Beginning App Development with Flutter: Create Cross-Platform Mobile Apps - Softcover

Payne, Rap

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1484251822 ISBN 13: 9781484251829

Publisher: Apress, 2019

Synopsis

Section: Introduction to Flutter

 

1.     Hello Flutter

Chapter Synopsis: Setting the stage for the book. Give the reader a feel for why they're here. What problems does Flutter solve? Why the boss would choose Flutter versus some other solution.

What is covered in this book

• Brief chapter overview and roadmap

What is notcovered and where to find answers to your questions

• The Dart language itself - There's an overview and cheatsheet in the Appendix
• Deploying to a store
• Device-specific programming

Who is this book for?

• Who's a good fit and who is not
• Where to go to satisfy the prerequisites

What is Flutter?

• Problems it solves
Where it came from - Brief history and origins

Competitors to Flutter

• What other options are available? What might you use if not Flutter? Advantages and disadvantages of Flutter vs the other options
• React Native
• Progressive Web Apps
• WebView solutions (Ionic, etc.)
• Truly native coding (Swift, Objective-C, Java, Kotlin)

Characteristics of Flutter  - Big picture things to keep in mind to successfully code in Flutter

• This ain't the web!
• Imperative UI
• You're writing using Dart
• Everything is a widget (Define widgets and explain the big win of widgets)
• Widgets composition
You have to watch state

 

2.     How do I develop in Flutter?

• Chapter synopsis: Flutter has a unique set of tools but it isn't always straightforward what each tool does and how to use it. This chapter guides the reader through the process of write-debug-test-run.
• Installing Flutter tooling - A very brief and high-level coverage of where to get the tools. It should be brief because the details are likely to change regularly.
• Overview of each tool
• The emulators
• iOS simulator through XCode
• Android emulator through Android Studio
• The IDE - Visual Studio Code
• Alternatives: Android Studio, Atom, jBoss, etc.
• The Flutter CLI
• How to check and repair your toolchain through Flutter doctor
• How to scaffold a new app
• How to run in an emulator
• When errors occur
• How to debug
• print() statement
• Flutter inspector or DartCode VS Code plugin
• Watch mode

 

Section: Foundational Flutter

 

3.     Everything is widgets

• Chapter Synopsis: Widgets are super-important to Flutter since they're the building blocks of every Flutter app. We show why and provide the motivation and basic tools to create widgets.
Reminder about widgets
• Composition
• Define composition
• Provide real-world examples
• Why it is such a win
• Comparison with Web Components, React, Angular, and Vue
• The categories of Flutter UI widgets
For each category, we'll explain why we'd use them, what they have in common, and give one or two examples of the most fundamental and needed widgets in each category.
• Value Widgets
• Example: Text widget
• Style Widgets
• Example: Center widget
• Composition Widgets
• Example: Container widget
• Navigation Widgets
• Example: AppBar widget

Bringing the chapter together: Composing them in a custom widget

Stateful vs. Stateless widgets

• What is state?
• How to create a custom stateless widget (Note: creating a stateful widget is complex so we're saving it for the State chapter).

 

4.     Value Widgets

• Chapter Synopsis: Deep

Edition details

• Publisher: Apress
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1484251822
• ISBN 13: 9781484251829
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336