JetBrains produces some of the most popular integrated development environments (IDEs) around for creating software with Java, PHP, Kotlin, and other programming languages. The company has also been working on JetBrains Compose Multiplatform, a framework for creating cross-platform applications based on the Kotlin language (and is connected to Google's Jetpack Compose). Multiplatform has been in various stages of development across different platforms for a while, and now JetBrains says it's ready for everyone to use on Android, desktop, and the web.
JetBrains said on Thursday, "with Compose Multiplatform by Jetbrains, developers can easily create desktop apps with UI in Kotlin. The framework is declarative, so the code reflects the UI and developers don’t need to worry about UI update logic, it allows them to preview parts of the UI without building the whole app, and shares the common API with Jetpack Compose by Google to simplify the adoption. [...] Developers can share their UI and state management code between Android, Desktop and Web, and easily port the Android Jetpack Compose-based apps to desktop. "
That all means that it's now possible to create applications across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and the web with a single Kotlin codebase. Desktop apps can use menus, keyboard shortcuts, and notifications, with hardware-accelerated rendering using the Skia graphics library. Web apps built with Multiplatform have access to special CSS abilities for interacting with page elements.
There's no shortage of frameworks at this point for creating cross-platform software, with Electron likely being the most popular right now (powering Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and many others), though Electron does not support mobile at all. Google is currently developing Flutter, which uses the Dart programming language and currently supports desktop platforms, mobile, and the web — same as Jetpack Compse Multiplatform.
More information about Compose Multiplatform is available on JetBrains' website.