Getting Started with Flutter App Development

Let’s move on to the exciting development world of Flutter and discover the process of building performant and beautiful applications. Going forward, it’s going to get fairly technical as we will explore Flutter’s architecture, layout, components, and widgets in detail. Let’s begin with the basics first starting with the requirements to work with Flutter.

 

 

System Requirements to Create Your First Flutter Project

Flutter operates smoothly on Windows, macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS systems. To use it with the operating system, you will also need a compatible Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Git version control system.

Which Tools to Use for Flutter? (IDEs)

1. Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
2. Android Studio
3. IntelliJ IDEA
4. Emacs

Once these are assessed,

• Install Flutter SDK after downloading it from the official website.
• Installation is simple and all you have to do is follow the instructions, which are customized to your operating system.
• Also check and install the required Dart plugins compatible with the chosen IDE.

After installation is complete, check if it’s working by running flutter –version in the terminal. Additionally, download DartPad. It’s an optional download but provides a vast playground to play around with the Dart codebase and snippets.

How to Start Programming in Flutter?

To begin programming, ensure you have an in-depth understanding of the Flutter lifecycle. The life cycle represents the stages your application will go through, from creation to initialization, deployment, and receiving the user’s input.

Do you know that even an app’s termination process is a part of its development lifecycle? The Flutter.dev website I have shared above has all the steps you must follow to complete every level in the Flutter development lifecycle.

You have set up Flutter with its IDE and now the development work begins. In the command prompt terminal, go to the project creation directory and write the following code;

flutter create my_first_app

Here, you can replace my first app with the desired project name, and it will build a new Flutter project directory. Flutter takes care of delivering pre-configured files and folders for your application’s code, assets, and configuration.

To run your application based on the code written, go to the project directory through the terminal using the code;

cd my_first_app

Then, to run the development server and launch the application, use the code;

flutter run

For this code to run and launch, you will need an emulator or a connected Android.

When you create a new Flutter project, it will automatically create a file named pubspec.yml and it’s located at the top of the project tree. This file has project metadata information, including;

• Project name and description
• Dependencies
• Futter version

This completes a basic overview of how you begin using a Flutter IDE to start the project. For a better understanding of Flutter’s capabilities and potential, I’ll now talk about its architecture, core concepts, rendering, layout schema, and more.

Must Read: Want to Know About Flutter? This One Guide is Enough!