Pragmatic Flutter

Description

Have you ever thought of creating beautiful, blazing-fast native apps for iOS and Android from a single codebase? Have you dreamt of taking your native apps to the web and desktop without it costing a fortune? If so, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop is the right place to start your journey to developing cross-platform apps. Google’s Flutter is the brand-new way for developing beautiful, fluid, and blazing-fast cross-platform apps for Android, iOS, web, and desktops (macOS, Linux, Windows). Google’s new Fuchsia OS user interface (UI) is implemented using Flutter as well. Learning to develop mobile apps with Flutter opens the door to multiple devices, form-factors, and platforms using a single codebase. You don’t need any prior experience using Dart to follow along in this book; however, it’s recommended that readers have some familiarity with writing code using one of the object-oriented programming languages. Your journey starts with learning to structure and organize the Flutter project to develop apps for multiple platforms. Next, you will explore the fundamentals of Flutter widgets. The journey continues with Flutter’s layout widgets while also learning to build responsive layouts. You will get an understanding of organizing and applying themes and styles, handling user input, and gestures. Then you will move on to advanced concepts, such as fetching data over the network and integrating and consuming REST API in your app. You will get hands-on experience on design patterns, data modeling, routing, and navigation for multi-screen apps. When you are finished, you will have a solid foundational knowledge of Flutter that will help you move on to building great and successful mobile apps that can be deployed to Android, iOS, web, and desktop (macOS, Linux, Windows) platforms from a single codebase. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Preface Author Chapter 1: Dart Fundamentals: A Quick Reference to Dart 2 The main Function Variables & Data Types Collections List Spread Operator Transform List Items Filtering Adding Item Removing Item Adding Multiple Items Intersection of Two Set(s) Union of Two Set(s) Checking for Key Checking for Value Accessing all Values Iterating Key/Value Pairs Functions Classes Conclusion References Chapter 2: Introduction to Flutter Cross-Platform Solutions Why Flutter Conclusion References Chapter 3: Setting Up Environment System Requirements for macOS Setting up Flutter SDK Setting up for the Android Platform Setting up for the iOS Platform Setting up for Web Setting Up for Desktop Source Code Online Setting up Editor Conclusion References Chapter 4: Flutter Project Structure Choosing Flutter Channel Creating Flutter Project Cross-Platform Flutter Project Structure Running Default App: Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop Running Code Samples Useful Commands Conclusion References Chapter 5: Flutter App Structure Flutter Widgets Display ‘Hello Books’ Text Add Cushion Around the Text Center the Text App Anatomy #1 App Anatomy #2 Conclusion References Chapter 6: Flutter Widgets Image Widget ToggleButtons Widget TextField Widget FutureBuilder Async Widget Placeholder Widget StreamBuilder Async Widget AlertDialog Widget Conclusion References Chapter 7: Building Layouts Revisiting HelloBooksApp Layout Types of Layout Widgets Container Widget Padding Widget ConstrainedBox Widget SizedBox Widget Row Widget IntrinsicHeight Widget Column Widget IntrinsicWidth Widget ListView Widget GridView Widget Table Widget Stack Widget IndexedStack Widget Conclusion References Chapter 8: Responsive Interfaces FittedBox Widget Expanded Widget Flexible Widget FractionallySizedBox Widget LayoutBuilder Widget Wrap Widget Conclusion References Chapter 9: Building User Interface for BooksApp The BooksApp Interface The BooksApp Anatomy Implementing User Interface Custom Widget: BooksListing Conclusion References Chapter 10: Flutter Themes Global Theme Modularizing Themes Using Custom Fonts Local Theme Switching Themes Conclusion References Chapter 11: Persisting Data Light Theme (default) Dark Theme Key/Value Data Store (Shared Preferences Plugin) Local Database (Moor Library) Light Theme on Multiple Platforms Dark Theme on Multiple Platforms Conclusion References Chapter 12: Integrating REST API What Is an API? Flutter Configuration API Key API Endpoint Building Simple Interface Running Code Adding Entitlement AndroidManifest.xml Conclusion References Chapter 13: Data Modeling Parsing JSON ListView Widget: Listing Entries Custom Widget: BookTile Constructing Data Model Converting API Response to BookModel List Run the Code Conclusion References Chapter 14: Navigation and Routing Simple BookDetailsPage Screen Navigator Widget Direct Navigation Detecting Gesture Passing Data Static Navigation Detecting Gesture Passing Data Dynamic Navigation The generateRoute() Function Detecting Gesture Passing Data Conclusion References Chapter 15: The Second Page – BookDetailsPage Widget Anatomy of BookDetailsPage Widget BookDetailsPage Screen’s Layout Implementing BookDetailsPage Widget Conclusion References Chapter 16: Introduction to State Management Revisiting Default CounterApp Vanilla Pattern Conclusion References Chapter 17: ValueNotifier Using ValueNotifier Approach Conclusion References Chapter 18: Provider and ChangeNotifier What Is Provider What Is ChangeNotifier Anatomy of CounterApp Increasing Counter Custom Widget: CountWidget Finished Implementation Conclusion References Chapter 19: BLoC Design Pattern What Is BLoC Pattern? Anatomy of CounterApp Basic BLoC Pattern Implementation Event StreamController Event Sink Event Stream/CounterBloc Constructor State StreamController State Sink State Stream Improvised BLoC Pattern Implementation State StreamController State Sink State Stream Implementing BLoC Pattern Using Library Conclusion References Chapter 20: Unit Testing Package Dependencies The CounterApp Test File Running Unit Tests Conclusion References Chapter 21: Widget Testing Package Dependency Testing Widgets Running Widget Tests Conclusion References Chapter 22: Integration Testing Package Dependency Preview CounterApp Code Test Pair Files Writing Integration Tests Running Integration Tests Conclusion References Chapter 23: Rolling into the World Adding Launcher Icon Releasing Android Apps Releasing iOS Apps Releasing Web Apps Releasing Desktop (macOS) Apps Conclusion References Index