Flutter Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

By : Simone Alessandria

5 (3)

Buy this Book

Flutter Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

5 (3)

By: Simone Alessandria

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Are you ready to tap into the immense potential of Flutter? With over 1,000 new mobile apps published every day on the Apple and Google Play stores, Flutter is transforming the landscape of app development. It's time for you to join the revolution. Introducing the second edition of Flutter Cookbook, a step-by-step guide designed exclusively for you. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting your coding journey, this book is your ultimate companion. Dive into the latest features of Flutter 3.10 and unlock the secrets to building professional-grade, cross-platform applications. With our recipe-based approach, we'll not only show you how to implement Flutter's features but also explain why they work. Through practical examples and real-world execution, you'll gain a deeper understanding of Flutter's inner workings. From crafting stunning UI/UX with widgets to leveraging hot reload and restart techniques, we'll equip you with best practices and invaluable knowledge. As you progress, you'll learn to efficiently manage data, add interactivity and animations, and integrate essential Flutter plugins like maps, camera, voice recognition and more. And let's not forget the dedicated chapter on implementing MLkit powered by TensorFlow Lite. We'll guide you through building custom machine learning solutions, expanding the capabilities of your apps. By the time you reach the end of this comprehensive Flutter book, you'll have the skills and confidence to write and deliver fully functional apps.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Getting Started with Flutter

Why Flutter?

Technical requirements

Installing Flutter: a high-level overview

Installing the Flutter SDK

How to use Git to manage the Flutter SDK

Setting up the command line and saving path variables

Confirming your environment is correct with Flutter Doctor

Configuring the iOS SDK

Configuring the Android SDK setup

Which IDE/editor should you choose?

Picking the right channel

Summary

Free Chapter

Creating Your First Flutter App

How to create a Flutter app

Creating a unit test

Summary

Dart: A Language You Already Know

Technical requirements

Declaring variables—var versus final versus const

Strings and string interpolation

How to write functions

How to use functions as variables with closures

Using Switch Expressions, Records and Patterns

Creating classes and using the class constructor shorthand

How to group and manipulate data with collections

Writing less code with higher-order functions

How to take advantage of the cascade operator

Using extensions

Introducing Dart Null Safety

Using Null Safety in classes

Summary

Introduction to Widgets

Technical requirements

Creating immutable widgets

Using a Scaffold

Using the Container widget

Printing stylish text on the screen

Importing fonts and images into your app

Summary

Mastering Layout and Taming the Widget Tree

Placing widgets one after another

Proportional spacing with the Flexible and Expanded widgets

Drawing shapes with CustomPaint

Nesting complex widget trees

Refactoring widget trees to improve legibility

Applying global themes

Summary

Adding Interactivity and Navigation to Your App

Adding state to your app

Interacting with buttons

Making it scroll

Handling large datasets with list builders

Working with TextFields

Navigating to the next screen

Showing dialogs on the screen

Presenting bottom sheets

Basic State Management

Technical requirements

Model-view separation

Managing the data layer with InheritedWidget and InheritedNotifier

Making the app state visible across multiple screens

Summary

The Future is Now: Introduction to Asynchronous Programming

Technical requirements

Using a Future

Using async/await to avoid callbacks

Completing Futures

Firing multiple Futures at the same time

Resolving errors in asynchronous code

Using Futures with StatefulWidgets

Using the FutureBuilder to let Flutter manage your Futures

Turning navigation routes into asynchronous functions

Getting the results from a dialog

Summary

Data Persistence and Communicating with the Internet

Technical requirements

Converting Dart models into JSON

Handling JSON schemas that are incompatible with your models

Catching common JSON errors

Saving data simply with SharedPreferences

Accessing the filesystem, part 1: path_provider

Accessing the filesystem, part 2: Working with directories

Using secure storage to store data

Designing an HTTP client and getting data

POST-ing data

PUT-ting data

DELETE-ing data

Advanced State Management with Streams

Technical requirements

How to use Dart streams

Using stream controllers and sinks

Injecting data transforms into streams

Subscribing to stream events

Allowing multiple stream subscriptions

Using StreamBuilder to create reactive user interfaces

Using the BLoC pattern

Summary

Using Flutter Packages

Technical requirements

Importing packages and dependencies

Using dev dependencies

Creating your own package (part 1)

Creating your own package (part 2)

Creating your own package (part 3)

Adding Google Maps to your app

Using location services

Adding markers to a map

Summary

Adding Animations to Your App

Creating basic container animations

Designing animations part 1 — Using the AnimationController

Designing animations part 2 — Adding multiple animations

Designing animations part 3 — Using curves

Optimizing animations

Using Hero animations

Using premade animation transitions

Using the AnimatedList widget

Implementing swiping with the Dismissible widget

Using the animations Flutter package

Summary

Using Firebase

Configuring a Firebase app

Creating a login screen

Adding Google Sign-in

Customizing Sign in

Integrating Firebase Analytics

Using Firebase Cloud Firestore

Sending push notifications with Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)

Storing files in the cloud

Summary

Firebase Machine Learning

Using the device’s camera

Recognizing text from an image

Reading a barcode

Image labeling

Building a face detector and detecting facial gestures

Identifying a language

Using TensorFlow Lite

Summary

Flutter Web and Desktop

Creating a responsive app leveraging Flutter Web

Running your app on macOS

Running your app on Windows

Deploying a Flutter website

Responding to mouse events in Flutter Desktop

Interacting with desktop menus

Summary

Distributing Your Mobile App

Technical requirements

Registering your iOS app on App Store Connect

Registering your Android app on Google Play

Installing and configuring fastlane

Generating iOS code signing certificates and provisioning profiles

Generating Android release certificates

Configuring your app metadata

Adding icons to your app

Publishing a beta version of your app in the Google Play Store

Using TestFlight to publish a beta version of your iOS app

Publishing your app to the stores

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Index

Customer Reviews

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Interacting with desktop menus

Desktop apps have menus that do not exist on mobile form factors. Typically, you expect to see the important actions of a desktop app in its top menu.

In this recipe, you will learn how to add a menu that works on Windows and macOS.

Getting ready

Before following this recipe, you should have completed the first recipe in this chapter, Creating a responsive app leveraging Flutter Web.

Depending on where you want to run your app, you should also have completed one of the previous recipes in this chapter:

For Windows: Running your app on Windows
For macOS: Running your app on macOS

How to do it...

In order to add a menu to your desktop app, follow the next steps:

In your project, add the dependency to the menu_bar package by typing in your Terminal:
```
flutter pub add menu_bar
```
At the top of the book_list_screen.dart file, add the menubar import, and hide MenuBar from the material...

Flutter Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

By : Simone Alessandria

Flutter Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

By: Simone Alessandria

Overview of this book

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Current Title:

Flutter Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

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Interacting with desktop menus

Getting ready

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