JetBrains has released Compose Multiplatform 1.9, bringing improvements to the platform for Android, iOS, and desktop, as well as finally moving its WASM-powered web target into beta. This comes nearly five months after version 1.8, which saw stable support finally arrive for iOS, the introduction of type-safe navigation across platforms, and the implementation of better accessibility features like VoiceOver.
If you"re unfamiliar, Compose Multiplatform is a declarative UI framework from JetBrains that builds on Google"s Jetpack Compose for Android. It lets developers share UI code between different OSes without having to rewrite everything from scratch for each one.
Starting with improvements for mobile, version 1.9 gives developers more specific control over performance on iOS devices. You can now directly configure the frame rate to find a good balance between a super smooth interface and conserving the device"s battery life.
Across every target, from mobile to desktop, the design and preview experience has been made more powerful. You can now more easily test variations with configurable previews and get finer control over UI depth with deeper shadow customization.
The new Kotlin Multiplatform plugin for IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio is now available on Linux and Windows, but you will still need Apple hardware for any development targeting iOS and macOS because of system limitations.
On the web, Compose Multiplatform now ships with the core APIs needed to build real applications in common code. Other improvements include:
- Interoperability with HTML for mixing Compose and native web elements.
- Type-safe navigation with deep linking for proper browser integration.
- Fundamental accessibility support for screen readers and other assistive technologies.
- Cross-browser compatibility with fallbacks for older browsers that may not support WASM.
- Automatic support for system and browser preferences, like dark mode.
If you"re interested, there are a bunch of demos out there that show what the framework is capable of, like the Rijksmuseum Demo and a storybook-style UI gallery, Storytale. You can also get your hands on the framework and start coding immediately, right in the Kotlin Playground, without having to install anything on your machine.