Flutter for Beginners: An introductory guide to building cross-platform mobile applications with Flutter and Dart 2

A step-by-step guide to learning Flutter and Dart 2 for creating Android and iOS mobile applications

Key Features

• Get up to speed with the basics of Dart programming and delve into Flutter development
• Understand native SDK and third-party libraries for building Android and iOS applications using Flutter
• Package and deploy your Flutter apps to achieve native-like performance

Book Description

Google Flutter is a cross-platform mobile framework that makes it easy to write high-performance apps for Android and iOS. This book will help you get to grips with the basics of the Flutter framework and the Dart programming language.

Starting from setting up your development environment, you'll learn to design the UI and add user input functions. You'll explore the navigator widget to manage app routes and learn to add transitions between screens. The book will even guide you through developing your own plugin and later, you'll discover how to structure good plugin code. Using the Google Places API, you'll also understand how to display a map in the app and add markers and interactions to it. You'll then learn to improve the user experience with features such as map integrations, platform-specific code with native languages, and personalized animation options for designing intuitive UIs.

The book follows a practical approach and gives you access to all relevant code files hosted at github.com/PacktPublishing/Flutter-for-Beginners. This will help you access a variety of examples and prepare your own bug-free apps, ready to deploy on the App Store and Google Play Store.

By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed with Dart programming and have the skills to develop your own mobile apps or build a career as a Dart and Flutter app developer.

What you will learn

• Understand the fundamentals of the Dart programming language
• Explore the core concepts of the Flutter UI and how it compiles for multiple platforms
• Develop Flutter plugins and widgets and understand how to structure plugin code appropriately
• Style your Android and iOS apps with widgets and learn the difference between stateful and stateless widgets
• Add animation to your UI using Flutter's AnimatedBuilder component
• Integrate your native code into your Flutter codebase for native app performance

Who this book is for

This book is for developers looking to learn Google's revolutionary framework Flutter from scratch. No prior knowledge of Flutter or Dart is required; however, basic knowledge of any programming language will be helpful.

Table of Contents

1. An Introduction to Dart
2. Intermediate Dart Programming
3. An Introduction to Flutter
4. Widgets: Building layouts in Flutter
5. Handling User Input and Gestures
6. Theming and Styling
7. Routing: Navigating between Screens
8. Firebase Plugins
9. Developing Your Own Flutter Plugin
10. Acessing Device Features from the Flutter App
11. Platform Views and Map Integration
12. Testing, Debugging, and Deployment
13. Improving User Experience
14. Widget Graphic Manipulations
15. Animations