Synopsis
Section: Introduction to Flutter
1. Hello Flutter
- Brief chapter overview and roadmap
- The Dart language itself - There's an overview and cheatsheet in the Appendix
- Deploying to a store
- Device-specific programming
- Who's a good fit and who is not
- Where to go to satisfy the prerequisites
- Problems it solves Where it came from - Brief history and origins
- 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)
- 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
- Value Widgets
- Example: Text widget
- Style Widgets
- Example: Center widget
- Composition Widgets
- Example: Container widget
- Navigation Widgets
- Example: AppBar widget
- 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.
- 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
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
