Build for both iOS and Android with Flutter!
Flutter is a new and exciting software development toolkit that lets you target multiple platforms at once, so you can build apps for iOS, Android and even web and desktop, all from a single codebase.
Similar to modern web technologies, Flutter uses a declarative approach to UI development. You can take advantage of “hot reload” of new code while developing, and your apps will perform at native speed thanks to Flutter’s custom rendering engine.
It’s been the dream of mobile developers for years to find a cross-platform tool that lets you build for both iOS and Android without having to write and maintain two separate codebases. With Flutter and Flutter Apprentice, you can achieve that dream!
Before You Begin
This section tells you a few things you need to know before you get started, such as what you’ll need for hardware and software, where to find the project files for this book, and more.
What You Need
FreeAbout the Cover
FreeIntroduction
FreeEarly Access Note
FreeSection I: Build Your First Flutter App
The chapters in this section will introduce you to Flutter, get you up and running with a Flutter development environment and walk you through building your first Flutter app.
You’ll learn about where Flutter came from and why it exists, understand the structure of Flutter projects, and see how to create the user interface of a Flutter app.
You’ll also get your first introduction to the key component found in Flutter user interfaces: Widgets!
Introduction
FreeWelcome to Flutter! This chapter explains what Flutter is, why you should use it and how to get your development environment set up.
1In this chapter, you’ll build your first Flutter app from scratch and get the hang of fundamentals.
2Section II: Everything’s a Widget
In this section you’ll start to build a full-featured recipe app named Fooderlich. You’ll gain an understanding of and use a wide range of widgets available in Flutter, and learn about the theory of how widgets work behind the scenes.
You’ll then dive deeper into layout widgets, scrollable widgets and interactive widgets.
Get started with the fundamental widgets to build your app. Learn to apply structure and navigation, display, and positional widgets!
3Dive into the theory behind widgets. Get a better understanding of how widgets are rendered, how their lifecycle works and which tools to use to debug them.
4Scrollable content is always a must in any app. In this chapter you will learn about list and grid widgets to display content vertically and horizontally.
5Learn about the various control and input widgets to trigger updates to your user interface such as text fields, sliders, color picker, input chips and dismissable widgets.
6Section III: Navigating Between Screens
You’ll continue working on the Fooderlich app in this section, learning about navigating between screens and adding animations to your user interface.
Topics you’ll learn include routes, presenting modals and UI transition animations.
Find out how to navigate between your screens. Learn how to create routes and pass data around!
7Learn how to reveal more content in different ways using widgets such as BottomSheet, Dialog, SnackBar, and ExpansionPanel.
8Section IV: Networking, Persistence and State
Most apps interact with the network to retrieve data and then persist that data locally in some form of cache, such as a database. In this section, you’ll build a new app that lets you search the Internet for recipes, bookmark recipes, and save their ingredients into a shopping list.
You’ll learn about making network requests, parsing the network JSON response, and saving data in a SQLite database. You’ll also get an introduction to using Dart streams.
Finally, this section will also dive deeper into the important topic of app state, which determines where and how your user interface stores and refreshes data in the user interface as a user interacts with your app.
This chapter will teach you how to save simple data to your device's local storage, which can be used to save flags, IDs, numbers, etc. and will work on both Android and iOS devices.
10This chapter will teach you how to serialize data from JSON strings to Dart model classes. This is necessary when using REST APIs to download data from the internet.
11This chapter will teach you how to retrieve data from the internet and store it in model classes, which you’ll use to display recipes in the app you've created so far.
12This chapter will teach you how to use the Chopper package to retrieve data from the internet. Unlike the built-in networking methods in Dart, this package makes it easy to do all the necessary tasks needed for REST API communication.
13Learn about all the different state management classes in Flutter and in the Provider library. See how to communicate data all the way down the widget tree.
14This chapter will teach you how to use Streams in your Flutter app and explain how they help with data changes being communicated throughout your app.
15See how to save complex data to your device's local storage using the Android and iOS built-in SQLite database system.
16Section V: Deployment
Building an app for you own devices is great; sharing your app with the world is even better!
In this section you’ll go over the steps and process needed to release your apps to the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. You’ll also see how to use platform-specific assets in your apps.
Making multiplatform applications means you’ll need to add or build a few things specific to one platform or another. This chapter covers common things to include and how to implement them.
17You’re finally ready to get your Flutter app prepared for the Google Play Store. This chapter covers the release and deployment process.
18No multiplatform app is complete without an iOS version. This chapter covers the release and deployment process for the Apple App Store.
19
Who is this book for
This book is for developers that are new to Flutter, including developers with experience on iOS, Android and web.
Concepts covered in this book
Version history
First Edition - Early Access 2 · Flutter 1.20, Dart 2.9, AS 4.0.1
First Edition - Early Access 1 · Flutter 1.20, Dart 2.9, Android Studio 4.0.1
Flutter Apprentice
Build for both iOS and Android with Flutter! Flutter is a new and exciting software development toolkit that lets you target multiple platforms at once, so you can build apps for iOS, Android and even web and desktop, all from a single codebase.
More books of interest
