Flutter: Disable Swipe to Navigate Back in iOS

WillPopScope is the correct way to do this.

(it seems too complicated... it should be easier... like a setting on the root app).

It is not complicated. It's a one liner :

WillPopScope(
  onWillPop: () async => false,
  child: <children here>
)

A configuration file would make things more complicated as it's harder to read and maintain.

And remember that in flutter everything is a widget not just half of them. Authentification, configurations, everything.

I have one additional point here. I was just solving this problem, but I also needed my user to be able to go back by pressing the "native" back button on the AppBar (did not want to reimplement AppBar just because of this), and I found this niche little flag: userGestureInProgress on the Navigator object, so what I use (and presume is the preferred way) is:

onWillPop: () async {
    if (Navigator.of(context).userGestureInProgress)
      return false;
    else
      return true;
  },

MaterialPageRoute has a parameter called fullscreenDialog which is set to false by default. When true your page animates a bit differently and swipe to go back on iOS will be disabled.

Example usage:

 Navigator.of(context).push(
        MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_) => HomePage(), fullscreenDialog: true));

See some discussion here: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/14203