Book description
In 2017, consumers downloaded 178 billion apps, and analysts predict growth to 258 billion by 2022. Mobile customers are demanding more—and better—apps, and it’s up to developers like you to write them! Flutter, a revolutionary new cross-platform software development kit created by Google, makes it easier than ever to write secure, high-performance native apps for iOS and Android. Flutter apps are blazingly fast because this open source solution compiles your Dart code to platform-specific programs with no JavaScript bridge! Flutter also supports hot reloading to update changes instantly. And thanks to its built-in widgets and rich motion APIs, Flutter’s apps are not just highly responsive, they’re stunning!About the Technology
With Flutter, you can build mobile applications using a single, feature-rich SDK that includes everything from a rendering engine to a testing environment. Flutter compiles programs written in Google’s intuitive Dart language to platform-specific code so your iOS and Android games, utilities, and shopping platforms all run like native Java or Swift apps.
About the Book
Flutter in Action teaches you to build professional-quality mobile applications using the Flutter SDK and the Dart programming language. You’ll begin with a quick tour of Dart essentials and then dive into engaging, well-described techniques for building beautiful user interfaces using Flutter’s huge collection of built-in widgets. The combination of diagrams, code examples, and annotations makes learning a snap. As you go, you’ll appreciate how the author makes easy reading of complex topics like routing, state management, and async programming.
What's Inside
- Understanding the Flutter approach to the UI
- All the Dart you need to get started
- Creating custom animations
- Testing and debugging
About the Reader
You’ll need basic web or mobile app development skills.
About the Author
Eric Windmill is a professional Dart developer and a contributor to open-source Flutter projects. His work is featured on the Flutter Showcase page.
We interviewed Eric as a part of our Six Questions series. Check it out here.
Quotes
You’ll see how and why to use Flutter the way the Flutter developer community uses it.
- From the Foreword by Ray Rischpater, Google
An excellent way to get started with learning Flutter.
- Gary Bake, Samuel Bosch, ILVO
Useful for beginners, and a great resource once you already know the basics.
- Jose San Leandro, OSOCO
A must-have reference if you want to be a mobile apps developer.
- Gonzalo Huerta-Canepa, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
Table of contents
- Copyright
- Brief Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- About This Book
- About the Author
- About the Cover Illustration
-
Part 1. Meet Flutter
-
Chapter 1. Meet Flutter
- 1.1. Why does Flutter use Dart?
- 1.2. On Dart
- 1.3. Who uses Flutter?
- 1.4. Who should be using Flutter?
- 1.5. Who this book is for
- 1.6. Other mobile development options
- 1.7. The immediate benefits of Flutter
- 1.8. Future benefits of Flutter: Web apps and desktop apps
- 1.9. A brief intro to how Flutter works
- 1.10. Flutter rendering: Under the hood
- 1.11. Final note
- Summary
- Chapter 2. A brief intro to Dart
-
Chapter 3. Breaking into Flutter
- 3.1. Intro to the counter app
- 3.2. Widgets: The widget tree, widget types, and the State object
- 3.3. BuildContext
- 3.4. Enhancing the counter app with the most important widgets
- 3.5. Favor composition in Flutter (over inheritance)
- 3.6. Intro to layout in Flutter
- 3.7. The element tree
- 3.8. A final note
- Summary
-
Chapter 1. Meet Flutter
- Part 2. Flutter user interaction, styles, and animations
- Part 3. State management and asynchronous Dart
- Part 4. Beyond foundations
- Appendix A. Installation: Dart2
- Appendix B. The Pub package manager
- Appendix C. Flutter for web developers
-
Appendix D. Flutter for iOS developers
- D.1. What’s the equivalent of UIView in Flutter?
- D.2. What’s the paradigm or mental model difference?
- D.3. Can I build an app that uses iOS design patterns?
- D.4. How to I make complex layouts like UITableView?
- D.5. What’s similar to Storyboard?
- D.6. How do you draw to the screen?
- D.7. How do I add dependencies (like Cocoa Pods)?
- D.8. How do I interact with the device and use native APIs?
- D.9. Is there an equivalent to CoreData?
-
Appendix E. Flutter for Android developers
- E.1. What’s the equivalent of a view in Flutter?
- E.2. What’s the paradigm or mental model difference?
- E.3. Where’s the XML layout file?
- E.4. How do I draw to the screen?
- E.5. What’s the equivalent of an intent in Flutter?
- E.6. What’s the equivalent of runOnUiThread() in Flutter?
- E.7. What’s the equivalent of a Gradle file? How do I add dependencies?
- E.8. What’s the equivalent of a LinearLayout? What about ScrollView?
- E.9. How do I access shared preferences or SQLite?
- Index
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Listings
Product information
- Title: Flutter in Action
- Author(s):
- Release date: January 2020
- Publisher(s): Manning Publications
- ISBN: 9781617296147
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