Flutter Tutorials

Flutter Tutorials Roadmap

Section 1: Introduction to Flutter and Dart

  • What is Flutter?
    • Understanding Flutter's nature: a UI toolkit for building natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.
    • Why choose Flutter? (Fast Development, Expressive & Flexible UI, Native Performance, Single Codebase).
    • Comparing Flutter to other cross-platform frameworks (React Native, Xamarin).
  • Introduction to Dart:
    • Dart's purpose: the programming language used by Flutter.
    • Basic Dart syntax: variables, data types, operators, control flow (if, else, for, while).
    • Functions: defining and calling functions, optional and named parameters.
    • Classes and Objects: defining classes, creating objects, constructors, methods, inheritance.
    • Asynchronous Programming: understanding Futures, async/await.
  • Setting up the Development Environment:
    • Installing Flutter SDK.
    • Setting up IDE (Android Studio or VS Code) with Flutter and Dart plugins.
    • Configuring emulators or connecting physical devices.
    • Running flutter doctor to check setup.
  • Your First Flutter Application:
    • Creating a new Flutter project.
    • Understanding the project structure.
    • Running the default counter application.
    • Introduction to Hot Reload and Hot Restart.

Section 2: Understanding Widgets

  • Everything is a Widget:
    • Understanding Flutter's core concept of widgets as the building blocks of UI.
    • Stateless vs. Stateful Widgets: understanding the difference and when to use each.
  • Basic Layout Widgets:
    • Container: for styling and positioning.
    • Row and Column: for arranging widgets horizontally and vertically.
    • Stack: for layering widgets on top of each other.
    • Padding and Center: for spacing and alignment.
  • Basic UI Widgets:
    • Text: displaying text.
    • Image: displaying images (from assets, network).
    • Icon: displaying icons.
    • Button widgets (ElevatedButton, TextButton, OutlineButton): handling user interaction.
  • Building Simple Screens:
    • Creating a basic app structure with Scaffold (AppBar, body, etc.).
    • Using MaterialApp and CupertinoApp.

Section 3: Handling User Input and Interactivity

  • Handling Button Presses:
    • Using the onPressed callback for button widgets.
  • Working with Text Fields:
    • TextField and TextFormField: getting user input.
    • Controlling text input with TextEditingController.
    • Handling form validation (with Form and TextFormField).
  • Gestures and Touch Events:
    • GestureDetector: detecting various gestures (tap, drag, etc.).
    • Handling touch events.

Section 4: State Management

  • Understanding State:
    • What is application state?
    • Managing state within a Stateful Widget (setState()).
  • Introduction to State Management Approaches:
    • Exploring different techniques and libraries.
  • Provider (Recommended for beginners):
    • Understanding the Provider package.
    • Creating and providing data using ChangeNotifierProvider.
    • Consuming data using Consumer and Provider.of().
  • Other Popular State Management Solutions (Optional, for later):
    • Bloc/Cubit
    • Riverpod
    • GetX
    • Redux

Section 5: Navigation and Routing

  • Basic Navigation:
    • Using Navigator.push() and Navigator.pop() for simple screen transitions.
  • Named Routes:
    • Defining named routes in MaterialApp.
    • Navigating using Navigator.pushNamed().
    • Passing arguments between screens.
  • Generating Routes Dynamically:
    • Using onGenerateRoute for more complex routing scenarios.

Section 6: Working with Lists and Data

  • Displaying Lists of Data:
    • ListView: for displaying scrollable lists.
    • ListView.builder: for efficiently building lists with a large number of items.
    • Separated lists with ListView.separated.
  • Handling List Item Taps:
    • Using InkWell or GestureDetector on list items.
  • Grid Views:
    • GridView: for displaying data in a grid format.
    • GridView.builder.

Section 7: Networking and APIs

  • Making HTTP Requests:
    • Using the http package (pip install http).
    • Fetching data from a REST API (GET requests).
    • Sending data to an API (POST, PUT, DELETE requests).
  • Handling JSON Data:
    • Decoding JSON responses.
    • Creating Dart models to represent JSON data.
  • Working with Asynchronous Data:
    • Using FutureBuilder to handle asynchronous operations and display data when it's available.

Section 8: Persistence and Local Storage

  • Storing Data Locally:
    • shared_preferences: for storing simple key-value pairs.
    • path_provider: for getting access to file system locations.
    • Working with files (reading and writing).
  • Using Local Databases:
    • sqflite: for working with SQLite databases.
    • Performing CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete).

Section 9: Working with Assets and Images

  • Adding Assets to Your Project:
    • Adding images, fonts, and other files to the assets folder.
    • Configuring pubspec.yaml to include assets.
  • Displaying Images:
    • From assets (Image.asset()).
    • From the network (Image.network()).
  • Custom Fonts:
    • Adding and using custom fonts.

Section 10: Advanced UI and Animations (Optional, for later)

  • Custom Widgets:
    • Creating your own reusable widgets.
  • Slivers (Custom Scrolling Effects):
    • Understanding Slivers and their use cases.
    • Using CustomScrollView, SliverAppBar, SliverList, SliverGrid.
  • Introduction to Animations:
    • Implicit Animations (AnimatedContainer, etc.).
    • Explicit Animations (AnimationController, Tween).
    • Hero Animations.

Section 11: Working with Device Features (Optional, for later)

  • Accessing Device Camera and Gallery:
    • Using the image_picker package.
  • Location Services:
    • Using the geolocator package.
  • Notifications:
    • Using the flutter_local_notifications or firebase_messaging packages.
  • Platform Channels (for native code integration):
    • Understanding how to communicate between Dart and native (Kotlin/Swift).

Section 12: Testing

  • Types of Testing in Flutter:
    • Unit tests.
    • Widget tests.
    • Integration tests.
  • Writing Unit Tests:
    • Testing business logic and non-UI code.
  • Writing Widget Tests:
    • Testing individual widgets in isolation.
    • Using the WidgetTester.
  • Writing Integration Tests:
    • Testing the overall application flow.
    • Using the flutter_driver package.

Section 13: Deployment

  • Preparing for Release:
    • Understanding build modes (debug, profile, release).
    • Signing your application (Android and iOS).
  • Building for Different Platforms:
    • Building for Android (APK, App Bundle).
    • Building for iOS (IPA).
    • Building for Web and Desktop.
  • Publishing to App Stores:
    • Google Play Store.
    • Apple App Store.

Section 14: Ecosystem and Community

  • Exploring Flutter Packages:
    • Using pub.dev to find and use packages.
  • Staying Updated:
    • Following the Flutter documentation and release notes.
    • Engaging with the Flutter community (forums, Stack Overflow, Discord, meetups).
  • Building and Contributing to Open Source (Optional).