids
spurious diffs in version control.
Behaviour
- File browser (left, 240 px) lists
*.yamlin~/.fai/data/flows/with a FLOWS header + refresh icon. - Graph tab: InteractiveViewer with pan + zoom; drag a
node body to reposition; drag an output port → drop on
an input port to create a
$source.fieldreference; click a node to open the properties panel on the right. - Text tab: YAML with syntax highlighting, top-aligned via
expands: trueon the underlying CodeField. - Run tab: inputs form with text fields + file picks, Start button, live step list driven by the driver's event stream, typed outputs once the run resolves.
- Save writes directly to disk via
dart:io; the hub picks up the change on its nextListFlows/RunSavedFlowcall. Cmd+S / Ctrl+S — save. Cmd+Enter / Ctrl+Enter — jump to the Run tab.
Folder layout
lib/
├── fai_studio_flow_editor.dart exports public API
└── src/
├── editor_controller.dart shared state + reparse loop
├── flow_editor_page.dart host scaffolding, tabs
├── l10n.dart EN/DE strings
├── run_driver.dart host bridge interface
├── tokens.dart spacing / radius / motion
├── widgets.dart FaiEmptyState + FaiErrorBox
├── model/
│ ├── flow_graph.dart parser + serializer
│ ├── auto_layout.dart topological column layout
│ └── layout_store.dart sidecar JSON I/O
└── widgets/
├── flow_canvas.dart InteractiveViewer + nodes + drag
├── flow_node.dart node card primitive
├── edge_painter.dart cubic bezier edges
├── properties_panel.dart selected-step editor
├── capability_picker.dart Add-step modal
└── run_tab.dart inputs + step progress + outputs
Swap it
Studio depends on this package via pubspec.yaml git
reference:
dependencies:
fai_studio_flow_editor:
git:
url: https://git.flemming.ai/fai/studio-flow-editor
ref: main
To use a different editor:
- Fork this repo (or write your own from scratch).
- Keep the
FlowEditorPageconstructor signature (initialFlowName,locale,runDriver,availableCapabilities) — that's the stable host contract. - Point Studio's pubspec at your fork.
- Rebuild Studio.
The contract is minimal: one page widget + a driver interface. The package brings its own tokens, its own empty/error widgets, its own l10n table, so the host doesn't have to share internals. The trade-off is visual drift if Studio's design tokens change — that's the deal you accept for a swappable module.
Develop
flutter pub get
flutter analyze
flutter test
11 unit tests cover the parser (round-trip, edge detection, approval flagging, leading-comment preservation) and the controller (open / edit / dirty / select).
Versioning
Semantic. Major bumps when the public FlowEditorPage
signature changes. Adding strings to FlowEditorStrings or
events to FlowRunEvent is a minor bump. Patch covers
visual + bug fixes inside the package.
Current: 0.2.1 — first WYSIWYG release.
License
Apache-2.0. Same as the rest of the F∆I platform.