Revive project

[Laurie-Lin]

Refactor Plan

Background

This project has been unmaintained for a long time. In its current state, the project is barely buildable, and core functionality no longer works properly.

Motivation

Reasons for restarting the project:

• There is still strong demand for cross-platform local file sharing
• Similar projects such as LocalSend are still actively maintained and widely used, but many of SuXiang's design philosophies differ from LocalSend
• The original idea is still valid, but the implementation approach has become outdated

Current Issues

• The project cannot currently build on the latest Flutter versions
• Core functionality (file transfer, device discovery, etc.) no longer works correctly
• Dependencies are outdated
• The architecture still reflects design decisions from around four years ago
• The UI/UX is outdated and no longer matches current expectations
• Lack of documentation and maintainability
• A website is required

v2.4 TODO

Technically, this refactor is large enough to be considered v3.0, but to avoid a major version jump too early, it will temporarily be labeled as v2.4.

Tasks

• UI/UX Refactor

  • The current UI/UX design is more than four years old
  • The new direction focuses on simplifying the interface as much as possible
  • There is currently no extra time for detailed UI mockups, so development will proceed directly based on implementation ideas

• Project Architecture Refactor

  • The goal is not to create a perfect architecture
  • The priority is making the codebase cleaner, more maintainable, and easier to extend in the future

• Remove Redundant Logic

  • The file sending feature and chat window contain overlapping functionality
  • A unified solution needs to be designed

• shelf_static Modifications

  • The mime package used by shelf_static does not include the .gz MIME type

  • As a result, Content-Encoding cannot be handled correctly

  • Browsers will display compressed files directly as garbled text instead of processing them properly

  • Fix by passing a custom resolver when creating createStaticHandler

    var resolver = MimeTypeResolver();
    resolver.addExtension('gz', 'application/gzip');

  • SuXiang uses shelf_static to deploy static resources from a specified directory

  • Currently, browsers can directly access and download arbitrary files from the deployed directory

  • Content-Disposition support is required

  • Previously this was implemented by modifying shelf_static directly

• State Management

  • Continue using GetX
  • Although its examples are poorly designed, it is still usable
  • Currently discovered issues:
    • It affects route transition animations
    • Even Navigator.of(context) cannot fully bypass the issue

• Remove FileManager Dependency

• Remove Privacy Policy

  • The open-source version does not require a privacy policy
  • Historical files and Git cache related to it should be removed

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Refactor Log

2026.0427

• Adopted a new screen adaptation solution and modified code to fix build errors
• Migrated to a new internationalization solution

2026.0428

• Removed GetX Bindings

  • SuXiang is not a highly modular project
  • Reduce reliance on GetX route management features as much as possible

• Redesigned the file deployment logic during file transfers

  • Changed from utility-based implementation to a global singleton service
  • Avoid starting a new server for every transfer

• Designed a new icon using Pixso and GPT

  • The result still feels fairly generic

• FileManager

  • Optimized file deployment logic
  • Optimized middleware and CORS handling
  • Added custom web pages to support downloading arbitrary files
  • Tips:
    • Previously, this functionality relied on a heavily modified version of shelf_static, When a browser accesses an image, it determines how to handle the file based on the server's Content-Type, If the response type is an image, the browser displays it directly instead of downloading it, This prevented arbitrary file downloads

2026.0429

• Redesigned the application icon

2026.0430

• Removed the forked version of shelf

2026.0506

• Removed the Global god singleton
• Split functionality into multiple services
• Refactored project directory structure

2026.0509

Refactor & Optimization

• Remove custom header widgets
• Use ColorScheme instead of Theme.of(context).textTheme
• Improved future dark mode compatibility through ColorScheme
• Added enums for all supported platforms
• Replaced drag-and-drop library with super_drag_and_drop
• Currently only retain Chat and Settings pages
• Redesigned DrawerItem to support generics and improve reusability

Unified Icons

• https://v0.lucide.dev/icons/qr-code
• https://v0.lucide.dev/icons/scan-qr-code

2026.0511

Do overall optimization of project structure

• Remove unused utils
• Optimize file structure
• Rename extension name

2026.0513

• Removed handleTokenCheck
• Changed /chenk_token to /ping
• Replaced file_selector with file_picker for now, because file_selector causes OOM when selecting large files on Android: [file_selector] Selecting very large files on Android causes OOM crash flutter/flutter#141002. The issue has not been fixed by the Flutter team yet.
• Renamed the previous ChatServer back to ChatService
• FileService no longer needs to accept a port parameter; port handling is now managed internally
• Fixed device connection handling and JoinMessage sending logic
• Added support for mouse right-click and side-button page navigation
• Android now temporarily requests full file management permission
• Split ChatController into smaller components to reduce responsibilities and significantly decrease code size
• Renamed functions to improve readability