Flutter Cookbook

Discover how to build, scale, and debug native iOS and Android applications from a single codebase using the Dart programming language

Key Features

• Quickly build and iterate on your user interface (UI) with hot reload
• Fix bugs and prevent them from reappearing using Flutter's developer tools and test suites
• Discover practical recipes for building mobile applications with Flutter

Book Description

Flutter is an open-source framework for building mobile, web, and desktop apps using the Dart language. With this recipe-based guide, which focuses on robust app design and core principles, you’ll learn how to solve cross-platform development issues in a practical way.

The Flutter Cookbook covers error handling and debugging to ensure that your apps run more efficiently. You’ll start by setting up Flutter and customizing your development environment. The book will explain the main tasks involved in app development, such as user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design, API design, and creating animations. Later chapters get you up to speed with routing, retrieving data from web services, and persisting data locally. A dedicated section also focuses on Firebase and its machine learning capabilities. The last chapter is specifically designed to help you create apps for the web and desktop (Windows, Mac, and Linux). Throughout the book, you’ll find recipes that cover the most important features needed to build a cross-platform application, along with insights into running a single codebase on different platforms.

By the end of this Flutter book, you’ll have learned everything you need to be able to write and deliver fully functional apps.

What you will learn

• Use Dart programming to customize your Flutter applications
• Discover how to develop and think like a Dart programmer
• Leverage Firebase Machine Learning capabilities to create intelligent apps
• Create reusable architecture that can be applied to any type of app
• Use web services and persist data locally
• Debug and solve problems before users can see them
• Use asynchronous programming with Future and Stream
• Manage the app state with Streams and the BLoC pattern

Who this book is for

This app development book is for beginner to intermediate-level developers who want to become mobile developers. Basic knowledge of modern programming languages such as JavaScript, Swift, Kotlin, Java, Objective-C, or C# will help you to understand the concepts covered in the book more easily.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with Flutter
2. Dart: A Language You Already Know
3. Introduction to Widgets
4. Mastering Layout and Taming the Widget Tree
5. Add Interactivity and Navigation to Your App
6. Basic State Management
7. The Future is Now: Introduction to Asynchronous Programming
8. Data Persistence and Communicating with the Internet
9. Advanced State Management with Streams
10. Using Flutter Packages
11. Adding Animations to Your App
12. Using Firebase
13. Machine Learning with Firebase ML Kit
14. Distributing Your Mobile App
15. Flutter Web and Desktop

Simone Alessandria wrote his first program when he was 12. It was a text-based fantasy game for the Commodore 64. Now, he is a trainer (MCT), author, speaker, passionate software architect, and always a proud coder. He is the founder and owner of Softwarehouse. His mission is to help developers achieve more through training and mentoring. He has authored several books on Flutter, including Flutter Projects, published by Packt, and web courses on Pluralsight and Udemy.

Brian's career had him working on video games, eCommerce, productivity, finance, and travel apps. After spending years working as an iOS and Android developer, he sees Flutter as the next big pillar for mobile.