Programming Flutter: Native, Cross-Platform Apps the Easy Way

Length: 370 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Publication Date: 2020-03-10
ISBN-10: 1680506951
ISBN-13: 9781680506952
Sales Rank: #1209639 (See Top 100 Books)

Work in Flutter, a framework designed from the ground up for dual platform development, with support for native Java/Kotlin or Objective-C/Swift methods from Flutter apps. Write your next app in one language and build it for both Android and iOS. Deliver the native look, feel, and performance you and your users expect from an app written with each platform’s own tools and languages. Deliver apps fast, doing half the work you were doing before and exploiting powerful new features to speed up development. Write once, run anywhere.

Learn Flutter, Google’s multi-platform mobile development framework. Instantly view the changes you make to an app with stateful hot reload and define a declarative UI in the same language as the app logic, without having to use separate XML UI files. You can also reuse existing platform-specific Android and iOS code and interact with it in an efficient and simple way.

Use built-in UI elements – or build your own – to create a simple calculator app. Run native Java/Kotlin or Objective-C/Swift methods from your Flutter apps, and use a Flutter package to make HTTP requests to a Web API or to perform read and write operations on local storage. Apply visual effects to widgets, create transitions and animations, create a chat app using Firebase, and deploy everything on both platforms.

Get native look and feel and performance in your Android and iOS apps, and the ability to build for both platforms from a single code base.

What You Need:

Flutter can be used for Android development on any Linux, Windows or macOS computer, but macOS is needed for iOS development.

Acknowledgments
Preface
    A Brief History of Flutter
    Why Flutter Matters and What We’ll See in This Book
    Don’t Know Dart? Don’t Worry About It
    Installing the SDK and the IDE Plugins
    Where We’re Going Next: Let’s Start Building Apps
Part I.          Getting Started with Flutter       
    1. Making Your First Flutter App
        Get Familiar with Dart Syntax and Flutter Classes
        Give the App Your Personal Touch
        Where We’re Going Next
    2.  Laying Out More Widgets 
        Introducing Layout Widgets
        Contain and Add Padding to Widgets Using Invisible Layout Widgets
        Add Your Own Assets to the App
        Displaying Images
        Vertical Layout
        Horizontal Layout: The Row
        Making Grids
        The Card
        Fill the Space Available in the View Using Expanded
        Slivers, Custom Scrollables, and Collapsable App Bars
        The Key
        Where We’re Going Next
    3.  Building a Calculator App 
        Importing Basic Dependencies
        Writing main
        The Calculator’s Home Page
        How the App Will Be Structured
        Implement the Basic Layout
        Let’s Give the Calculator a Screen
        Add the Deletion Row
        The Third Row
        Why a GridView Wouldn’t Work
        Make the App Look and Work Right with Expanded
        The Finished Layout
        Implement the Calculations
        Use the Calculation Inside the App
        Wrapping Up the Calculator
        What If We Try to Divide by 0?
        Where We’re Going Next
    4.  Beyond the Standard Library: Plugins and Packages  Beyond the Standard Library: Plugins and Packages 
        An Introduction to Packages
        Package Usage Example
        Making Your Own Packages
        Publishing a Package to Pub
        Packages for Windows, macOS, and Linux
        Where We’re Going Next
Part II. Doing More with Flutter       
    5.  Network and Storage I/O and Navigation 
        The API
        The http Package
        Writing Methods to Fetch Comics
        What You Need to Build the UI: Navigation and the InheritedWidget
        Build the App’s Basic UI
        Building the Comic Page
        Using the CircularProgressIndicator
        Making Everything Faster by Caching to Local Storage
        Allowing the User to Click the Image and Go to the Website: The url_launcher Package
        Adding Comic Selection by Number
        Permanent Data I/O in Flutter: Adding “Starred” Comics
        Where We’re Going Next
    6.  Testing and Debugging Flutter Apps 
        Testing
        Testing the XKCD App: Using Mock Objects
        Throwing and Catching Exceptions
        Assert Statements
        Where We’re Going Next
    7.  Build a Chat App Using Firebase 
        What Is Firebase?
        Animations and Transistions
        Custom Shapes and Drawing in Flutter Apps Using Painters
        The StreamBuilder
        Building the Chat App
        Where You’re Going Next
A1.  Introduction to Dart 
    Comments in Dart
    Variables and Conditions
    Functions
    main
    Asynchronous Code in Dart: The dart:async Library
    Conditional Constructs and Expressions
    Loops: while, do while, and for
    Classes
    Typedef and Callbacks
    Mastering import
    Conversion Between Native Java/Apple and Dart Data Types
    Where You’re Going Next
A2.  Apple-Like Look and Additional App Configuration  Apple-Like Look and Additional App Configuration 
    Cupertino Widgets
    pubspec.yaml
    Platform-Specific Setup