Pragmatic Flutter

Pragmatic Flutter
Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps
for Android, iOS, Web, & Desktop

Priyanka Tyagi
First edition published 2022
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Typeset in Times LT Std

by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
To my husband Krishna
And my children Kalp and Krisha
Who inspired me to start writing this book and finish it!
Contents
Preface.................................................................................................................... xiii
Author....................................................................................................................... xv

Chapter 1 Dart Fundamentals: A Quick Reference to Dart 2................................1

The main Function...............................................................................1
Variables & Data Types.........................................................................2
Collections.............................................................................................2
Spread Operator....................................................................................3
Transform List Items.............................................................................3
Filtering.................................................................................................3
Adding Item...........................................................................................4
Removing Item......................................................................................4
Adding Multiple Items..........................................................................4
Intersection of Two Set(s)......................................................................5
Union of Two Set(s)...............................................................................5
Checking for Key..................................................................................6
Checking for Value................................................................................7
Accessing all Values..............................................................................7
Iterating Key/Value Pairs......................................................................7
Functions...............................................................................................8
Classes................................................................................................. 10
Conclusion........................................................................................... 12
References........................................................................................... 12

Chapter 2 Introduction to Flutter......................................................................... 15

Cross-Platform Solutions..................................................................... 15
Why Flutter......................................................................................... 18
Conclusion...........................................................................................20
References...........................................................................................20

Chapter 3 Setting Up Environment...................................................................... 23

System Requirements for macOS........................................................ 23
Setting Up Flutter SDK....................................................................... 23
Setting Up for the Android Platform...................................................25
Setting Up for the iOS Platform.......................................................... 27
Setting Up for Web..............................................................................28
Setting Up for Desktop........................................................................ 29
Source Code Online............................................................................ 31

vii
viii Contents

Setting Up Editor................................................................................. 32
Conclusion........................................................................................... 32
References........................................................................................... 32

Chapter 4 Flutter Project Structure...................................................................... 35

Choosing Flutter Channel................................................................... 35
Creating Flutter Project....................................................................... 36
Cross-Platform Flutter Project Structure............................................ 39
Running Default App: Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop...................40
Running Code Samples....................................................................... 41
Useful Commands............................................................................... 45
Conclusion...........................................................................................46
References...........................................................................................46

Chapter 5 Flutter App Structure.......................................................................... 47

Flutter Widgets.................................................................................... 48
Display ‘Hello Books’ Text................................................................. 49
Add Cushion Around the Text............................................................ 51
Center the Text.................................................................................... 53
App Anatomy #1................................................................................. 53
App Anatomy #2................................................................................. 53
Conclusion........................................................................................... 61
References........................................................................................... 61

Chapter 6 Flutter Widgets.................................................................................... 63

Image Widget.................................................................................... 63
ToggleButtons Widget.................................................................. 65
TextField Widget........................................................................... 68
FutureBuilder Async Widget...................................................... 71
Placeholder Widget....................................................................... 74
StreamBuilder Async Widget...................................................... 76
AlertDialog Widget...................................................................... 78
Conclusion........................................................................................... 83
References...........................................................................................84

Chapter 7 Building Layouts................................................................................. 87

Revisiting HelloBooksApp Layout...................................................... 87
Types of Layout Widgets..................................................................... 89
Container Widget...........................................................................90
Padding Widget................................................................................97
ConstrainedBox Widget...............................................................99
SizedBox Widget........................................................................... 101
Row Widget....................................................................................... 103
Contents ix

IntrinsicHeight Widget............................................................ 105

Column Widget................................................................................ 110
IntrinsicWidth Widget.............................................................. 112
ListView Widget............................................................................ 115
GridView Widget............................................................................ 117
Table Widget................................................................................... 117
Stack Widget................................................................................... 119
IndexedStack Widget.................................................................. 121
Conclusion......................................................................................... 123
References......................................................................................... 124

Chapter 8 Responsive Interfaces........................................................................ 127

FittedBox Widget......................................................................... 127
Expanded Widget........................................................................... 128
Flexible Widget............................................................................ 132
FractionallySizedBox Widget................................................ 134
LayoutBuilder Widget................................................................ 137
Wrap Widget..................................................................................... 137
Conclusion......................................................................................... 139
References......................................................................................... 141

Chapter 9 Building User Interface for BooksApp............................................. 143

The BooksApp Interface.................................................................... 143
The BooksApp Anatomy................................................................... 143
Implementing User Interface............................................................. 144
Custom Widget: BooksListing.................................................... 148
Conclusion......................................................................................... 151
References......................................................................................... 151

Chapter 10 Flutter Themes.................................................................................. 153

Global Theme.................................................................................... 153
Modularizing Themes....................................................................... 157
Using Custom Fonts.......................................................................... 159
Local Theme..................................................................................... 160
Switching Themes............................................................................. 163
Conclusion......................................................................................... 167
References......................................................................................... 168

Chapter 11 Persisting Data................................................................................... 169

Light Theme (Default)....................................................................... 169
Key/Value Data Store (Shared Preferences Plugin).......................... 169
x Contents

Local Database (Moor Library)........................................................ 173

Light Theme on Multiple Platforms.................................................. 180
Dark Theme on Multiple Platforms.................................................. 182
Conclusion......................................................................................... 186
References......................................................................................... 187

Chapter 12 Integrating REST API....................................................................... 189

What Is an API?................................................................................ 189
Flutter Configuration......................................................................... 190
API Key............................................................................................. 190
API Endpoint..................................................................................... 192
Building Simple Interface................................................................. 193
Running Code................................................................................... 196
Adding Entitlement........................................................................... 198
AndroidManifest.xml........................................................................ 199
Conclusion.........................................................................................200
References......................................................................................... 201

Chapter 13 Data Modeling...................................................................................203

Parsing JSON.................................................................................... 203
ListView Widget: Listing Entries..................................................207
Custom Widget: BookTile.............................................................209
Constructing Data Model.................................................................. 217
Converting API Response to BookModel List............................... 220
Run the Code..................................................................................... 221
Conclusion......................................................................................... 227
References......................................................................................... 228

Chapter 14 Navigation and Routing..................................................................... 229

Simple BookDetailsPage Screen................................................ 229
Navigator Widget............................................................................... 232
Direct Navigation.............................................................................. 233
Detecting Gesture.............................................................................. 233
Passing Data...................................................................................... 234
Static Navigation............................................................................... 235
Detecting Gesture.............................................................................. 236
Passing Data...................................................................................... 236
Dynamic Navigation......................................................................... 237
The generateRoute() Function.................................................. 237
Detecting Gesture.............................................................................. 238
Passing Data...................................................................................... 238
Conclusion......................................................................................... 239
References......................................................................................... 239
Contents xi

Chapter 15 The Second Page – BookDetailsPage Widget................................... 241

Anatomy of BookDetailsPage Widget....................................... 241
BookDetailsPage Screen’s Layout............................................. 242
Implementing BookDetailsPage Widget.................................... 243
Conclusion......................................................................................... 249
References......................................................................................... 249

Chapter 16 Introduction to State Management.................................................... 251

Revisiting Default CounterApp......................................................... 251
Vanilla Pattern................................................................................... 252
Conclusion......................................................................................... 255
References......................................................................................... 256

Chapter 17 ValueNotifier..................................................................................... 257

Using ValueNotifier Approach.......................................................... 257
Conclusion......................................................................................... 262
References......................................................................................... 262

Chapter 18 Provider and ChangeNotifier............................................................. 265

What Is Provider.......................................................................... 265
What Is ChangeNotifier............................................................266
Anatomy of CounterApp...................................................................266
Increasing Counter............................................................................ 267
Custom Widget: CountWidget...................................................... 267
Finished Implementation................................................................... 268
Conclusion......................................................................................... 270
References......................................................................................... 270

Chapter 19 BLoC Design Pattern........................................................................ 271

What Is BLoC Pattern?..................................................................... 271
Anatomy of CounterApp................................................................... 271
Basic BLoC Pattern Implementation................................................. 273
Event StreamController............................................................ 276
Event Sink....................................................................................... 276
Event Stream/CounterBloc Constructor................................... 276
State StreamController............................................................. 277
State Sink........................................................................................ 277
State Stream.................................................................................... 277
Improvised BLoC Pattern Implementation....................................... 279
State StreamController.............................................................280
State Sink........................................................................................280
xii Contents

State Stream.................................................................................... 281

Implementing BLoC Pattern Using Library...................................... 282
Conclusion......................................................................................... 285
References......................................................................................... 285

Chapter 20 Unit Testing....................................................................................... 287

Package Dependencies...................................................................... 287
The CounterApp................................................................................ 287
Test File............................................................................................. 292
Running Unit Tests............................................................................ 294
Conclusion......................................................................................... 295
References......................................................................................... 295

Chapter 21 Widget Testing................................................................................... 297

Package Dependency......................................................................... 297
Testing Widgets................................................................................. 298
Running Widget Tests....................................................................... 305
Conclusion......................................................................................... 305
References......................................................................................... 305

Chapter 22 Integration Testing.............................................................................307

Package Dependency.........................................................................307
Preview CounterApp Code................................................................307
Test Pair Files.................................................................................... 310
Writing Integration Tests................................................................... 310
Running Integration Tests................................................................. 313
Conclusion......................................................................................... 314
References......................................................................................... 314

Chapter 23 Rolling into the World....................................................................... 315

Adding Launcher Icon....................................................................... 315
Releasing Android Apps................................................................... 316
Releasing iOS Apps........................................................................... 322
Releasing Web Apps.......................................................................... 327
Releasing Desktop (macOS) Apps.................................................... 330
Conclusion......................................................................................... 331
References......................................................................................... 331

Index....................................................................................................................... 333
Preface
Have you ever thought of creating beautiful blazing-fast native apps for iOS and
Android from a single codebase? Have you dreamt of taking your native apps to the
web and desktop without costing a fortune? If so, this book is the right place to start
your journey of developing cross-platform apps.
Google’s Flutter software development kit (SDK) is the latest way of developing
beautiful, fluid cross-platform apps for Android, iOS, Web, and Desktops (macOS,
Linux, Windows). Google’s new Fuchsia OS user interface (UI) is implemented
using Flutter as well. Learning to develop mobile apps with Flutter opens the door to
multiple devices, form-factors, and platforms from a single codebase.
You don’t need any prior experience using Dart to follow along with this book.
However, it’s recommended to have some familiarity with writing code in one of
the object-oriented programming languages like Java and Python. You will pick up
the fundamentals of Dart 2 language in the first chapter. We will learn to structure
and organize the multi-platform Flutter project and test the setup by running the
same code on Android, iOS, web, and desktop platforms. Next, we will explore basic
Flutter widgets along with layout widgets while building a non-trivial UI. Later on,
we will continue learning to build responsive layouts for different screen sizes and
form-factors.
We will be organizing and applying themes and styles, handling user input, and
gestures. Then we will move on to fetching data over the network, integrating, and
consuming REST API in app. We will build a BooksApp to display books listing
from Google Books API and integrate this API to fetch book data. Different types of
testing strategies will be introduced to develop solid and high-quality apps. You will
get hands-on experience using state management solutions, data modeling, routing,
and navigation for multi-screen apps. You will learn to use Flutter plugins to persist
data in the app. This book concludes by giving the pointers to deploy and distribute
your Flutter app across all four platforms.
When you finish this book, you will have a solid foundational knowledge of
Flutter SDK that will help you move forward in your journey of building great and
successful mobile apps that can be deployed to Android, iOS, web, and desktop
(macOS) from a single code base.
Throughout the book, italic is used to render file, folder, and Flutter application
names. The monospace font is used to represent code snippets, variable names, and
data structures. All examples used in this book are available online in the GitHub
repository: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter.
Last but definitely not least, I want to acknowledge the input of my fellow devel-
opers Rajalakshmi Balaji, Preetika Tyagi, and Snehal Patil without whom this book
wouldn’t be possible. I am also thankful to the Flutter community worldwide for shar-
ing their expertise and knowledge for developing great cross-platform applications.

xiii
Author
Priyanka Tyagi is a Software Engineering Manager at Willow Innovations, Inc.,
which builds products that improve the lives and health of women. At Willow
Innovations, Inc., she is helping to build a better wearables experience by using
Flutter and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies.
Priyanka has many years of experience designing and developing software,
web, and mobile systems for a diverse range of industries from automobile and
e-­commerce to entertainment and EdTech to health and wellness. Her expertise lies
in Flutter, Android, Firebase, Mobile SDKs, AWS/Google cloud-based solutions,
cross-platform apps, and game-based learning. In her previous roles, she has worked
with Disney Interactive as Lead Android Engineer. She has also helped various start-
ups with her software engineering consulting services.
Priyanka loves to share her tech explorations around mobile apps development
and other software engineering topics in her tech blog: https://priyankatyagi.dev/.
She is an Internet of Things (IOT) enthusiast and volunteers her time at local
public schools to introduce computer science to young minds. She volunteers for
the Hour of Code initiative to inspire young developers in the tech world for many
years. Priyanka is passionate about mentoring aspiring developers to get started in
the tech industry. She earned an MS in computer science from Illinois Institute of
Technology, Chicago.
Priyanka lives with her husband and two kids in beautiful California. She loves to
read, bake, and hike in her free time.

xv
1 A Quick Reference to Dart 2
Dart Fundamentals

Dart programming language is developed by Google. It has been around since 2011.
However, it has gained popularity recently since Google announced Flutter software
development kit (SDK) for developing cross-platform-applications. Dart aims to help
developers build web and mobile applications effectively. It works for building
production-ready solutions for client applications as well as for the server-side. Dart
has an Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compiler that compiles predictable native code quickly
for the target platform. It is optimized to build customized user interfaces natively
for multiple platforms. The Dart is a developers-friendly programming language. It
is easy for developers coming from different programming language backgrounds to
learn Dart without much effort.
The Dart 2 (Announcing Dart 2 Stable and the Dart Web Platform) is the latest ver-
sion of Dart language including the rewrite of many features, improved performance and
productivity. This chapter covers the basics of Dart 2 language syntaxes (Google, 2020)
to get started with the journey of building applications using Flutter. A prior understand-
ing of object-oriented programming is needed to follow along with the material. Dart 2
and Dart will be used to infer the Dart 2 programming language in this book. In the
upcoming topics, we’ll review some of the language features with the help of examples.

THE main FUNCTION

The `main()` function is the entry point for any Dart program. The following code
snippet will print “Hello Dart” on the console. Open a ‘Terminal’ at MacOS or its
Windows or Linux equivalent. Create a file say ‘hello.dart’, and copy the following
code snippet in it.
```
void main() {
print("Hello Dart");
}
```

Running Dart Program

Go back to the ‘Terminal’ and execute the file using `dart hello.dart`. The
“Hello Dart” is printed on the console.
```
$ dart hello.dart
Hello Dart
```

1
2 Pragmatic Flutter

VARIABLES & DATA TYPES

In Dart, you can use the `var` keyword to infer the underlying data type. The fol-
lowing code snippet shows declaring variable `data` to hold the numeric value ‘1’.

```
var data = 1;
print(data);
```

The above code snippet will print the ‘1’ on the console. The runtimeType (runtim-
eType property) property gives the runtime type of the object it’s called on. The follow-
ing code snippet will print the data type of the `data` variable as ‘int’ on the console.
```
var data = 1;
print(data.runtimeType);
```

It’s valid for the `data` variable to get reassigned to a value from a different data type.
There’s another keyword, `dynamic`, to assign a value to a variable similar to
the `var` keyword. The difference between the two is that for the `dynamic` key-
word, the same variable can be reassigned to a different data type, as shown in the
code snippet below:
```
// Assigning int to dynamicData
dynamic dynamicData = 1;
// Prints `int` as data type on console
print(dynamicData.runtimeType);

//Re-assigning dynamicData to String data type

dynamicData = "I'm a string now";
// Prints `String` as data type on console
print(dynamicData.runtimeType);
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Variables
& Data Types)) is available at GitHub.

COLLECTIONS
List
Dart’s List (List<E> class) is a collection that holds indexable objects. An empty
list can is declared using two square brackets ‘[]’. List items can be put inside these
brackets separated by commas.
```
List emptyList = [];
Dart Fundamentals 3

//Checking if List is empty

var result = emptyList.isEmpty;
print(result);
```

SPREAD OPERATOR
Dart 2.3 introduced the spread operator (Spread Operator) and null aware spread
operator to combine multiple lists into one. Let’s create a list `theList` with two
items and a null list `theNullList`. If you want to merge these two lists into
another list, say `anotherList`, it can be done using spread (...) and null aware
spread (?...) operators.

```
List theList = ['Dart', 'Kotlin'];
//null list
List theNullList;

// Spread operator ... - Flatten the list and to be merged

with another list
// Null spread operator ...? - Helps to avoid runtime
exceptions - iterator called on null.
List anotherList = ['Java', ...theList, ...?theNullList];

// Printing the merged list created using spread operators

print(anotherList);

// Output
[Java, Dart, Kotlin]
```

TRANSFORM LIST ITEMS

The `map` on the `List` can be called to transform the list items. Let’s append the
word ‘Language’ to objects of the `theList` list.

```
List theList = ['Dart', 'Kotlin'];
result = theList.map((e) => "$e Language").toList();
print(result);

// Output
[Dart Language, Kotlin Language]
```

FILTERING
The `where` method on `List` can help filter items meeting specific criteria. In the
following code snippet, we are filtering the words containing the letter ‘a’. Since only
‘Dart’ matches these criteria, `result` will hold only the word ‘Dart’.
4 Pragmatic Flutter

```
List theList = ['Dart', 'Kotlin'];
result = theList.where((element) =>
element.toString().contains('a'));
print(result); // Dart contains letter 'a'

// Output
(Dart)
```

Set
The Set (Set<E> class) data structure holds a collection of objects only once. The dupli-
cates are not allowed when storing data in `Set`. Let’s create two sets to learn the usage.

```
Set langSet = {'Dart', 'Kotlin', 'Swift'};
Set sdkSet = {'Flutter', 'Android', 'iOS'};
```

ADDING ITEM
Let’s add a new item ‘Java’ in the `langSet` and print the final set.

```
// Adding 'Java' to Set
langSet.add('Java');
print(langSet);

// Output
{Dart, Kotlin, Swift, Java}
```

REMOVING ITEM
Let’s remove the newly added item ‘Java’ from `langSet` and print the final set.

```
// Remove Java from Set
langSet.remove('Java');
print(langSet);

// Output
{Dart, Kotlin, Swift}
```

ADDING MULTIPLE ITEMS

More than one item can be added all at once in `Set` using the `addAll()` method.
It accepts the list of items. Let’s add multiple items to both sets.
Dart Fundamentals 5

```
// Adding multiple items to each set
langSet.addAll(['C#', 'Java']);
sdkSet.addAll(['C#', 'Xamarin']);
print(langSet);
print(sdkSet);

// Output
{Dart, Kotlin, Swift, C#, Java}
{Flutter, Android, iOS, C#, Xamarin}
```

INTERSECTION OF TWO SET(S)

The `intersection` method on `Set` returns the shared items from both sets.
The `langSet` and `sdkSet` both contain the ‘C#’ item in them. The intersection
on those sets will return the ‘C#’.
```
// Find Intersection of two sets (common items)
result = langSet.intersection(sdkSet);
print(result); // C#

// Output
{C#}
```

UNION OF TWO SET(S)

The `union` returns items combined from `langSet` and `sdkSet` without any
duplicates. Both sets contain ‘C#’, and it’ll be added in the `result` only once.
```
// Find a Union of two sets. No duplicates.
result = langSet.union(sdkSet);
print(result);

// Output
{Dart, Kotlin, Swift, C#, Java, Flutter, Android, iOS, Xamarin}
```

Map
The Map (Map<K, V> class) data structure is a collection that contains key/value
pairs. A value is accessed using the key for that entry. Let’s create a `Map` with a key
of `int` type, and value is of `String` type.
One way to create a Map `intToStringMap` is as below:
```
var intToStringMap = Map<int, String>();
```
6 Pragmatic Flutter

The new key/value pair can be added as shown in the code snippet below:

```
intToStringMap[1] = '1';
intToStringMap[2] = '2';
```

The first or last entry of the map can be accessed using `first` and `last` proper-
ties of entries (entries property) iterable.

```
// first Map entry
result = intToStringMap.entries.first;
print(result);
// Output
MapEntry(1: 1)

// last Map entry

result = intToStringMap.entries.last;
print(result);
// Output
MapEntry(2: 2)
```

Let’s create a `Map` with the key and value of type `String` as below:

```
var techMap = {
'Flutter': 'Dart',
'Android': 'Kotlin',
'iOS': 'Swift',
};
```

CHECKING FOR KEY

The `containsKey(String key)` method on the map returns a boolean true or
false depending on whether the given `key` exists in the Map or not.

```
// Returns boolean. true if key is found, otherwise false
result = techMap.containsKey('Flutter');
print(result);

// Output
true
```
Dart Fundamentals 7

CHECKING FOR VALUE

The `containsValue(String value)` method returns the boolean value as
‘true’ if the given value exists in the Map.
```
// Checking if value is present in the Map
result = techMap.containsValue('Dart');
print(result);

// Output
true
```

ACCESSING ALL VALUES

All values of the key/value pairs in Map collection can be accessed calling
`foreach` on `values` as below:
```
// Prints all values
techMap.values.forEach((element) {
print("$element");
});

// Output
Dart
Kotlin
Swift
```

ITERATING KEY/VALUE PAIRS

All key/value pairs in Map collection are iterated, as shown in the code below:
```
// Iterates over all key-value pairs and prints them
techMap.entries.forEach((element) {
print("${element.value} is used for developing

${element.key} applications.");
});

// Output
Dart is used for developing Flutter applications.
Kotlin is used for creating Android applications.
Swift is used for developing iOS applications.
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Collections))
is available at GitHub.
8 Pragmatic Flutter

FUNCTIONS
Let’s create a function that checks if the passed argument is ‘Flutter’ or not and
returns a boolean value. It returns true if it’s precise ‘Flutter’ or false other-
wise. Such functions are known as ‘Named Function’ because the function’s name
describes what they are intended to.

```
bool isFlutter(String str) {
return str == 'Flutter';
}
// Using Named Function
dynamic result = isFlutter("Flutter");
print(result);

//Output
true
```

Function with Optional Parameters

Let’s create a function `concat(...)` that joins two strings together when the sec-
ond string is available. In such a case, the second string can be passed as optional
using square brackets ‘[]’.

```
String concat(String str1, [String str2]) {
return str2 != null ? "$str1 $str2" : str1;
}

// Usage
result = concat("Priyanka", "Tyagi");
print(result);

//Output
Priyanka Tyagi
```

Named Parameters
The other way to provide optional parameters is to use named parameters. They can
be passed using curly braces ‘{}’.

```
// Named Parameters: Function with optional parameters in
curly braces
String concat2(String str1, {String str2}) {
return str2 != null ? "$str1 $str2" : str1;
}
Dart Fundamentals 9

// Using function with optional params with curly braces{}

result = concat2("Priyanka", str2: "Tyagi");
print(result);
// Output
Priyanka Tyagi
```

Passing Function as Parameter

The Dart 2 programming language allows passing a function as a parameter to
another function. Let’s create a function `int subtract(int a, int b)`
to find the difference between the two values ‘a’ and ‘b’. The method `calcu-
late(...)` takes two numbers and a function as a parameter to operate on the
values passed.

```
int subtract(int a, int b) {
return a > b ? a - b : b - a;
}
// Passing Function as parameter
int calculate(int value1, int value2, Function(int, int)
function) {
return function(value1, value2);
}
//Passing function 'subtract' as parameter
result = calculate(5, 4, subtract);
print(result);

// Output
1
```

Arrow Syntax
The arrow syntax can be used to write functions in one line. Let’s write the function
to add two numbers using arrow syntax as below:

```
// Arrow Syntax
int add(int a, int b) => a + b;

// Using Arrow Syntax

result = add(5, 4);
print(result);

//Output
9
```
10 Pragmatic Flutter

Anonymous Function
Anonymous functions don’t have a name and can be assigned to a variable either
using the keyword `var` or `Function`.
```
// Anonymous Function
Function anonymousAdd = (int a, int b) {
return a + b;
};

// Using anonymous functions.

// Calling function variable `anonymousAdd`
result = anonymousAdd(4, 5);
print(result);

//Output
9
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Functions))
is available at GitHub.

CLASSES
Dart classes are created using the keyword `class`. Let’s define a class Person to
represent a person in the real world. This person has a name, an age, and the food it eats.
```
class Person {
String name;
int age;
String food;
}
```

Constructor
Dart supports easy to use constructors. Let’s see two types of constructors. The
short-form constructor looks like below. The first part is required. The parameters
inside ‘[]’ are optional.

```
Person(this.name, [this.age]);

//Usage
Person person = Person("Priyanka");
```
Dart Fundamentals 11

Another type of constructor is the named constructor. All parameters are enclosed
in the curly braces ‘{}’.
```
Person.basicInfo({this.name, this.age});

//Usage
Person child = Person.basicInfo(name: "Krisha", age: 6);
```

Getters
The getters in Dart classes are defined using the `get` keyword. Let’s create a getter
`personName` to get the name.
```
String get personName => this.name;
```

Setters
The setters in the Dart classes are defined using the `set` keyword. Let’s create a
setter `personName` to set the name as below:
```
set personName(String value) => this.name = value;
```

Method
Let’s add a method to the class `Person` to define the eating behavior. The method
`eats(String food)` takes the food as `String` and assigns it to the class `food`
property.
```
void eats(String food) {
this.food = food;
}
// Usage
Person child = Person.basicInfo(name: "Krisha", age: 6);
child.eats("Pizza");
```

Let’s override the method `toString()` from the Object (Object class) class to
print a custom message. Every class in Dart extends from the base Object class.
```
String toString() {
return "My name is $name, and I like to eat $food";
}
12 Pragmatic Flutter

//Usage
print(child.toString());

//Output on console
My name is Krisha, and I like to eat Pizza
```

Cascading Syntax
Dart supports cascading syntaxes. It’s useful in assigning the values to properties
and methods at once using two dots.

```
child
. .name = 'Kalp'
. .eats("Pasta");
```

The setters can also be called using cascaded syntax as shown in the code snippet
below:

```
child
. .personName = 'Tanmay'
. .eats("Pesto");
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Classes))
is available at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we reviewed the basic concepts and syntaxes useful to getting started
with developing Flutter application quickly and efficiently. You were introduced to
the structure of the Dart program. You developed your understanding of declaring
and using variables in Dart language. We explored methods to store data in collec-
tions using various data structures like List, Map, and Set. You also learned to write
reusable code using functions. Finally, you learned to architect and structure the
code base using Classes and methods.

REFERENCES
Dart Dev. (2020, 12 14). entries property. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.10.3/dart-core/Map/entries.html
Google. (2020, 11 13). A tour of the Dart language. Retrieved from Official Dart
Documentation: https://dart.dev/guides/language/language-tour
Dart Fundamentals 13

Google. (2020, 11 13). List<E> class. Retrieved from Official Dart Language Documentation:
https://api.dart.dev/stable/2.10.3/dart-core/List-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 13). Map<K, V> class. Retrieved from Official Dart Language
Documentation: https://api.dart.dev/stable/2.10.3/dart-core/Map-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 13). Object class. Retrieved from Official Dart Language Documentation:
https://api.dart.dev/stable/2.10.3/dart-core/Object-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 13). runtimeType property. Retrieved from Official Dart Documentation:
https://api.dart.dev/stable/2.10.2/dart-core/Object/runtimeType.html
Google. (2020, 11 13). Set<E> class. Retrieved from Official Dart Language Documentation:
https://api.dart.dev/stable/2.10.3/dart-core/Set-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 13). Spread Operator. Retrieved from Official Dart Language
Documentation: https://dart.dev/guides/language/language-tour#spread-operator
Moore, K. (2018, 08 07). Announcing Dart 2 Stable and the Dart Web Platform. Retrieved
from Medium: https://medium.com/dartlang/dart-2-stable-and-the-dart-web-platform-
3775d5f8eac7
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 13). Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Classes). Retrieved from
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter01/classes.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 13). Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Collections). Retrieved from
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter01/collections.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 13). Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Functions). Retrieved from
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter01/functions.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 13). Chapter01: Quick Reference to Dart2 (Variables & Data Types).
Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter01/variables.dart
2 Introduction to Flutter

Flutter is an open-sourced software development kit (SDK) (Flutter) to develop

cross-platform applications and is free to use. It’s Google’s SDK for crafting
beautiful, fast, and natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desk-
top from a single code base. Flutter applications are written in Dart language
(Dart). The Dart is optimized for building custom user interfaces (UIs) and fast
cross-platform applications. The Dart code compiles to Native machine code
for the platform app is running on. For example, the web Dart code compiles to
JavaScript. Flutter is a complete framework that provides UI rendering & wid-
gets, state management solutions, navigation, testing, and hardware application
programming interfaces (APIs) to interact with device-level features like sen-
sors, Bluetooth, etc.

CROSS-PLATFORM SOLUTIONS
The term ‘cross-platform solutions’ stands for the code reused across the different
platforms or ‘write code once and run everywhere’. The perfect cross-platform solu-
tion with a hundred percent code reuse is the holy grails that every mobile appli-
cation developer dreams of. Let’s discuss some of the solutions used to maximize
the sharable code across multiple deployment targets like web, Android, iPhone
Operating System (iOS), and desktop.

Native SDKs
In the world of mobile app development, Native SDKs (Software development kit)
prominently refer to Apple’s iOS SDK (Develop iOS Applications) and Google’s
Android SDK (Develop Android Applications) to build mobile applications on iOS
and Android platforms, respectively. The iOS applications are developed using either
Objective-C (Objective-C) or Swift (Swift) programming languages. The Android
applications are developed using Java (Java) or Kotlin (A modern programming lan-
guage that makes developers happier.) programming languages. Your app runs code
natively on the platform. The Native code is compiled to run on a particular platform
like Android or iOS.
In this architecture, as shown in Figure 2.1, the application ‘App-X’ talks to the
platform and accesses platform services directly. The platform side creates widgets
that are rendered on the screen’s canvas. The events are propagated back to the wid-
gets. In this case, you would need to write two separate implementations of ‘App-X’
for each platform. Different implementations mean both apps are written in two
entirely different languages as well.
Android and iOS platforms support legacy (Objective-C for iOS and Java for
Android) and modern (Swift for iOS, and Kotlin for Android) programming
15
16 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 2.1  Native platform architecture

languages to develop applications. To create the same application for Android

and iOS, a developer should be proficient in four programming languages all at
once. Things become more complicated if legacy and modern languages are used
together in the same code base. It may not be trivial to find developers who are
experts in all four languages simultaneously. As you can see, such scenarios are
not much cost-friendly. Since two separate applications need to keep the feature
parity, developers need to implement the same feature twice from scratch that can
take longer.
These are some of the issues that developers may want to avoid by using cross-
platform solutions to develop applications that can share a single codebase in one
programming language.

JavaScript + WebView
One solution for developing cross-platform applications from a single code is to use
JavaScript with WebView(s). A WebView is a part of the browser’s engine that can be
inserted into a Native app along with loading web content in it.
In this architecture, as shown in Figure 2.2, the application ‘App-X’ creates
hypertext markup language (HTML) contents and displays them in a WebView on
the platform. The HTML/cascading style sheets (CSS) is used to recreate the Native
original equipment manufacturer (OEM) widgets. The app is written using a com-
bination of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. The platform’s services are accessed over
the JavaScript bridge. The ‘bridge’ does the context switches between the JavaScript
and the Native realms. It converts JavaScript instructions into Native instructions
and vice versa.
Some of the cross-platform frameworks that are based on this approach are
PhoneGap (Adobe) (Adobe PhoneGap), Apache Cordova, and Ionic. At the time of
this writing, Adobe discontinued investment in PhoneGap and Cordova.
Introduction to Flutter 17

FIGURE 2.2  JavaScript and WebView architecture

Reactive Native
In this approach, the creation of web views is simplified using design patterns based
on reactive programming (Reactive Programming). React Native solution was
developed by Facebook Inc. in 2005. It implements reactive style views on mobile
applications.
In this architecture, as shown in Figure 2.3, the JavaScript code communicates
with OEM widgets and platform services over the ‘bridge’. This bridge does the
context switching from the JavaScript realm to the Native realm and vice versa. This

FIGURE 2.3  React Native architecture

18 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 2.4  Flutter architecture

context switching happens for every widget and platform-service request that can
cause performance issues and make sometimes widget rendering glitchy.

Flutter
The Flutter framework was developed by Google in 2017. Flutter is based on reactive-
style views like React Native. It doesn’t use bridges to talk to the platform and avoid
performance issues caused by the context switching from the JavaScript realm to the
Native realm. Flutter uses Dart language, which compiles ahead-of-time (AOT) into
Native code for multiple platforms.
In this architecture, as shown in Figure 2.4, it doesn’t require any JavaScript
bridge to communicate to the platform. The Dart source code compiles to Native
code, which runs on the Dart virtual machine. The Flutter comes with a vast library
of widgets for Material and Cupertino (for iOS) design specifications. The widgets
are rendered on the screen canvas, and events are sent back to widgets. ‘App-X’ talks
to platform services like Bluetooth, sensors, etc., using Platform Channels (Flutter
Platform Channels), which are way faster than the JavaScript bridges.

WHY FLUTTER
Now that you’re familiar with what Flutter has to offer (What’s Revolutionary about
Flutter), let’s look at some of the benefits that put Flutter ahead of its competitors.

Developer’s Productivity
The ‘Hot Reload’ (Hot reload) feature helps developers to move faster. This feature
allows developers to see the changes reflected at the interface as they write code in
Introduction to Flutter 19

real-time. There’s no time wasted in the long build-times to be able to check out the
changes made.

Front-end & Backend Using Dart

Flutter apps are written using the Dart language. The same programming language
can also be used to build the backend for the application. Developing front-end and
backend in the same language helps with the cost and developers’ familiarity with
both sides of the app development. The same developers can own the front-end as
well as the backend development that leads to lean and cost-effective development
cycles.

Dart Language
Flutter uses Dart language to write apps. It’s a delight to work with Dart language.
It is an object-oriented language that is built on the most popular features of other
reliable programming languages like Java and similar languages built upon object-
oriented concepts. Dart is created, keeping developers in mind, and it is easy to learn
enough to start being productive from day one.

Human Interface Design

Flutter team implemented Material Design Specification (Material Foundation)
meticulously in Flutter. It makes easy to create slick, smooth, and crisp interfaces
for different platforms like Android and iOS. Flutter apps are compiled into Native
code for a platform that provides a Native feel on different platforms like Android,
iOS, Web, and Desktop.

Firebase Integration
Flutter’s integration with Firebase (Firebase Platform) is reliable. Firebase provides
the tools and services to support backend infrastructure instantaneously, which is
scalable and serverless. It comes with real-time databases, authentication, cloud stor-
age, hosting, cloud-function, machine learning support.

Variety in IDE Support

Flutter offers multiple integrated development environment (IDE) to develop appli-
cations. As a Flutter developer, you have a choice between Android Studio (Google),
VS Code (Microsoft), IntelliJ IDEA (Jetbrains), and command line.

OEM Widget Independence

Flutter comes with its own suite of widgets that keep your app’s interface indepen-
dent of changes in OEM widgets. OEM widgets come with devices and may look
different on different devices. The widgets solve this problem by providing a massive
20 Pragmatic Flutter

library of widgets for Material Design and iOS (Cupertino) (Cupertino (iOS-style)
widgets) platform, which helps in a seamless user experience regardless of which
device the app is running on.

Open Source/Community Support

Flutter and Dart are free to use open-source, and backed by a very active community
of developers worldwide. It’s easy to find support, resources, and technical know-
how on a topic. Flutter’s official documentation is fantastic and accepts contributions
from community members.

Cost-Effectiveness
Flutter helps developer in productivity while maintaining low development costs.
Flutter is not only used for developing user-facing front-end interfaces, but also solv-
ing backend problems. It provides support for code sharing from a single codebase.
Flutter apps are built once and deployed on multiple platforms like Android, iOS,
web, and desktop. You are not required to have separate teams to support them.

Custom Designs
Flutter is a great choice to build custom designs. It’s particularly useful when build-
ing designs for the app’s branding. Your brand design remains seamless across mul-
tiple platforms without worrying about the device. Additionally, it’s much faster to
develop prototypes that work cross-platform.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you were introduced about Flutter and how it compares to other
cross-platform alternatives. You learned about the different solutions available for
developing applications targeted to various platforms while maximizing the code-
reuse. You developed your understanding about Flutter’s features and benefits over
other cross-platform solutions.

REFERENCES
Adobe. (2020, 11 17). Adobe PhoneGap. Retrieved from PhoneGap: https://phonegap.com/
Apple. (2020, 11 16). Develop iOS Applications. Retrieved from Apple Developer: https://
developer.apple.com/develop/
Apple. (2020, 11 16). Swift. Retrieved from Apple Developer Documentation: https://
developer.apple.com/swift/
Dart Team. (2020, 11 17). Dart. Retrieved from Dart Website: https://dart.dev/
Develop Android Applications. (2020, 11 16). Retrieved from Android Developers: https://
developer.android.com/
Flutter Dev. (2020, 12 15). Hot reload. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
development/tools/hot-reload
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Cupertino (iOS-style) widgets. Retrieved from Flutter
Documentation: https://flutter.dev/docs/development/ui/widgets/cupertino
Introduction to Flutter 21

Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Flutter. Retrieved from GitHub repository for Flutter SDK:
https://github.com/flutter
Google. (2020, 11 16). android studio. Retrieved from Android Developers: https://developer.
android.com/studio
Google. (2020, 11 17). Material Foundation. Retrieved from Material Design: https://
material.io/design
Google. (2020, 12 15). Firebase Platform. Retrieved from Firebase: https://firebase.google.
com/
JetBrains & Open-source Contributors. (2020, 11 16). A modern programming language that
makes developers happier. Retrieved from Kotlin Language: https://kotlinlang.org/
Jetbrains. (2020, 11 16). IntelliJ IDEA. Retrieved from Jetbrains: https://www.jetbrains.com/
idea/
Leler, W. (2017, 08 20). What’s Revolutionary about Flutter. Retrieved from hackernoon:
https://hackernoon.com/whats-revolutionary-about-flutter-946915b09514
Microsoft. (2020, 11 16). Visual Studio. Retrieved from code.visualstudio.com: https://code.
visualstudio.com/
Ravn, M. (2018, 08 28). Flutter Platform Channels. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.
com/flutter/flutter-platform-channels-ce7f540a104e
Wikipedia. (2020, 11 16). Java. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Java_(programming_language)
Wikipedia. (2020, 11 16). Objective-C. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Objective-C
Wikipedia. (2020, 11 16). Reactive Programming. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_programming
Wikipedia. (2020, 11 16). Software development kit. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development_kit
3 Setting Up Environment

This chapter gives a quick introduction to setting up a development environment

for developing Flutter applications. Flutter applications can be created in macOS,
Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS. In this chapter, setting up the environment on
macOS is covered. Please refer to the official documentation for setting up the envi-
ronment on other operating systems here (Install).
The macOS supports developing Flutter apps for all four platforms: Android, iOS,
desktop macOS application, and web app in Chrome or Safari. Flutter’s desktop sup-
port allows it to compile Flutter source code to native macOS or Linux desktop apps.
However, a macOS Flutter desktop app can only be assembled on a Mac. A Linux
Flutter desktop app can only be compiled/developed on a Linux machine. In this book,
we’ll be building Flutter app examples for Android, iOS, Web, and macOS desktop
applications. You need at least one of the setups to be able to run your first Flutter app.
The Flutter is under rapid development itself, and some of the features like sup-
port to web and desktop are not rolled into stable release yet. The support for web
is available in ‘beta’ channel, and desktop support is available in ‘dev’ channel. You
may want to keep your Flutter channel to ‘dev’ when developing for web and desktop
at the same time. The ‘master’ channel has the bleeding edge improvements, fea-
tures, and bug fixe. However, this channel is most unstable as well, and hence needs
to be avoided in production.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR macOS

You need a 64-bit macOS with 2.8 GB disk space only for Flutter installation. Other
development tools and Integrated Development Environment (IDE) would require
additional disk space. You should be comfortable using command-line tools. Flutter
requires the following command-line tools preinstalled in your environment.

1. `bash`: Shell for macOS.

2. `which`: Unix based command to locate executables in the system.
3. `zip` & `unzip`: For compressing and decompressing files and directories.
4. `mkdir` & `rm`: For creating and removing directories and/or files.
5. git (version 2 or greater) (Download for macOS): Tool for version control.
6. curl (command line tool and library): Command line tool for data transfer.

Once you’ve all these tools installed and ready, it’s time to install the Flutter software
development kit (SDK) in your environment.

SETTING UP FLUTTER SDK

At the time of this writing, the Flutter SDK’s stable version for macOS is 1.22.4
(Flutter Stable 1.22.4). For the latest information about installing Flutter SDK, refer
23
24 Pragmatic Flutter

to the Flutter documentation (Get the Flutter SDK). You don’t need to worry about
installing Dart because Dart SDK is bundled with Flutter SDK.
In this section, we will briefly cover setting up Flutter SDK in the macOS environ-
ment. The Flutter is in active development, and a lot of changes are expected. Please
refer to the Flutter documentation to setup your Flutter environment for detailed and
latest information. I’m describing the installation process at a higher level, which is
less likely to change.

Download Stable Flutter SDK

It’s always a good idea to install the stable version for Flutter SDK to avoid unex-
pected behaviors. However, there’re many features related to web and desktop vari-
ants may not be available in the stable release. The good news is that you’re free to
change from one version of Flutter to another using Flutter channels.

Update PATH
Don’t forget to add Flutter SDK to your environment using `PATH (Update your
path). Once you’ve added the Flutter installation directory to your system’s `PATH`
variable, you can execute the `flutter` command from the terminal (bash).

Flutter Doctor
The `flutter doctor` command helps to find out if there are any required
dependencies that are not installed yet. If any dependency or tool is missing, it’ll let
you know about it and tell you how to do it.

Flutter Channels
Flutter channels are used to switch from one Flutter version to another. You can
choose to switch between different Flutter channels using command `flutter
channel` from the command line.

```
$ flutter channel
Flutter channels:
* master
dev
beta
stable
```

There are four channels at this time that you can choose from. You can switch to the
preferred channel using the command `flutter channel <channel _ name>`.

• `master`: You can switch to the master channel using command `flut-
ter channel master`. It contains bleeding-edge changes. You may
need to switch to it to run some of the preview features. We may need to
Setting Up Environment 25

switch to this channel when demonstrating the latest and greatest features
that haven’t been released into stable channels yet.
• `dev`: This channel contains the latest fully-tested build. You can switch to
this channel using command `flutter channel dev`.
• `beta`: This channel contains the most stable dev build. It’s updated monthly.
You can switch to this channel using command `flutter channel beta`.
• `stable`: This channel contains the most stable beta build. It’s updated
quarterly. You can switch to this channel using command `flutter chan-
nel stable`.

After switching to your preferred channel, you need to run the command `flutter
upgrade` to bring in updates.

SETTING UP FOR THE ANDROID PLATFORM

Android Studio
Next step is to install Android Studio (Install Android Studio) along with the latest
Android SDK, Android SDK command-line tools, Android Build-tools.

Android Emulator
Create an emulator using Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager in Android Studio
(Android Studio > Tools > AVD Manager). Create a virtual device by clicking on the
‘Create Virtual Device’ button. Choose hardware, system image (×64), and AVD
name for your emulator. Clicking on ‘Finish’ will create an AVD in the AVD man-
ager. Click on the horizontal triangle icon to start it. Verify it by running command
`flutter devices` to see it in the device listing in the terminal.
You can also see device listing using the `flutter devices` command as below:

```
$ flutter devices
1 connected devices:

Android SDK built for x86 (mobile) • emulator-5554 •

android-x86 • Android 10 (API 29) (emulator)
```

Test Your Setup

Create a test project using `flutter create testapp`, and run it as below:

```
flutter create testapp
cd testapp
flutter run -d android
```
26 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 3.1  TestApp running in Android

Refer to Figure 3.1 to see the default app running in the Android emulator.

Android Device
An Android device running Android 4.1 (API level 16) or higher is required to run a
Flutter app on an Android device. You would need to connect the device with a USB
cable to your computer to access it. Enable USB debugging (Configure on-device
developer options) on the Android device. Test the connection using the `flutter
devices` command. It should list the device on the console along with other con-
nected devices, if any.
Setting Up Environment 27

Refer to Flutter Documentation (Android setup) for detailed Android setup

instructions.

SETTING UP FOR THE iOS PLATFORM

Xcode
Install the latest stable version of Xcode either from the Mac App Store (Xcode) or
the web (Xcode). Follow the prompts for installation. Xcode installation will install
command-line tools as well. Refer to Flutter documentation (Install Xcode) for
detailed instructions on installing and setting up Xcode.

iOS Simulator
On Mac, open the Simulator using command `open -a simulator`. At the time
of this writing, the default simulator is iPhone SE (2nd generation) (iPhone SE (2nd
generation)). Refer to documentation (Set up the iOS simulator) for detailed instruc-
tions on setting up an iOS simulator. You can also see device listing using the
`flutter devices` command as below:
```
$ flutter devices
2 connected devices:

Android SDK built for x86 (mobile) • emulator-5554

• android-x86 • Android 10 (API 29) (emulator)
iPhone SE (2nd generation) (mobile) • FCDB9B21-344C-4735-8394-
93F0CF871DB2 • ios •
com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-13-5 (simulator)
```

Test Your Setup

Create a test project using `flutter create testapp`, and run it as shown
below using the simulator identifier. Alternatively, you can choose to run the com-
mand `flutter run` to run testapp on all connected platforms.
```
flutter create testapp
cd testapp
flutter run -d FCDB9B21-344C-4735-8394-93F0CF871DB2
```

Refer to Figure 3.2 to see the default app running in the Android emulator.

iOS Device
You can alternatively run the testapp on an iOS device. Follow the directions (Deploy
to iOS devices) to deploy to iOS devices. You would need to install a third-party
28 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 3.2  TestApp running in iOS

dependency manager CocoaPods (CocoaPods) to manage dependencies. You also

need an Apple Developer account to run iOS apps on a device. Also, you need to
be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program (Apple Developer Program) to release
and distribute apps on the App Store. Refer to the setup directions (iOS setup) for
detailed iOS setup instructions.

SETTING UP FOR WEB

Flutter’s support for the Web is still in the early stages at the time of this writing.
Support for the web is available in the beta channel at this time. Switch to beta
channel using `flutter channel beta`. Don’t forget to run the `flutter
upgrade` command and enable web support.

```
flutter channel beta
flutter upgrade
Setting Up Environment 29

FIGURE 3.3  Android studio’s ‘Run’ toolbar showing chrome devices

flutter config --enable-web

```

Now that the web is enabled for your environment, you should see ‘Chrome (web)’
and ‘Web Server (web)’ listed in your Android Studio’s device listing section in the
top toolbar.
Refer to Figure 3.3 to see Android studio’s ‘Run’ toolbar showing chrome
devices.
You can also see device listing using the `flutter devices` command as
below:

```
$ flutter devices
2 connected devices:

Web Server (web) • web-server • web-javascript • Flutter Tools

Chrome (web) • chrome • web-javascript • Google Chrome
84.0.4147.89
```

Test Your Setup

Create a test project using `flutter create testapp`, and run it as below:

```
flutter create testapp
cd testapp
flutter run -d chrome
```

Refer to Figure 3.4 to see the default app running in the chrome browser.
Refer to Flutter documentation (Building a web application with Flutter) for
detailed web setup instructions.

SETTING UP FOR DESKTOP

Flutter’s support for the desktop is still in pre-early stages at the time of this writ-
ing. Support for the macOS and Linux desktop applications is available in the ‘dev’
channel at this time. Switch to ‘dev’ channel using `flutter channel dev`.
Don’t forget to run the `flutter upgrade` command and enable desktop support.
30 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 3.4  TestApp running in chrome

```
$ flutter channel dev
$ flutter upgrade
//For macOS
$ flutter config --enable-macos-desktop
//For Linux
$ flutter config --enable-linux-desktop
```

Note: You’ll see Linux devices only on a Linux machine.

Now that desktop is enabled for your environment, you should see ‘macOS
(Desktop)’ in addition to ‘Chrome (web)’ and ‘Web Server (web)’ listed in your
Android Studio’s device listing section in the top toolbar.
Refer to Figure 3.5 to see Android studio’s ‘Run’ toolbar showing macOS(desktop)
and chrome devices.
You can also see device listing using the `flutter devices` command as
below:

FIGURE 3.5  Android Studio run toolbar showing macOS desktop and web devices in the
device listing
Setting Up Environment 31

```
$ flutter devices
3 connected devices:

macOS (desktop) • macos • darwin-x64 • Mac OS X

10.15.6 19G73
Web Server (web) • web-server • web-javascript • Flutter Tools
Chrome (web) • chrome • web-javascript • Google Chrome
84.0.4147.105
```

Test Your Setup

Create a test project using `flutter create testapp`, and run it as below:

```
flutter create testapp
cd testapp
flutter run -d macos
```

Refer to Figure 3.6 to see the default app running in the macOS desktop application.
Refer to the documentation (Flutter Dev, 2020) for detailed desktop setup
instructions.

SOURCE CODE ONLINE

This app’s source code for all four platforms is available online at GitHub in the
‘testapp’ project (testapp).

FIGURE 3.6  TestApp running in macOS

32 Pragmatic Flutter

SETTING UP EDITOR
You can choose to build apps in Flutter using any editor or just command line
(Terminal in Mac) along with Flutter command-line tools. You also have the option
to choose the IDE of your choice along with Flutter editor plugins. The Flutter plugin
comes with productivity tools like syntax highlighting, easy and intuitive run and
debug support from IDE, etc. Few options of editors are Android Studio, IntelliJ,
Visual Studio Code, and Emacs. I’m choosing Android Studio to run the code snip-
pets and examples in this book. I chose the Android Studio because it comes with all
the tools needed for Android development. You will need Xcode to prepare your iOS
app to distribute to App Store covered later in this book.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you got pointers for setting up the development environment on
MacOS. You got a high-level view of setting up a development environment for
building Flutter applications for Android, iOS, web, and desktop (macOS) platforms.
You learned to test platform setup for each of the platforms. You got an insight into
IDE options available for Flutter development as well.

REFERENCES
Android Developers. (2020, 12 14). Configure on-device developer options. Retrieved from
developer.android.com: https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/dev-options
Apple. (2020, 11 17). Xcode. Retrieved from Apple Apps: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/
xcode/id497799835
Apple. (2020, 11 17). Xcode. Retrieved from Apple Developer: https://developer.apple.com/
xcode/
Apple. (2020, 12 15). Apple Developer Program. Retrieved from developer.apple.com: https://
developer.apple.com/programs/
Cocoapods.org. (2020, 12 15). CocoaPods. Retrieved from cocoapods.org: https://cocoapods.
org/
Everything curl. (2020, 11 17). command line tool and library. Retrieved from Curl Website:
https://curl.se/
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Deploy to iOS devices. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.
dev/docs/get-started/install/macos#deploy-to-ios-devices
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Desktop support for Flutter. Retrieved from Flutter Development:
https://flutter.dev/desktop
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Building a web application with Flutter. Retrieved from Flutter
Web: https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/web
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Flutter Stable 1.22.4. Retrieved from Download Flutter: https://
storage.googleapis.com/flutter_infra/releases/stable/macos/flutter_macos_1.22.4-
stable.zip
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Get the Flutter SDK. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.
dev/docs/get-started/install/macos#get-sdk
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Install. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
get-started/install
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Install Xcode. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/
docs/get-started/install/macos#install-xcode
Setting Up Environment 33

Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). iOS setup. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
get-started/install/macos#ios-setup
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Set up the iOS simulator. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install/macos#set-up-the-ios-simulator
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 17). Update your path. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/
docs/get-started/install/macos#update-your-path
Git. (2020, 11 17). Download for macOS. Retrieved from Install Git: https://git-scm.com/
download/mac
Google. (2020, 11 17). Android setup. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
get-started/install/macos#android-setup
Google. (2020, 11 17). Install Android Studio. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/
docs/get-started/install/macos#install-android-studio
Priyanka Tyagi. (2020, 11 17). testapp. Retrieved from GitHub: https://github.com/
ptyagicodecamp/testapp
Wikipedia. (2020, 11 17). iPhone SE (2nd generation). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_SE_(2nd_generation)
4 Flutter Project Structure

In this chapter, you’ll develop your understanding of the Flutter project’s structure.
We’ll be creating a Flutter app ‘Hello Books’ for demonstration. The ‘Hello Books’
app will display this greeting in three different languages: Spanish (Hola Libros),
Italian (Ciao Libri), and Hindi (हैल ो िकताब े )ं . The default greeting is displayed in the
English language. All other three greetings are stored in a List (List<E> class) data
structure. The app has a round button to select the greeting randomly from this list.
Figure 4.1 shows the finished ‘Hello Books’ app. Clicking on ‘Smiley’ icon
switches the greeting to a different language.

CHOOSING FLUTTER CHANNEL

We’ll be using the ‘dev’ channel to run the examples in this book since early support
for desktop along with support for web, Android, and iOS is available in this channel.
After switching to the ‘dev’ channel, don’t forget to run `flutter upgrade`. You
should see the following output on the console:

```
Flutter 1.21.0-1.0.pre • channel dev •
https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
Framework • revision f25bd9c55c (2 weeks ago) • 2020-07-14
20:26:01 -0400

FIGURE 4.1  Hello Books App (Finished). Clicking on the ‘Smiley’ icon changes the greeting

35
36 Pragmatic Flutter

Engine • revision 99c2b3a245

Tools • Dart 2.9.0 (build 2.9.0-21.0.dev 20bf2fcf56)
```

You can run the `flutter channel` command to see the active channel marked
with ‘*’.

```
$ flutter channel
Flutter channels:
master
* dev
beta
stable
```

CREATING FLUTTER PROJECT

There are two ways to create Flutter projects: using command-line tools from
Terminal or using IDE. You can also create the project using the command line and
open it from IDE later on.

Using Command Line (terminal)

Run the following command to create a ‘hello_books’ project for the ‘Hello Books’
application.

```
$ flutter create hello_books
```

By default, the package structure is `com.example.hello _ books`. You can

specify your own package name using the command below when creating a project.

```
flutter create --org com.pragmatic_flutter hello_books
```

The above command would set Android’s package name and iOS bundle identifier to

`com.pragmatic_flutter.hello_books`.

You can open this project in Android Studio by clicking on the ‘Open an existing
Android Studio Project’ option on the launch screen, as shown in Figure 4.2.

Using IDE (Android Studio)

‘Start a New Flutter Project’ Screen
Start a new project by selecting this option on the launch screen as shown in Figure 4.3.
Flutter Project Structure 37

FIGURE 4.2  Android Studio launch screen displaying ‘Open an existing Android Studio
Project’ option

FIGURE 4.3  ‘Start a New Flutter Project’ screen

38 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 4.4  ‘New Flutter Project’ screen

‘New Flutter Project’ Screen

This screen gives you the option to create a Flutter project, a Flutter module, pack-
age, or plugin. Since we’re creating a Flutter application, so choose the ‘Flutter
Application’ option as shown in Figure 4.4.

‘New Flutter Application’ Screen

Configure options for the new Flutter application on this screen shown in Figure 4.5.

FIGURE 4.5  ‘New Flutter Application’ screen (configuring project)

Flutter Project Structure 39

FIGURE 4.6  ‘New Flutter Application’ screen (setting package name)

Next, provide the package name to organize the source code. You also need to
select the support for ‘andoidx artifacts’ and Kotlin and Swift language support for
Android and iOS platforms as displayed in Figure 4.6.

CROSS-PLATFORM FLUTTER PROJECT STRUCTURE

The Flutter project has shared code in the ‘lib’ folder. Each platform has its own
folder to keep the platform-specific code. There are ‘android’, ‘iOS’, ‘web’, ‘linux’,
and ‘macOS’ folders for each platform Flutter app can be deployed to. The visual for
project structure is shown in Figure 4.7.
Let’s check out the details of significant project directories and files below:

• lib/: This folder contains all Dart files. This is a shared code across all
platforms like iOS, Web, Desktop, and embedded devices. In this book,
we’re focusing on Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop (macOS) only.
• android/: This folder contains native Android code, including
AndroidManifest.xml.
• ios/: This folder contains the iOS application’s native code in the Swift
language.
• web/: This folder includes ‘index.html’, assets that can be deployed to
the public hosting site.
• linux/: This folder contains the Linux platform-related code. This folder
is generated by enabling the support for desktop (Linux) but can only be
compiled on a Linux machine.
• macos/: This folder contains native code for the macOS platform.
40 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 4.7  Flutter project structure in Android Studio

• test/: This folder contains all unit testing classes.

• pubspec.yaml: This is the dependency management and configuration
file for the Flutter application.

RUNNING DEFAULT APP: ANDROID, iOS, WEB, AND DESKTOP

In this section, we will run the ‘hello_books’ Flutter application on all four platforms:
Android, iOS, web, and desktop (macOS). Let’s run the ‘hello_books’ project on all
four platforms together using one simple command, ‘flutter run -d all’.

Android Platform
The Hello Books app running on Android emulator is shown in Figure 4.8.

iOS Platform
The Hello Books app running on iOS simulator is shown in Figure 4.9.

Web Platform
The Hello Books app running in Chrome browser is shown in Figure 4.10.
Flutter Project Structure 41

FIGURE 4.8  Hello Books running on Android emulator

Desktop (macOS) Platform

The Hello Books app running on macOS platform is shown in Figure 4.11.

Source Code Online

Source code for the ‘hello_books’ project is available at GitHub (Chapter04: Flutter
Project Structure (hello_books)).

RUNNING CODE SAMPLES

Flutter’s documentation is developer-friendly and easy to follow. It comes with a vast
library of sample code snippets. It provides the support to create Flutter applications
using sample code IDs and run it as a standalone Flutter app.
42 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 4.9  Hello Books running on iOS simulator

Listing Sample Code IDs

The following command dumps the sample code identifiers/IDs in file ‘samples.json’.

```
flutter create --list-samples=samples.json
```

Contents of File ‘samples.json’

Below is a small snippet of the file. This particular sample code demonstrates the
usage of a ‘BottomAppBar’ widget and a docked ‘FloatingActionButton’
in it. You’ll learn about the widgets and building interfaces in upcoming chap-
ters. The purpose of this section is to learn to explore Flutter’s official sample
code on your own.
Flutter Project Structure 43

FIGURE 4.10  Hello Books running on the web platform

FIGURE 4.11  Hello Books running on macOS platform

44 Pragmatic Flutter

```
[
{
"sourcePath": "lib/src/material/scaffold.dart",
"sourceLine": 1009,
"id": "material.Scaffold.3",
"channel": "master",
"serial": "3",
"package": "flutter",
"library": "material",
"element": "Scaffold",
"file": "material.Scaffold.3.dart",
"description": "This example shows a [Scaffold] with an
[AppBar], a [BottomAppBar] and a\n[FloatingActionButton]. The
[body] is a [Text] placed in a [Center] in order\nto center the
text within the [Scaffold]. The [FloatingActionButton]
is\ncentered and docked within the [BottomAppBar] using\
n[FloatingActionButtonLocation.centerDocked]. The
[FloatingActionButton] is\nconnected to a callback that
increments a counter.\n\n![](https://flutter.github.io/assets-
for-api-docs/assets/material/scaffold_bottom_app_bar.png)"
},

]
```

Creating Apps from Sample Code

Once you have got the sample id for the sample code, replace it in the following com-
mand. You also need to provide the name of the sample app that you’re importing
this code snippet into.

```
$ flutter create --sample=<id> <your_app_name>
```

Create an app for the sample id “material.Scaffold.3” using the above command as
below:

```
$ flutter create --sample=material.Scaffold.3
app_scaffold_demo
```

Once the project is created, go inside the project directory and run the app on all
targets.

```
$ cd app_scaffold_demo
$ flutter run -d all
```
Flutter Project Structure 45

FIGURE 4.12  Creating app from sample code ID (docked FloatingActionButton in

BottomAppBar widget)

App created using the sample code id ‘material.Scaffold.3’. This app shows
a docked ‘FloatingActionButton’ (FloatingActionButton class) in the
‘BottomAppBar’ (BottomAppBar class) widget as shown in Figure 4.12. We will
learn more about the Flutter application’s anatomy and widgets in the upcoming
chapters.

Source Code Online

Source code for the ‘app _ scaffold _ demo’ project is available at GitHub
(Chapter04: Flutter Project Structure).

USEFUL COMMANDS
Lastly, let’s reiterate the essential and useful commands used in Flutter development
as below:

• flutter doctor: Checks if your machine has all the needed packages
and software to build flutter apps.
• flutter create: Generates new flutter app.
46 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 4.13  Available commands for Flutter

• flutter build: Builds flutter app.

• flutter run: Run flutter app on an attached device. It gives you the
option to select a device from the connected devices.
• flutter help: You can run ’flutter help’ in the command line
to list all other available commands. A screenshot of available commands
is shown in Figure 4.13.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to create the Flutter project from the command line as
well as from the Android Studio IDE. You learned to open a preexisting Flutter
project from Android Studio. You learned about the Flutter release channels and
when to pick the ‘dev’ channel over the ‘stable’ or ‘beta’ channels. Finally, you also
learned how to create a Flutter project from sample code and run it. In the next
chapter (Chapter 05: Flutter App Structure), you’ll learn about the anatomy and app
structure of the ‘Hello Books’ Flutter application.

REFERENCES
Dart Team. (2020, 11 17). List<E> class. Retrieved from Dart Dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.8.4/dart-core/List-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). BottomAppBar class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/material/BottomAppBar-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). FloatingActionButton class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/material/FloatingActionButton-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Chapter04: Flutter Project Structure. Retrieved from Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/app_scaffold_demo
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Chapter04: Flutter Project Structure (hello_books). Retrieved from
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/hello_books
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 05: Flutter App Structure. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
5 Flutter App Structure

In this chapter, you will develop your understanding of the Flutter application’s
structure using the HelloBooksApp from the previous chapter (Chapter 04: Flutter
Project Structure). The app starts displaying a greetings text ‘Hello Books’ in the
center of the device’s screen. This app will display this greeting in three different
languages: Spanish (Hola Libros), Italian (Ciao Libri), and Hindi (हैलो िकताबे )ं , in addi-
tion to the English language as the default. All other three greetings are stored in a
List (List<E> class) data structure `greetings`.

```
final List<String> greetings = [
'Hello Books',
'Hola Libros',
'Ciao Libri',
'हैलो िकताबें',
];
```

The app has a round floating button in the bottom right corner with a smiley icon to
select the next message from this list. Figure 5.1 shows transitioning from English
text to the next Spanish text. Each click on the smiley button will fetch the next mes-
sage in the list. After reaching the last message in the list, it will resume from the
first message in the `greetings` list.

FIGURE 5.1  Finished HelloBooksApp

47
48 Pragmatic Flutter

FLUTTER WIDGETS
StatelessWidget
A StatelessWidget (StatelessWidget class) widget is immutable. Once it’s cre-
ated, it can’t be changed. It doesn’t preserve its state. A stateless widget is created
only once, and it cannot be rebuild at a later time. Stateless widget’s 'build()'
method is called only once.
Let’s use the Container (Container Widget) widget to understand creating a
custom StatelessWidget. A container widget is a convenience widget that com-
bines common painting, positioning, and sizing widgets.
The following code snippet demonstrates how a Container widget is created in
a stateless manner. This widget is created only once.

```
class MyStatelessWidget extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Container();
}
}
```

Stateless widgets don’t keep track of their state. Once they are created, their value
can’t be changed. If the value of the stateless widget needs to be changed, then new
widgets need to be created with the updated value. Some of the examples of Stateless
widgets are below:

• Text widget (Text Widget): It contains the immutable string of letters.

• Icon widget (Icon Widget): The icon widget is immutable and not meant
for interaction.
• Card widget (Card Widget): It is a material design card that is used to show
relevant information.

Figure 5.2 shows few examples of StatelessWidget.

FIGURE 5.2  Examples of StatelessWidget

Flutter App Structure 49

StatefulWidget
A StatefulWidget (StatefulWidget) widget is mutable. It keeps track of the state.
It rebuilds several times over its lifetime. A Stateful widget’s `build()` method is
called multiple times.

```
class MyStatefulWidget extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_MyStatefulWidgetState createState() =>
_MyStatefulWidgetState();
}
class _MyStatefulWidgetState extends State<MyStatefulWidget> {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Container();
}
}
```

Some of the examples of Stateful widgets are below. They’re meant to keep track of
their state.

• Checkbox (Checkbox class): Keeps track of its state whether a checkbox

is checked or not.
• Radio (Radio<T> class): Needs to remember its state if it’s selected or not.
• TextField (TextField class): The TextField widgets enable users to type
in the text. That means it needs to keep track of what the user has already typed.

Figure 5.3 shows examples of StatefulWidget.

In the HelloBooksApp, we’ll use StatefulWidget to implement the ‘Smiley’
round button to change the greeting display text.

DISPLAY ‘HELLO BOOKS’ TEXT

We will start building the HelloBooksApp by displaying the ‘Hello Books’ text.
The app makes use of Material Design (Material Design). The MaterialApp

FIGURE 5.3  Examples of StatefulWidget

50 Pragmatic Flutter

(MaterialApp class) widget is used to implement material design. The class

`HelloBooksApp` extends `StatelessWidget`. A Flutter application is a state-
less widget because it’s immutable. It can have mutable and immutable widgets as
its children. The `HelloBooksApp` widget implements the `build()` method of
parent `StatelessWidget`. The `build()` method is responsible for composing
the widgets to build the user interface. In this `build()` method, MaterialApp
widget is returned. The Text (Text class) widget is used to display the ‘Hello Books’
text. Let’s create a MaterialApp and display ‘Hello Books’ text in the code below:

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
// This widget is the root of your application.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
//Text Widget without SafeArea
home: Text('Hello Books'),
);
}
}
```

The Flutter app during development has a debug banner at the top right corner.
You can remove it by setting the flag `debugShowCheckedModeBanner` in
MaterialApp to `false`.

Entry Point
We have HelloBooksApp ready to run on devices. We need to specify an entry point
where the compiler can start executing the app code. The `main()` method in most of
the programming languages is the method from which the compiler starts execution.

```
void main() {
runApp(HelloBooksApp());
}
```

Output
The text string ‘Hello Books’ is visible on the screen, as shown in Figure 5.4. You’ll
see the Text widget displaying ‘Hello Books’ aligned to the top of the screen.

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter App Structure: Display ‘Hello Books’ text) is
available at GitHub.
Flutter App Structure 51

FIGURE 5.4  ‘Hello Books’ displayed without SafeArea

ADD CUSHION AROUND THE TEXT

At this point, we have the text ‘Hello Books’ glued to the top of the screen. The
top part of the screen is used for showing system notifications. The Text widget
overlapping system notification is not a good design and usability decision. This
is where the SafeArea (Google, 2020) widget comes in handy. Wrapping Text
widget in SafeArea provides the safety padding to avoid the operating system level
notifications.

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: SafeArea(
52 Pragmatic Flutter

child: Text('Hello Books'),

),
);
}
}
```

Output
The ‘Hello Books’ text is padded from the top and provides enough space for the
operating system notifications.
Figure 5.5 shows the ‘Hello Books’ text rendered in a SafeArea widget.

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter App Structure: Add cushion around text) is avail-
able at GitHub.

FIGURE 5.5  ‘Hello Books’ displayed wrapped in SafeArea widget

Flutter App Structure 53

CENTER THE TEXT

Now that we have ‘Hello Books’ rendered with enough padding from the top, we want
to display text in the middle of the screen. The Center (Center class) widget centers its
child. Wrapping the Text (Text class) widget in the Center widget displays the ‘Hello
Books’ in the screen’s center.

Code
```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: SafeArea(
child: Center(
child: Text('Hello Books'),
),
),
);
}
}
```

Output
The ‘Hello Books’ text is centered in the middle of the screen.
Refer to Figure 5.6 to see ‘Hello Books’ and its parent widget Center wrapped in
SafeArea widget.

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter App Structure: Center the text) is available at
GitHub.

APP ANATOMY #1
The HelloBooksApp is made of MaterialApp, SafeArea, Center, and Text wid-
gets. The MaterialApp widget is at the root level. SafeArea widget is added as its
child. SafeArea widget’s child is Center, which wraps a Text widget in it. Figure 5.7
shows this relationship visually.

APP ANATOMY #2
Let’s improvise the app to look more like the finished app. We’ll be add-
ing new widgets like Scaffold (Scaffold class), AppBar (AppBar class), and
FloatingActionButton (FloatingActionButton) next.
Figure 5.8 demonstrates the final version of Hello Books app.
54 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 5.6  ‘Hello Books’ wrapped in SafeArea and Center widget. Center widget aligns
its child in the center of the screen

The Scaffold Widget

The MaterialApp widget is the starting point of the app. It’s used to inform Flutter
that the app is going to use material components (Components). Material compo-
nents are interactive building blocks to create a user interface. The Scaffold wid-
get is used as the child to MaterialApp widget. It implements the material design
basic visual layout structure and provides basic functionalities like app bar, floating
action button, etc., for the app.
```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
home: Scaffold(),
);
}
```
Flutter App Structure 55

FIGURE 5.7  Anatomy#1 – Hello Books Flutter App

FIGURE 5.8  Anatomy#2 – Hello Books Flutter App

56 Pragmatic Flutter

The AppBar Widget

The AppBar (AppBar class) widget implements the material design app bar. It
assigns a title to the page using the `title` property.

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text('Hello Books'),
),
),
);
}
```

The FloatingActionButton Widget

The FloatingActionButton (FloatingActionButton class) widget imple-
ments the material design floating action button. The Scaffold widget’s
`floatingActionButton` property assigns FloatingActionButton to
the app. The smiley icon is implemented using the Icon widget as a child to
FloatingActionButton.

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
home: Scaffold(
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: () {},
tooltip: 'Greeting',
child: Icon(Icons.insert_emoticon),
),
),
);
}
```

Styling Text Widget

The MaterialApp comes with a built-in material design text theme. It can be
accessed using `Theme.of(context).textTheme` for the given widget. The
theme supports different sizes for text. We’re choosing `headline4` to style the
text. Themes are covered in detail in a later chapter (Chapter 10: Flutter Themes).
Flutter App Structure 57

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
home: Scaffold(
body: Center(
child: Text(
'Hello Books',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
),
),
);
}
```

Complete Code
The HelloBooksApp code is ready to run. The full implementation is shown in the
code snippet below:

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text('Hello Books'),
),
body: Center(
child: Text(
'Hello Books',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: () {},
tooltip: 'Greeting',
child: Icon(Icons.insert_emoticon),
),
),
);
}
}
```
58 Pragmatic Flutter

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter App Structure: App Anatomy#2) is available
at GitHub.

Managing State with StatefulWidget

We want to change the greetings text by clicking the smiley floating action button.
First, we need to store all the greetings in a list. Second, we need to enable the float-
ing action button to pick the next available string from the list.
We need StatefulWidget to keep track of the current state of the selected
greeting. Let’s go ahead and create a StatefulWidget, say MyHomePage. This
widget is assigned as `home` to MaterialApp.

```
class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
...
home: MyHomePage(title: 'Hello Books'),
);
}
}
```

StatefulWidget: MyHomePage
The Stateful widgets are useful when a part of the screen needs to be updated
with new information. In our app, we want to update the greeting text while rest of
the screen remains unchanged. The MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget and
accepts a title parameter. The widget has a mutable state and represented using
class ` _ MyHomePageState`.

```
class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);
final String title;
@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {}
```

State Widget: _ MyHomePageState

The widgets are rebuilt whenever the state change is requested from the `set-
State` (setState method) method. Let’s see how it’s done in HelloBooksApp. The
Flutter App Structure 59

FloatingActionButton is pressed by the user, which updates the currently

selected greeting to display on the screen.
```
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
//Spanish (Hola Libros), Italian (Ciao Libri), and Hindi
(हैलो िकताबें)
final List<String> greetings = [
'Hello Books',
'Hola Libros',
'Ciao Libri',
'हैलो िकताबें',
];

int index = 0;
String current;
void _updateGreeting() {
setState(() {
current = greetings[index];
index = index == (greetings.length - 1) ? 0 : index + 1;
});
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(widget.title),
),
body: Center(
child: Text(
greetings[index],
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: _updateGreeting,
tooltip: 'Greeting',
child: Icon(Icons.insert_emoticon),
),
);
}
}
```

The `greetings` list contains greetings in four languages. The variable

`index` keeps the index of the currently selected item in the `greetings`
list. On pressing smiley floating action button or FAB calls ` _ updateGreet-
ing` method. The ` _ updateGreeting` method updates currently selected
greeting text and updates `index` by one. The `index` is reset to zero when it
reaches the end of the list.
60 Pragmatic Flutter

Complete Code
The full implementation, including updating the text’s language, is in the code below:

```
//Entry point to the app
void main() {
runApp(HelloBooksApp());
}

class HelloBooksApp extends StatelessWidget {

// This widget is the root of your application.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: MyHomePage(title: 'Hello Books'),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {

MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);
final String title;
@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
//Spanish (Hola Libros), Italian (Ciao Libri), and Hindi
(हैलो िकताबें)
final List<String> greetings = [
'Hello Books',
'Hola Libros',
'Ciao Libri',
'हैलो िकताबें',
];

int index = 0;
String current;
void _updateGreeting() {
setState(() {
current = greetings[index];
index = index == (greetings.length - 1)? 0 : index + 1;
});
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(widget.title),
Flutter App Structure 61

),
body: Center(
child: Text(
greetings[index],
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: _updateGreeting,
tooltip: 'Greeting',
child: Icon(Icons.insert_emoticon),
),
);
}
}
```

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter App Structure: HelloBooksApp) is available
at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned about the Flutter application’s structure and anatomy.
You learned about the basic building blocks to build HelloBooksApp. We started
building the app by displaying the text on the screen. First you looked into the
bare minimum Flutter app’s anatomy. Then the app is improvised using material
components. The final HelloBooksApp included a FAB to pick a different greet-
ing text from the list. You are also introduced to the basic Flutter widgets like
MaterialApp, Container, AppBar, Scaffold, FloatingActionButton,
Text, StatelessWidget, and StatefulWidget.

REFERENCES
Dart Dev. (2020, 11 17). List<E> class. Retrieved from Dart Dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.8.4/dart-core/List-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). AppBar class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/AppBar-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Card Widget. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/Card-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Center class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Center-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Components. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://material.io/
components
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Container Widget. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Container-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). FloatingActionButton. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/FloatingActionButton-class.html
62 Pragmatic Flutter

Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). FloatingActionButton class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/material/FloatingActionButton-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Icon Widget. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Icon-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). MaterialApp class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/MaterialApp-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Scaffold class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/Scaffold-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). setState method. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/State/setState.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). StatefulWidget. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/StatefulWidget-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). StatelessWidget class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/StatelessWidget-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Text class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/Text-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 17). Text Widget. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Text-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 17). Checkbox class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/Checkbox-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 17). Material Design. Retrieved from material.io: https://material.io/design
Google. (2020, 11 17). Radio<T> class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/Radio-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 17). SafeArea class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/SafeArea-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 17). Text class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/Text-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 17). TextField class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
material/TextField-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Flutter App Structure: Add cushion around text. Retrieved from
Chapter05: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter05/main_05_1.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Flutter App Structure: App Anatomy#2. Retrieved from Chapter05:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter05/main_05_3.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Flutter App Structure: Center the text. Retrieved from Chapter05:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter05/main_05_2.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Flutter App Structure: Display ‘Hello Books’ text. Retrieved from
Chapter05: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter05/main_05_0.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 17). Flutter App Structure: HelloBooksApp. Retrieved from Chapter05:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter05/main_05_4.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 04: Flutter Project Structure. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter:
Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 10: Flutter Themes. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
6 Flutter Widgets

In the previous chapter (Chapter 05: Flutter App Structure), you’re briefly introduced
to a few basic widgets to create a user interface to display ‘Hello Books’ text in
the middle of the screen. You were introduced to the MaterialApp, Scaffold,
AppBar, Center, FAB, Text, and Icon widgets. There are many more widgets
that are used in real-world apps. In this chapter, we will touch base with more wid-
gets to create more ambitious interfaces.

Image WIDGET
In this section, you’ll learn to use the Image (Image class) widget to display an image
in the Flutter application from the local assets folder as well as over the Internet.

Local Image
In the following example, you will learn to display images from the local folder
assets at the root level of the project. Create a folder assets at the project’s root level
if you don’t have one already. Add an image file that you want to display in the
Flutter application’s screen. I have file ‘flutter_icon.png’ available in the ‘assets’
folder. In order to add assets to your application, you need to add an `assets` sec-
tion under the `flutter` section in the pubspec.yaml file.

```
flutter:
assets:
- assets/flutter_icon.png
```

Let’s create a method `loadLocalImage()` to return the Image widget. This

widget is added as the child to the Container widget, as shown in the code below:

```
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Image Widget"),
),
body: Center(
child: Container(
width: 300,
height: 300,
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(20.0),
child: loadLocalImage(),

63
64 Pragmatic Flutter

),
),
);
}

Widget loadLocalImage() {
return Image.asset("assets/flutter_icon.png");
}
```

Figure 6.1 shows the Image widget loading image from the local assets folder.

Internet (remote) Image

The image can also be displayed using the URL. The `loadInternetImage()`
fetches and loads images in the Image widget using `Image.network()` con-
structor. This widget is added as the child to the Container widget.

FIGURE 6.1  Image widget loading image from local ‘assets’ folder
Flutter Widgets 65

```
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Image Widget"),
),
body: Center(
child: Container(
width: 300,
height: 300,
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(20.0),
child: loadInternetImage(),
),
),
);
}

Widget loadInternetImage() {
return Image.network( "https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
flutter_cookbook2/raw/master/assets/flutter_icon.png");
}
```

Figure 6.2 shows the Image widget loading image from the URL.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: Image) is available at GitHub.

ToggleButtons WIDGET
In the previous section, we learned to load an image from local assets and from
the URL in the Image widget. In this section, we will use ToggleButtons
(ToggleButtons class) widget to add two toggle buttons horizontally. The first button
is to turn airplane mode off, and another is to turn airplane mode on.

Airplane Mode Off

When airplane mode is off, applications can access the Internet. The toggle button
airplane_mode_off loads an image from an Internet URL.
Refer to Figure 6.3 to see image loading from url.

Airplane Mode On
When airplane mode is on, the application can’t access the Internet and can only
access the local assets. The toggle button airplane_mode_on loads an image from
the local assets folder.
Refer to Figure 6.4 to see image loading locally from ‘assets’ folder.
66 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 6.2  Image widget loading image from the URL

Using ToggleButtons Widget

The two toggle buttons are added to the layout as below:

```
ToggleButtons(
children: [
Icon(Icons.airplanemode_off),
Icon(Icons.airplanemode_on),
],
isSelected: [!isLocal, isLocal],
onPressed: (int index) {
setState(() {
isLocal = !isLocal;
});
},
),
```
Flutter Widgets 67

FIGURE 6.3  Toggle button airplane_mode_off loads image from Internet URL

The `isLocal` is a variable of type `bool` that toggles itself every time one of the
toggle buttons is selected.

```
bool isLocal = true;
class _MyImageWidgetState extends State<MyImageWidget> {
...
Container(
width: 300,
height: 300,
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(20.0),
child: isLocal == true
? Image.asset("assets/flutter_icon.png")
: Image.network(
"https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/flutter_cookbook2/
raw/master/assets/flutter_icon.png"),
),
68 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 6.4  Toggle button airplane_mode_on loads image from local ‘assets’ folder

...
}
```

When `isLocal` is `true`, the image is loaded from the local assets folder, other-
wise, it’s fetched over the network using the URL.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: ToggleButtons) is available at
GitHub.

TextField WIDGET
The TextField (TextField class) widget lets the user enter the text using hardware
or an on-screen keyboard. The TextEditingController (TextEditingController
class) manages the widget by allowing users enter text, submitting, and finally
clearing the text. We will be using a StatefulWidget for this example. The
Flutter Widgets 69

` _ MyTextFieldWidgetState` holds the state of this widget. It has a reference

to the TextEditingController as ` _ controller`. The `userText` vari-
able contains the text entered in the `TextField` widget.

```
class MyTextFieldWidget extends StatefulWidget {
MyTextFieldWidget({Key key}) : super(key: key);
@override
_
MyTextFieldWidgetState createState() =>
_MyTextFieldWidgetState();
}
class _MyTextFieldWidgetState extends State<MyTextFieldWidget> {
TextEditingController _controller;
String userText = "";
...
}
```

This controller needs to be initialized inside the `initState()` method. Remember

to remove the controller in the `dispose()` method to avoid memory leaks.

```
class _MyTextFieldWidgetState extends State<MyTextFieldWidget> {
...

void initState() {
super.initState();
_controller = TextEditingController();
}
void dispose() {
_controller.dispose();
super.dispose();
}
...
}
```

Next, let’s add the TextField widget as one of the children to the Column layout
widget. The TextField widget’s `autofocus` property is set to `true` to prompt
users to enter text. The TextEditingController reference ` _ controller`
is assigned to the `controller` property. The `onSubmitted` property tells the
widget what to do with the entered text. In this example, the entered text `value`
is assigned to the `userText` variable. The `TextField` widget is cleared using
` _ controller.clear()`.

```
class _MyTextFieldWidgetState extends State<MyTextFieldWidget> {
TextEditingController _controller;
...
70 Pragmatic Flutter

Widget build(BuildContext context) {

return Scaffold(
...,
body: Padding(
...,
child: Column(
children: [
TextField(
autofocus: true,
controller: _controller,
onSubmitted: (String value) async {
setState(() {
userText = value;
_controller.clear();
});
},
),
...,
],
),
),
);
}
}
```

Add a Text widget below the TextField to display the text entered by the user
once they click on the ‘Done’ or ‘Check’ button/mark depending on the pop-up
software/hardware keyboard.
```
class _MyTextFieldWidgetState extends State<MyTextFieldWidget> {
...
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
...,
body: Padding(
...,
child: Column(
children: [
. .,
Text("User entered: $userText"),
],
),
),
);
}
}
```

Figure 6.5 shows the user enters text in the TextField widget.
Flutter Widgets 71

FIGURE 6.5  User entered the text input

Once the user hits the done button or checkmark on the keyboards, the entered
text is displayed in the Text widget under it. The TextField is cleared and ready
for the user to input new text as shown in Figure 6.6.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: TextField) is available at
GitHub.

FutureBuilder ASYNC WIDGET

Sometimes applications don’t receive the data required to build the interface all at
once. It can happen when data is being retrieved over the network from a server
remotely. In such cases, information is received asynchronously using Dart’s Future
(Future<T> class) or Stream (Asynchronous programming: streams) classes. The
72 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 6.6  The entered text is displayed in `Text` widget. The `TextField` is reset

FutureBuilder (FutureBuilder<T> class) is a widget that builds itself based on

the snapshot returned from the Future class.
In this example, we will mock two types of Future objects. The first sample
Future object is `_futureData`. It’ll return an integer ‘3’ after a delay of three
seconds.

Future Data Object

```
Future<int> _futureData = Future<int>.
delayed(Duration(seconds: 3), () => 3);
```

Future Error Object

The second Future object, ` _ futureError`, returns an error with the message
‘Sample error’.
Flutter Widgets 73

```
Future<int> _futureError =
Future<int>.delayed(Duration(seconds: 3), () => throw
("Sample error"));

```

FutureBuilder Widget
The FutureBuilder (FutureBuilder<T> class) widget builds widgets for the
interface based on the snapshot received from the Future object. The Future
object ` _ futureData` is assigned to its `future` property. The `builder`
property is given to the constructor with `AsyncSnapshot<int> snapshot`.
It uses `snapshot` to build the `futureChild` widget. When the `snapshot`
has data, it displays the data received in a Text widget. If an error is received, then
an error message is displayed. When the app is still waiting for data to arrive, a cir-
cular progress indicator is shown. The `futureChild` is added as a child to the
Center widget.

```
FutureBuilder<int> (
future: _futureData,
b
uilder: (BuildContext context, AsyncSnapshot<int>
snapshot) {
Widget futureChild;
if (snapshot.hasData) {
//success
futureChild = Text("Number received is
${snapshot.data}");
} else if (snapshot.hasError) {
//show error message
futureChild = Text("Error occurred fetching data
[${snapshot.error}]");
} else {
//waiting for data to arrive
futureChild = CircularProgressIndicator();
}

return Center(
child: futureChild,
);
},
),
```

The circular progress bar `CircularProgressIndicator()` is presented to the

user when waiting for data to arrive as shown in Figure 6.7.
Figure 6.8 displays the data returned asynchronously from the Future object.
74 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 6.7  Circular progress bar while waiting for data to arrive

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: FutureBuilder Async Widget) is
available at GitHub.

Placeholder WIDGET
In the previous widget FutureBuilder, a circular progress bar is displayed on
the screen when the app is waiting for data to arrive. When this asynchronous data
contains information about an image intended to be displayed, it makes sense to
show a placeholder for this image. The Placeholder (Placeholder class) widget
does precisely that. It draws a box that indicates that a new widget will be added at
some point in the future.
Let’s create a mock Future object that returns the image information delivered
asynchronously. The ` _ futureData` is a Future object that fetches the name of
the asset image to be displayed with a delay of three seconds.
Flutter Widgets 75

FIGURE 6.8  Displaying the data returned asynchronously

```
Future<String> _futureData = Future<String>.delayed(
Duration(seconds: 3), () => 'assets/flutter_icon.png');

```

The FutureBuilder widget displays the image using the Image widget when
asynchronous data is available, otherwise, it shows a Placeholder widget inside
a Container widget.

```
FutureBuilder<String>(
future: _futureData,
builder: (BuildContext context, AsyncSnapshot<String> snapshot)
{
Widget futureChild;
if (snapshot.hasData) {
76 Pragmatic Flutter

//success
futureChild = Image.asset(snapshot.data);
} else {
//Placeholder widget while waiting for data to arrive
futureChild = Container(
height: 200,
width: 200,
child: Placeholder(
color: Colors.deepPurple,
),
);
}
return Center(
child: futureChild,
);
},
),
```

Figure 6.9 is displaying the placeholder while waiting for data.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: Placeholder) is available at GitHub.

StreamBuilder ASYNC WIDGET

The StreamBuilder (StreamBuilder class) is a widget that builds itself based
on the asynchronous data events received from a Stream. A Stream (Stream<T>
class) is a source of asynchronous data events. Let’s create two mock streams to
understand the usage of StreamBuilder widget.

Stream Data Object

The ` _ streamData` is a stream of results/responses that send an integer ‘3’ after
a delay of three seconds. It also introduces a delay of additional three seconds after
yielding the event.

```
Stream<int> _streamData = (() async* {
await Future<void>.delayed(Duration(seconds: 3));
yield 3;
await Future<void>.delayed(Duration(seconds: 3));
})();
```

Stream Error Object

The ` _ streamError` yields an error after a delay of three seconds.
Flutter Widgets 77

FIGURE 6.9  Displaying the placeholder while waiting for data

```
Stream<int> _streamError = (() async* {
await Future<void>.delayed(Duration(seconds: 3));
yield throw ("Error in calculating number");
})();
```

StreamBuilder Widget
The StreamBuilder widget reads ` _ streamData` using its `stream` prop-
erty. The `builder` takes the asynchronous snapshot events received from the
stream and creates a child widget, `futureChild`. If an error is received, the
error message is displayed on the screen in a Text widget. The `snapshot.con-
nectionState` provides the state of the connection. When the connection state
is `ConnectionState.done`, the data received is displayed in the Text widget.
When the connection state is active, it says “Loading....” on the screen. In any
other state, a circular progress indicator widget is shown on the screen.
78 Pragmatic Flutter

```
StreamBuilder<int>(
stream: _streamData,
builder: (BuildContext context, AsyncSnapshot<int> snapshot)
{
Widget futureChild;
if (snapshot.hasError) {
//show error message
futureChild =
Text("Error occurred fetching data
[${snapshot.error}]");
} else if (snapshot.connectionState ==
ConnectionState.done) {
//success
futureChild = Text("Number received is ${snapshot.
data}");
} else if (snapshot.connectionState ==
ConnectionState.active) {
//stream is connected but not finished yet.
futureChild = Text("Loading....");
} else if (snapshot.connectionState ==
ConnectionState.waiting) {
//waiting for data to arrive
futureChild = CircularProgressIndicator();
} else {
futureChild = CircularProgressIndicator();
}
return Center(
child: futureChild,
);
},
),
```

The circular progress bar is displayed while waiting for events in Figure 6.10.
Figure 6.11 shows the stream events’ data printed on the screen.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: StreamBuilder Async Widget) is
available at GitHub.

AlertDialog WIDGET
The AlertDialog (AlertDialog class) is a material design alert dialog. An alert
dialog informs the user about situations that require acknowledgment. An alert dia-
log has an optional title, optional content, and an optional list of actions. The title
is displayed above the content, and the actions are shown below the content. This
example will demonstrate the alert dialog widget for Android and iOS platforms.
Flutter Widgets 79

FIGURE 6.10  Circular progress bar while waiting for events

We will add two buttons using ElevatedButton widget to show alert dialog for
each platform.

ElevatedButton
First, let’s add two buttons to open Material and Cupertino (iOS) style alert dialogs.
The ElevatedButton (ElevatedButton class) widget is used to add buttons to
show two variations of AlertDialog.

```
Center(
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceAround,
children: [
ElevatedButton(
child: Text("Material"),
onPressed: () {
_showMaterialDialog(context);
80 Pragmatic Flutter

},
),
ElevatedButton(
child: Text("Cupertino"),
onPressed: () {
_showCupertinoDialog(context);
},
),
],
),
),
```

Clicking on the Material button opens the Material alert dialog, and Cupertino will
open an iOS-style alert dialog.
Figure 6.12 demonstrates AlertDialog widgets for Material and Cupertino (iOS)
styles.

FIGURE 6.11  Displaying stream events

Flutter Widgets 81

FIGURE 6.12  ‘ElevatedButton’ widgets showing two variations of AlertDialog

Material Style
Material Component AlertDialog widget is created as shown in the code snippet
below:

```
Future<void> _showMaterialDialog(BuildContext context) async
{
return showDialog<void>(
context: context,
barrierDismissible: false,
builder: (BuildContext context) {
return AlertDialog(
title: Text("Material"),
content: Text("I'm Material AlertDialog Widget."),
actions: <Widget>[
TextButton(
82 Pragmatic Flutter

child: Text('Cancel'),
onPressed: () {
Navigator.of(context).pop();
},
),
TextButton(
child: Text('OK'),
onPressed: () {
Navigator.of(context).pop();
},
),
],
);
});
}

```

Figure 6.13 shows the Material theme AlertDialog widget.

Cupertino Style
The iOS style AlertDialog widget.

```
Future<void> _showCupertinoDialog(BuildContext context) async
{
return showDialog<void>(
context: context,
barrierDismissible: false,
builder: (BuildContext context) {
return CupertinoAlertDialog(
title: Text("Cupertino"),
content: Text("I'm Cupertino (iOS) AlertDialog
Widget."),
actions: <Widget>[
TextButton(
child: Text('Cancel'),
onPressed: () => Navigator.of(context).pop(),
),
TextButton(
child: Text('OK'),
onPressed: () => Navigator.of(context).pop(),
),
],
);
});
}

```
Flutter Widgets 83

FIGURE 6.13  Material component AlertDialog widget

Figure 6.14 shows the Cupertino style AlertDialog widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Flutter Widgets: AlertDialog) is available at
GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned about some more Flutter widgets. We covered wid-
gets to render images, toggle buttons, and text. You also learned about generat-
ing widgets asynchronously as the data becomes available, using FutureBuilder
and StreamBuilder asynchronous widgets. Finally, we touched on Material and
Cupertino style alert dialogs.
84 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 6.14  Cupertino style AlertDialog widget

REFERENCES
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). AlertDialog class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/AlertDialog-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Asynchronous programming: streams. Retrieved from Dart Dev:
https://dart.dev/tutorials/language/streams
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). ElevatedButton class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/material/ElevatedButton-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Future<T> class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/dart-async/Future-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). FutureBuilder<T> class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/FutureBuilder-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Image class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Image-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Placeholder class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Placeholder-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Stream<T> class. Retrieved from Dart Dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.10.3/dart-async/Stream-class.html
Flutter Widgets 85

Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). StreamBuilder class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/StreamBuilder-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). TextEditingController class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/TextEditingController-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). TextField class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/TextField-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). ToggleButtons class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/ToggleButtons-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: AlertDialog. Retrieved from Chapter06: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/
master/lib/chapter06/widgets/alert_dialog.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: FutureBuilder Async Widget. Retrieved from
Chapter06: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter06/widgets/futurebuilder_widget.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: Image. Retrieved from Chapter06: Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter06/widgets/image_widget.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: Placeholder. Retrieved from Chapter06: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/
master/lib/chapter06/widgets/placeholder_widget.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: StreamBuilder Async Widget. Retrieved from
Chapter06: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter06/widgets/streambuilder_widget.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: TextField. Retrieved from Chapter06: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/
master/lib/chapter06/widgets/textfield.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Flutter Widgets: ToggleButtons. Retrieved from Chapter06: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/
master/lib/chapter06/widgets/togglebuttons_widget.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 05: Flutter App Structure. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
7 Building Layouts

In this chapter, you will learn to build layouts for a Material Flutter application. A
Material app follows the material design guidelines (Material Components widgets).
Flutter also supports building layouts for non-materials applications. You’ll learn
building layouts in Flutter (Layouts in Flutter) using layout Widgets (Layout widgets).
We will begin with revisiting the HelloBooksApp app from previous several
chapters. This will help to understand the process of laying out widgets in a Flutter
application.

REVISITING HelloBooksApp LAYOUT

Let’s revisit the HelloBooksApp from the previous chapter (Chapter 05: Flutter App
Structure) to analyze its four-part process of building its layout.

1. Choosing a layout widget

2. Creating a visible widget to display text
3. Adding visible widget to layout widget
4. Adding a layout widget to the app

Refer to Figure 7.1 to revisit the layout structure of HelloBooksApp.

FIGURE 7.1  Layout of HelloBooksApp

87
88 Pragmatic Flutter

The HelloBooksApp displays a greeting text in the middle of the screen. The
smiley floating action button provides the option to switch the greeting to a different
language on every click.

Layout Widget
In the HelloBooksApp, the greeting text is displayed in the middle of the screen. We
need a layout widget (Layout Widgets) to hold the visible widget displaying the text.
The Center (Center class) layout widget centers its child horizontally and vertically
inside it.

```
Center(
)
```

Visible Widget
The Text widget displays the greeting text.

```
Text(
'Hello Books',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
```

Adding Visible Widget to Layout Widget

The layout Center widget is more like a container. We need to add a visible wid-
get as its descendant. At this point, we have got a layout with a visible text string.

```
Center(
child: Text(
'Hello Books',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
)
```

Adding A Layout Widget to MaterialApp

The last step is to add the layout widget to the MaterialApp. The MaterialApp
provides the Scaffold widget that provides application programming interfaces
(APIs) to add app bars, bottom sheets, navigation drawer, etc. The `body` property
adds the layout widget for the main screen.
Building Layouts 89

```
MaterialApp(
home: Scaffold(
body: Center(
child: Text(
'Hello Books',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
),
),
);
```

In this section, you learned how to add layout widgets in a material Flutter app using
the Center widget. In the rest of the chapter, you’ll explore other layout widgets
which are helpful in arranging widgets as per the app’s design needs.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Revisiting HelloBooksApp source code) is avail-
able at GitHub.

TYPES OF LAYOUT WIDGETS

There are two types of layout widgets:

1. Single child: There can be only one child added for these layouts. Few
examples are: Center (Center class), Container (Container class),
Padding (Padding class), ConstrainedBox (ConstrainedBox class),
Expanded (Expanded class), Flexible (Flexible class), FittedBox
(FittedBox class), FractionallySizedBox (FractionallySizedBox
class), IntrinsicHeight (IntrinsicHeight class), IntrinsicWidth
(IntrinsicWidth class), LimitedBox (LimitedBox class), OverflowBox
(OverflowBox class), SizedOverflowBox (SizedOverflowBox class),
SizedBox (SizedBox class), and Transform (Transform class).
2. Multi-child: Multiple children can be added to this type of layout widgets.
Few examples are: Column (Column class), Row (Row class), Flex (Flex
class), ListView (ListView class), GridView (GridView class), Stack
(Stack class), IndexedStack (IndexedStack class), Flow (Flow class),
LayoutBuilder (LayoutBuilder class), ListBody (ListBody class),
Table (Table class), Wrap (Wrap class).

In the upcoming sections, we will be learning about some of the frequently used
common layout widgets.
90 Pragmatic Flutter

Container WIDGET
The Container (Container class) widget is a simple and versatile layout widget.
It can hold only one child as its descendant. It has versatile properties that can be
leveraged to style its child widget to change the background color or shape and size.
By default, it aligns itself to the top-left corner of the screen.
Let’s add a Text widget with ‘Hello Container’ text as its child. The TextStyle
(Flutter Team, 2020) is applied to make the text’s font ‘30’.

```
Container(
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

The ‘Hello Container’ will render like, as shown in Figure 7.2.

FIGURE 7.2  Container layout – default

Building Layouts 91

You wouldn’t notice any difference right after adding a widget as a child unless
you use parameters/properties like color, padding, etc. Let’s check out some of
the Container widget’s properties next.

Color Property
The Container layout widget’s color property (color property) is used to high-
light the background of the widget, as shown in Figure 7.3.

```
Container(
color: Colors.red,
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

FIGURE 7.3  Container layout – color property

92 Pragmatic Flutter

Padding Property
The padding property (padding property) adds empty space between the child
widget and the Container (Container class) widget’s boundary, as shown in
Figure 7.4. The EdgeInsetsGeometry (EdgeInsetsGeometry class) is used to
provide the padding of ‘16’ points from all four sides.

```
Container(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(16.0),
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

FIGURE 7.4  Container layout – padding property

Building Layouts 93

Margin Property
The margin property (margin property) is used to add space surrounding the
Container widget, as shown in Figure 7.5.

```
Container(
margin: const EdgeInsets.all(20.0),
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

Alignment Property
The `alignment` property (alignment property) is used to align the child within the
Container widget. The `Alignment.center` takes the parent widget’s width

FIGURE 7.5  Container layout – margin property

94 Pragmatic Flutter

and height, which can be constrained using the width and height property of the
Container widget or using the BoxConstraints (BoxConstraints class). The
widget expands to fill the parent’s size.

```
Container(
alignment: Alignment.center,
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

Refer to Figure 7.6 to observe alignment property of Container layout.

FIGURE 7.6  Container layout – alignment property

Building Layouts 95

Constraints Property
The `constraints` property applies the size constraints to the Container wid-
get. For example, BoxConstraints.tightFor(width:x, height:y) cre-
ates a box for the given width ‘x’, and/or height ‘y’.
The Container widget looks like as shown in Figure 7.7 when width and height
are constrained to be ‘100’. You can notice the text cut-off because the size of the box
is not enough to display the full text.

```
Container(
constraints: BoxConstraints.tightFor(width: 100.0, height:
100.0),
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

FIGURE 7.7  Container layout – constraints property

96 Pragmatic Flutter

Transform Property
The `transform` property (transform property) is used to transform the child
before adding to the layout widget `Container`. The value `Matrix4.rota-
tionZ(0.3)` rotates the Container widget clockwise by the given amount.

```
Container(
transform: Matrix4.rotationZ(0.3)
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

Refer to Figure 7.8 to observe transform property of Container layout.

FIGURE 7.8  Container layout – transform property

Building Layouts 97

Decoration Property
The `decoration` property is used to add shape to the Container widget. It
uses BoxDecoration to provide details. The BoxDecoration (BoxDecoration
class) tells the widget how the box around the Container widget will be painted.
In simple words, this property lets Container create a border around it or drop a
shadow. Let’s create a solid border around the Container of specified width and
color. Please note that the Container widget’s `color` property cannot be used
along with `decoration`. The Container widget’s `color` and `decoration`
property can’t be used together.

```
Container(
decoration: BoxDecoration(
border: Border.all(
color: Colors.amber,
width: 5.0,
style: BorderStyle.solid,
),
),
child: Text(
"Hello Container",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
),
```

Refer to Figure 7.9 to observe decoration property in Container layout.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: Container Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

Padding WIDGET
The Padding (Padding class) widget insets its child as per the given padding. It
creates empty space around the child. It takes care of resizing any constraints passed
to the child to be able to provide the given empty space around it.
A Padding widget is created as below. It uses the `padding` property to
assign the amount of space for the inset. The EdgeInsets (EdgeInsets class) class
specifies the offset from all four edges. In the example below, an offset of 8 dip
(Density-independent Pixels) is provided from the top, bottom, left, and right sides.
The keyword `const` is required when you are sure that the provided padding won’t
change. In this example, we’ll modify padding to show a few examples of different
values for padding property.
98 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 7.9  Container layout – decoration property

```
double padding = 8.0;
Padding(
padding: EdgeInsets.all(padding),
child: Text(
"Hello Padding",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 30),
),
)
```

Figure 7.10 shows the Padding widget- a single child layout.

The difference between `padding` and `margin` is that Padding creates the
empty space around the child widget of the layout widget like Container. The
`margin` property creates the space around the layout widget itself.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: Padding Widget) is available
online at GitHub.
Building Layouts 99

FIGURE 7.10  Padding single-child layout widget

ConstrainedBox WIDGET
Sometimes you may want to render a widget of a given size. The ConstrainedBox
(ConstrainedBox class) is a layout widget that puts additional constraints on its child.
Let’s check out three types of `BoxContraints` applied to the ConstrainedBox
widget. It specifies a maximum and minimum width and height its child is allowed to
expand. `BoxConstraints.expand()` fills the parent.

Minimum Width & Height

This constraint imposes minimum width and height on the child. In this exam-
ple, a ConstrainedBox widget is added in the center of the body of the app. A
Container widget is added as the child displaying a message in the Text widget.

```
...
body: Center(
child: ConstrainedBox(
constraints: BoxConstraints(
minWidth: 100,
minHeight: 100,
),
child: Container(
color: Colors.grey,
child: Text(message),
100 Pragmatic Flutter

),
),
),
...
```

BoxConstraints.expand()
The `BoxConstraints.expand()` let its child expand to the given width and
height.

```
...
body: Center(
child: ConstrainedBox(
constraints: BoxConstraints.expand(
width: 200,
height: 200,
),
child: Container(
color: Colors.grey,
child: Text(message),
),
),
),
...
```

BoxConstraints.loose()
The `BoxConstraints.loose()` constrains its child to the given size. It can’t go
beyond the provided size.

```
...
body: Center(
child: ConstrainedBox(
constraints: BoxConstraints.loose(
Size(100, 200),
),
child: Container(
color: Colors.grey,
child: Text(message),
),
),
),
...
```

All three constraints are shown side by side in Figure 7.11.

Building Layouts 101

FIGURE 7.11  ConstrainedBox Widget – constraints properties

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: ConstrainedBox Widget) is
available online at GitHub.

SizedBox WIDGET
The SizedBox (SizedBox class) widget is a Single-child layout widget. It’s a box
widget of a specific size and can add one another widget as its child. It’s useful when
you know the size of the widget. The `width` property is used to set the width of
the box, and the `height` property is used to set the box’s height.
The code snippet below creates a `SizedBox` of height and width of 200 device-
independent pixels (devicePixelRatio property).

```
SizedBox(
height: 200,
width: 200,
child: Container(
color: Colors.deepPurpleAccent,
),
)
```

Figure 7.12 displays SizedBox widget.

102 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 7.12  SizedBox with height and width as 200 dips

There’s a convenience constructor, `SizedBox.expand` (SizedBox.expand

constructor), that can also be used to create a box that takes the width and height of
its parent.

```
SizedBox.expand(
child: Container(
color: Colors.deepPurpleAccent,
),
)
```

Figure 7.13 demonstrates usage of SizedBox.expand constructor to create SizedBox

widget.
The same results can be attained by assigning the SizedBox widget’s `width`
and `height` properties to `double.infinity`.
Building Layouts 103

FIGURE 7.13  SizedBox widget created using ‘SizedBox.expand’ constructor

It is common to use a `SizedBox` without a child to add the space between wid-
gets when building interfaces.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: SizedBox Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

Row WIDGET
The Row (Row class) widget is used to arrange its children in a horizontal fash-
ion. Let’s add three Container widgets as children. The `childWidget(int
index)` method returns a Container widget of width and height device-independent
pixels or dips (devicePixelRatio property). The container has a Text widget as its
child, which displays the number passed to the method as a parameter.
104 Pragmatic Flutter

```
Widget childWidget(int index) {
return Container(
color: getColor(index),
width: 100,
height: 100,
child: Center(
child: Text(
"$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 40),
),
),
);
}
```

Now that we have got a child, let’s add this three times in the Row widget as below:

```
Row(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
```

Figure 7.14 displays a multi-child layout built with Row widget.

Let’s try to add one more widget, `childWidget(3)` to Row widget’s children
and observe the change.

```
Row(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
childWidget(3),
],
),
```

You’ll notice that there’s not enough space for all four widgets to fit horizontally.
The last child renders with yellow and black lines. You will see those lines when-
ever a widget overflows the available space to render itself. You’ll learn about cre-
ating adaptable layouts in the chapter on building responsive layouts (Chapter 08:
Responsive Interfaces).
Figure 7.15 shows the overflowing widgets in a multi-child layout.
Building Layouts 105

FIGURE 7.14  Row: Multi-child layout widget

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: Row Widget) is available online
at GitHub.

IntrinsicHeight WIDGET
The IntrinsicHeight (IntrinsicHeight class) widget is a Single-child layout
widget. IntrinsicHeight widget helps to set the height of its child widget when
there’s unlimited height available to it. This class is expensive. The cheap way of
limiting the widget size is to use the SizedBox (SizedBox class) layout widget.
This widget is used when children of a Row (Row class) widget are expected to
expand to the height of the tallest child.
Let’s understand this with the help of an example. First, create children of varying
sizes with the help of the following `childWidget(int index)` method:
106 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 7.15  Row: overflowing child

```
Widget childWidget(int index) {
return Container(
color: getColor(index),
width: 100 + index * 20.toDouble(),
height: 100 + index * 30.toDouble(),
child: Center(
child: Text(
"$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 40),
),
),
);
}
```
Building Layouts 107

Next, add three children created by the `childWidget()` method to the Row wid-
get as below:

```
Row(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
```

The code above will render the three Container widgets of varying sizes in a
horizontal array, as shown in Figure 7.16.

FIGURE 7.16  Row widget has children widgets of different sizes

108 Pragmatic Flutter

The goal is to stretch all the children to the same height. So, let’s set the Row wid-
get’s `crossAxisAlignment` property to `CrossAxisAlignment.stretch`
to make all children equally tall.

```
Row(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.stretch,
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
```

However, the problem is that they’ll take up all the available space vertically and
make it look like, as shown in Figure 7.17.
We want to make all the children as tall as the tallest child widget while not
taking up all the available vertical space. This is where IntrinsicHeight

FIGURE 7.17  Row widget’s ‘crossAxisAlignment’ property is set to ‘CrossAxisAlignment.

stretch’
Building Layouts 109

(IntrinsicHeight class) widget comes to play. All you need to do is to wrap the Row
widget inside IntrinsicHeight, as shown in the code snippet below:

```
IntrinsicHeight(
child: Row(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.stretch,
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
),
```

The IntrinsicHeight widget expands all of the Row widget’s children to the
same height as the tallest child widget as shown in Figure 7.18.

FIGURE 7.18  ‘IntrinsicHeight’ widget expands all of the Row widget’s children to the same
height as the tallest child widget
110 Pragmatic Flutter

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: IntrinsicHeight Widget) is
available online at GitHub.

Column WIDGET
The Column (Column class) widget is used to arrange its children in a vertical man-
ner. Let’s add three Container widgets as children similar to the Row widget. The
`childWidget(int index)` method returns a Container widget of width and
height as 200 dips. The container has a Text widget as its child, which displays the
number passed to the method as a parameter.

```
Container(
color: getColor(index),
width: 200,
height: 200,
child: Center(
child: Text(
"$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 40),
),
),
)
```

Let’s add this child widget three times in the Column widget as below:

```
Column(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
```

Figure 7.19 displays a multi-child layout built with Column widget.

Let`s try to add one more widget, `childWidget(3)` to the Column widget’s
children, as shown in the code snippet below:

```
Column(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
Building Layouts 111

childWidget(3),
],
),
```

FIGURE 7.19  Column: Multi-child layout widget

You’ll notice the same yellow and black overflow lines that you observed earlier in
the Row widget. This is because there’s not enough space for all four widgets to fit
vertically as shown in Figure 7.20.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: Column Widget) is available
online at GitHub.
112 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 7.20  Column: overflowing child

IntrinsicWidth WIDGET
The IntrinsicWidth (IntrinsicWidth class) widget is a Single-child layout wid-
get. This widget is useful to limit the width of the child widget to a given width;
otherwise, it’ll expand to the maximum width available to it. This widget is usually
used when each child of a Column widget is expected to have the same width. All
children expand to the width of the widest child widget of the Column widget.
Let’s use the asymmetric Container widgets generated by the
`childWidget(int index)` method used in the IntrinsicHeight section.
Add three of these child widgets to the Column widget as below:

```
Column(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
Building Layouts 113

],
),
```

The three children with different sizes will be shown in Column widgets, as shown
in Figure 7.21.
We can set the `crossAxisAlignment` property to `CrossAxisAlignment.
stretch` to make all Container children of the same widths.

```
Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.stretch,
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
```

FIGURE 7.21  Column widget has children widgets of different sizes

114 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 7.22  Column widget’s ‘crossAxisAlignment’ property is set to ‘CrossAxisAlignment.

stretch’

Again, the problem with this approach is that it takes up all the cross-axis horizontal
space, as shown in Figure 7.22.
The IntrinsicWidth widget can help solve this issue by wrapping the Column
widget as its child. It expands all of the Column widget’s children to the same width
as the widest child widget.
```
IntrinsicWidth(
child: Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.stretch,
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
),
```
Building Layouts 115

FIGURE 7.23  ‘IntrinsicWidth’ widget expands all of the column widget’s children to the
same width as the widest child widget

Figure 7.23 demonstrates IntrinsicWidth widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: IntrinsicWidth Widget) is avail-
able online at GitHub.

ListView WIDGET
The ListView (ListView class) widget is a Multi-child and scrolling widget. It
makes its children scroll in the main axis while filling the space in the cross-axis.
Let’s add four children to the ListView widget, as shown in the code snippet below.
We’re using the same method `childWidget(int index)` to create the child
widget(s) as we did for the Column widget in the previous section.
116 Pragmatic Flutter

```
ListView(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
childWidget(3),
],
),
```

Figure 7.24 displays a multi-child layout built with ListView widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: ListView Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

FIGURE 7.24  ListView multi-child layout widget

Building Layouts 117

GridView WIDGET
The GridView (GridView class) widget is a Multi-child and scrolling widget like
ListView. It arranges its children in a two-dimensional array. In this section, we
will focus on creating a grid layout using GridView.count (GridView.count con-
structor) constructor. It creates a grid with a given number of tiles on the cross-
axis. The direction a GridView scroll is the main-axis. The `crossAxisCount`
property is used for the number of tiles arranged in the cross-axis. In the following
code snippet, `crossAxisCount` is two, which means there are two tiles in the
horizontal direction.

```
GridView.count(
crossAxisCount: 2,
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
childWidget(3),
],
),
```

Figure 7.25 displays a multi-child layout built with GridView widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: GridView Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

Table WIDGET
The Table (Table class) layout widget supports multiple children. This lay-
out widget arranges its children in a tabular layout. This layout doesn’t scroll
and is used for a fixed number of widgets. The Table layout widget is useful to
design interfaces that don’t require any scrolling and to avoid multiple levels of
nested Row and Column widgets. The Table widget can be wrapped inside a
SingleChildScrollView (SingleChildScrollView class) to make it scrollable.
The SingleChildScrollView widget is like a scrollable box, which makes its
only child scrollable.
Let’s add four children to the Table layout. Each child is a Container widget
of different sizes and colors. The `childWidget()` method is used to create such
children widgets.

```
Widget childWidget(int index) {
return Container(
color: getColor(index),
118 Pragmatic Flutter

width: 200 + index * 20.toDouble(),

height: 200 + index * 30.toDouble(),
child: Center(
child: Text(
"$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 40),
),
),
);
}
```

The Table widget has multiple children of type TableRow widget, as shown in the
code snippet below. The `border` property is used to border each cell. The `colum-
nWidths` property is used to assign the width for the given column. It’s a mapping
between the column number to FractionColumnWidth (FractionColumnWidth
class) for the given column.

FIGURE 7.25  GridView multi-child layout widget

Building Layouts 119

```
Table(
border: TableBorder.all(width: 2.0),
columnWidths: {
0: FractionColumnWidth(.5),
1: FractionColumnWidth(.5),
},
children: [
TableRow(
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
],
),
TableRow(
children: [
childWidget(2),
childWidget(3),
],
),
],
)
```

Figure 7.26 displays a multi-child layout built with Table widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: Table Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

Stack WIDGET
The Stack (Stack class) widget is a Multi-child layout widget since it can hold
multiple children. It can stack one widget on top of another widget, just as its name
says. This widget is useful when one widget is required to be overlapped by another.
Let’s take an example to understand the usage of Stack widgets. We will create three
widgets of varying sizes using the `childWidget(int index)` method. This
method takes an integer and creates and returns a Container widget. Its width and
height are calculated using the `index` parameter. The function `getColor(int
index)` returns different colors based on the `index` parameter.

```
Widget childWidget(int index) {
return Container(
color: getColor(index),
width: 200 + index * 20.toDouble(),
height: 200 + index * 30.toDouble(),
child: Center(
120 Pragmatic Flutter

child: Text(
"$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 40),
),
),
);
}
```

Next, put three `childWidgets()` in the Stack widget as below:

```
Stack(
children: [
childWidget(2),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(0),
],
),
```

FIGURE 7.26  Table – Multi-child layout widget

Building Layouts 121

FIGURE 7.27  Stack – Multi-child layout widget

The `childWidget(2)` is the Container widget with the biggest width and
height, and it’s purple in color. This widget goes first. The next child widget,
`childWidget(1)`, is green and slightly smaller than the purple widget. It is
placed on top of the purple widget. The third widget, `childWidget(0)`, is red
and smallest. It’s placed on top of the stack. The stack looks like as shown in
Figure 7.27.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: Stack Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

IndexedStack WIDGET
The IndexedStack (IndexedStack class) widget is a Multi-child layout wid-
get as well. It’s like the Stack widget but only shows one child at a time. It uses
`index` property to switch from one child to another. Let’s use the same example
122 Pragmatic Flutter

we discussed above for the Stack widget. This time these three `childWidget()`
are wrapped inside IndexedStack instead of Stack widget and have an `index`
property to show the currently selected child. We will wrap IndexedStack inside
a GestureDetector (GestureDetector class) widget to add a tapping gesture on
the widget. Each time the widget is tapped, the index changes to the next child and
keeps going one by one.

```
int _childIndex = 0;
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
...,
body: Center(
child: IndexedStack(
index: _childIndex,
children: [
childWidget(0),
childWidget(1),
childWidget(2),
],
),
),
);
}
```

The `childWidget(int index)` method returns a Container widget

wrapped in a GestureDetector method. Tapping on the child widget increases
the ` _ childIndex` by one. Once it reaches the maximum possible index two, the
` _ childIndex` resets itself to zero. The clamp (clamp method) method returns
the number between zero and two.

```
Widget childWidget(int index) {
return GestureDetector(
onTap: () {
setState(() {
index = index == 2? 0 : index + 1;
_childIndex = index.clamp(0, 2);
});
},
child: Container(
color: getColor(index),
width: 200 + index * 20.toDouble(),
height: 200 + index * 30.toDouble(),
child: Center(
child: Text(
"$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 40),
Building Layouts 123

),
),
),
);
}
```

FIGURE 7.28  IndexedStack – Multi-child layout widget

The red widget is stacked at the top, followed by green and purple. Ordering of chil-
dren doesn’t matter in the case of the IndexedStack widget. The child widget is
displayed based on the selected `index` property.
Figure 7.28 displays a multi-child layout built with IndexedStack widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Building Layouts: IndexedStack Widget) is avail-
able online at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, Flutter layout widgets were covered and discussed. We learned
that there are two types of layout widgets: Single- and Multi-child layouts. The
Single-child layout can have one child whereas Multi-child layout can have multiple
children. We revisited the HelloBooksApp to understand its layout structure. We
discussed Single-child layouts like Container, Padding, ConstrainedBox,
SizedBox, IntrinsicHeight, and IntrinsicWidth. You also learned
about the Multi-child layouts like Row, Column, ListView, GridView, Table,
Stack, and IndexedStack.
124 Pragmatic Flutter

REFERENCES
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stable/2.10.2/dart-core/num/clamp.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). alignment property. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/Container/alignment.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). BoxConstraints class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/rendering/BoxConstraints-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). BoxDecoration class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/painting/BoxDecoration-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Center class. Retrieved from Flutter API Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Center-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). color property. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Container/color.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Column class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Column-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). ConstrainedBox class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/ConstrainedBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Container class. Retrieved from Flutter Api Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Container-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). devicePixelRatio property. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/dart-ui/Window/devicePixelRatio.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). EdgeInsets class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/painting/EdgeInsets-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). EdgeInsetsGeometry class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev:
https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/painting/EdgeInsetsGeometry-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Expanded class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Expanded-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). FittedBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/FittedBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Flex class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Flex-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Flexible class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Flexible-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Flow class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/Flow-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). FractionallySizedBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev:
https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/FractionallySizedBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). FractionColumnWidth class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/rendering/FractionColumnWidth-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). GestureDetector class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/GestureDetector-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). GridView class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/GridView-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). GridView.count constructor. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/GridView/GridView.count.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). IndexedStack class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/IndexedStack-class.html
Building Layouts 125

Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). IntrinsicHeight class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/IntrinsicHeight-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). IntrinsicWidth class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/IntrinsicWidth-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Layout Widgets. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/
docs/development/ui/widgets/layout
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). LayoutBuilder class. Retrieved from Flutter Team: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/LayoutBuilder-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). LimitedBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/LimitedBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). ListBody class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/ListBody-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). ListView class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/ListView-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). margin property. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/Container/margin.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 12 18). Material Components widgets. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
flutter.dev/docs/development/ui/widgets/material
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). OverflowBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/OverflowBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Padding class. Retrieved from Flutter Api Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Padding-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). padding property. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Container/padding.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Row class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Row-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). SizedBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/SizedBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). SizedBox.expand constructor. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/SizedBox/SizedBox.expand.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). SizedOverflowBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/SizedOverflowBox-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Stack class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Stack-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Table class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Table-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Transform class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Transform-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). transform property. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/Container/transform.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 18). Wrap class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Wrap-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 18). SingleChildScrollView class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/SingleChildScrollView-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 18). TextStyle class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/painting/TextStyle-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 18). Layout widgets. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
development/ui/widgets/layout
Google. (2020, 11 18). Layouts in Flutter. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
development/ui/layout
126 Pragmatic Flutter

Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: Column Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/column.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: ConstrainedBox Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/single/constrained_box.dart#L109:L113
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: Container Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/single/container.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: GridView Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/grid_view.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: IndexedStack Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/indexed_stack.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: IntrinsicHeight Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/single/intrinsic_height.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: IntrinsicWidth Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/single/intrinsic_width.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: ListView Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/listview.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: Padding Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/single/padding.dart#L92:L98
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: Row Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/mas-
ter/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/row.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: SizedBox Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter07/layouts/single/sized_box.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: Stack Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/mas-
ter/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/stack.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Building Layouts: Table Widget. Retrieved from Chapter07: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/mas-
ter/lib/chapter07/layouts/multi/table.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 18). Revisiting HelloBooksApp source code. Retrieved from Chapter05:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter05/main_05_3.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 05: Flutter App Structure. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 08: Responsive Interfaces. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
8 Responsive Interfaces

This chapter focuses on building responsive layouts for Flutter applications. The
responsive layouts can adjust themselves based upon the space available to ren-
der their widgets. We will cover FittedBox (FittedBox class), Expanded
(Expanded class), Flexible (Flexible class), FractionallySizedBox
(FractionallySizedBox class), LayoutBuilder (LayoutBuilder class), and Wrap
(Wrap class) widgets.

FittedBox WIDGET
The FittedBox (FittedBox class) widget fits its child within the given space during
layout to avoid overflows. It positions and scales (or clips) its child as per the `fit`
property, which helps to fit its child into the space allocated during layout. It makes
sure that its child sits inside the parent widget.
Let’s understand the usage of FittedBox by adding a Row widget with two
Image widgets as children.

```
Row(
children: [
Image.asset('assets/flutter_icon.png'),
Image.asset('assets/flutter_icon.png'),
],
)
```

When the code above is added to the `body` of the Scaffold widget, the second
image overflows to the right of the screen, as shown in Figure 8.1.
Wrapping the Row widget in FittedBox makes sure that both of the Image
widgets are contained inside the FittedBox without overflowing out of the screen.

```
FittedBox(
child: Row(
children: [
Image.asset('assets/flutter_icon.png'),
Image.asset('assets/flutter_icon.png'),
],
),
)
```

Figure 8.2 shows both Image widgets adjusted inside the screen space without over-
flowing to the right.
127
128 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 8.1  Overflowing widgets without FittedBox

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Responsive Interfaces: FittedBox Widget) is avail-
able online at GitHub.

Expanded WIDGET
The Expanded (Expanded class) widget is a single-child layout widget. This layout
widget is used for a specific child of the multi-layout widgets like Row, Column, and
Flex. The child widget wrapped in Expanded widget expands to fill the available
space along the main axis. It expands horizontally for Row parent and vertically for
Column parent. It uses a flex factor to let the child widget know how much avail-
able space they can take up. The child wrapped in the Expanded widget takes up
all the open space. It uses the `flex` property to allocate space in case there is a
competition between Expanded widgets for available space.
Responsive Interfaces 129

FIGURE 8.2  Responsive layout with FittedBox

Let’s check out a widget `expandedDefault()` consisting of Row widget and

its three children say `childWidget()`. The `childWidget()` method returns
a widget that’s added as a child to the Row widget. In the code snippet below, each
child is wrapped in an Expanded widget. Each Expanded widget distributes the
available horizontal space equally, as shown in Figure 8.3.

```
Widget expandedDefault() {
return Row(
children: [
Expanded(
child: childWidget(""),
),
Expanded(
child: childWidget(""),
),
Expanded(
130 Pragmatic Flutter

child: childWidget(""),
),
],
);
}
```

Expanded with ` flex` Property

In the example below, each child is wrapped in an Expanded widget as well as uses
its `flex` property. Each of the children takes up the space based on the value of
`flex` property. The first child is assigned `flex` as four, the second is assigned
three, and the third child has `flex` property as one. In this case, the total space will
be eight parts (4 + 3 + 1 = 8). The first child takes up four out of eight parts or 4/8 of

FIGURE 8.3  Expanded widget without using ‘flex’ property

Responsive Interfaces 131

FIGURE 8.4  Expanded widget using ‘flex’ property

the total space. The second child takes up three out of eight parts or 3/8 of the total
space and the last child takes 1/8 of total space, as shown in Figure 8.4.

```
Widget expandedWithFlex() {
return Row(
children: [
Expanded(
flex: 4,
child: childWidget("4/8"),
),
Expanded(
flex: 3,
child: childWidget("3/8"),
),
Expanded(
132 Pragmatic Flutter

flex: 1,
child: childWidget("1/8"),
),
],
);
}
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Responsive Interfaces: Expanded Widget) is avail-
able online at GitHub.

Flexible WIDGET
The Flexible (Flexible class) widget is similar to the Expand widget but with a
twist. It lets a child of Row, Column, and Flex layout widgets expand in the avail-
able space based on the constraint using the `flex` property. Flexible widgets only
take space for how much is declared using the `flex` property. They don’t claim
extra available space by default.

The `FlexFit.tight` Property

The `FlexFit.tight` forces the children to take up all the entire available space.
The Flexible widget behaves like the Expand widget when its `fit` property
is set to `FlexFit.tight`. The `Expanded(child: Text())` is the same as
`Flexible(fit: FlexFit.tight, child: Text())`.
In the code snippet below, the three children of the Row widget are assigned four,
three, and one out of eight parts, respectively. When the `fit` property is set to
`FlexFit.tight`, they take the space assigned to each of them while filling up the
available space horizontally.

```
Row(
children: [
Flexible(
fit: FlexFit.tight,
flex: 4,
child: childWidget("4/8"),
),
Flexible(
fit: FlexFit.tight,
flex: 3,
child: childWidget("3/8"),
),
Flexible(
fit: FlexFit.tight,
flex: 1,
Responsive Interfaces 133

child: childWidget("1/8"),
),
],
)
```

Refer to Figure 8.5 to see Flexible widget using FlexFit.tight property.

The `FlexFit.loose` Property

The `FlexFit.loose` will keep the default Flexible behavior and let them take
their maximum sizes. In the code snippet below, the three children to Row widget
are assigned four, three, and one out of eight parts, respectively, as above. When the
`fit` property is set to `FlexFit.loose`, they only take the space assigned to
each of them but don’t take up the remaining space available horizontally.

FIGURE 8.5  Flexible widget using ‘fit’ property as ‘FlexFit.tight’

134 Pragmatic Flutter

```
Row(
children: [
Flexible(
fit: FlexFit.loose,
flex: 4,
child: childWidget("4/8"),
),
Flexible(
fit: FlexFit.loose,
flex: 3,
child: childWidget("3/8"),
),
Flexible(
fit: FlexFit.loose,
flex: 1,
child: childWidget("1/8"),
),
],
)
```

Refer to Figure 8.6 to see Flexible widget using FlexFit.loose property.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Responsive Interfaces: Flexible Widget) is avail-
able online at GitHub.

FractionallySizedBox WIDGET
The FractionallySizedBox (FractionallySizedBox class) is a single-child
layout widget. It sizes its child to a fraction of the total available space. It’s prop-
erties `widthFactor` and `heightFactor` provide the fraction of the screen
real estate that the widget can claim. The `alignment` property positions its child
widget. This widget without a child can be used as a placeholder. It’s recommended
to wrap FractionallySizedBox in a Flexible widget when adding a child to
the Row and Column widget.
In the following example, a Container widget is placed in the center of the
screen using the Center widget. A FractionallySizedBox is wrapped in
a Padding widget to keep it visually distinguishable. The ElevatedButton
(ElevatedButton class) widget is added as the child to the FractionallySizedBox.
The FractionallySizedBox helps to control the width and height of the
ElevatedButton widget as well as its position inside the Container widget
using the `alignment` property. In this case, the FractionallySizedBox is
aligned to the bottom center to the Container widget.

```
Center(
child: Container(
Responsive Interfaces 135

FIGURE 8.6  Flexible widget using ‘fit’ property as ‘FlexFit.loose’

width: 200,
height: 200,
decoration: BoxDecoration(
border: Border.all(),
),
child: Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
child: FractionallySizedBox(
alignment: Alignment.bottomCenter,
widthFactor: 0.8,
heightFactor: 0.2,
child: ElevatedButton(
child: Text(
"Tap",
style: TextStyle(
fontSize: 20,
),
136 Pragmatic Flutter

),
onPressed: () {},
),
),
),
),
)
```

Refer to Figure 8.7 to see a FractionallySizedBox as a child to Container widget.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Responsive Interfaces: FractionallySizedBox
Widget) is available online at GitHub.

FIGURE 8.7  FractionallySizedBox as a child to Container widget

Responsive Interfaces 137

LayoutBuilder WIDGET
The LayoutBuilder (LayoutBuilder class) widget supports the multi-child lay-
out. It builds widgets dynamically as per the constraint passed by the parent. The
LayoutBuilder layout widget works well when creating responsive layouts. It can
build appropriate layouts based on the constraints’ maximum width (maxWidth) or
maximum height (maxHeight). The LayoutBuilder calls the builder function
at the layout time.
In this example, LayoutBuilder renders different widgets based on the maxi-
mum width of the screen during layout time. It renders `largeScreen()` layout
for screens larger than 400 dips whereas `smallScreen()` for any screen with
width less than 400 dips.
```
LayoutBuilder(
builder: (context, constraints) {
if (constraints.maxWidth > 400) {
return largeScreen();
} else {
return smallScreen();
}
},
),
```

The LayoutBuilder widget rendering on a small screen is shown in Figure 8.8.

The LayoutBuilder widget rendering on a large screen is shown in Figure 8.9.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Responsive Interfaces: LayoutBuilder Widget) is
available online at GitHub.

Wrap WIDGET
The Wrap (Wrap class) widget is a layout widget and supports the multi-child lay-
out. This widget is helpful when Row and Column widgets run out of the room.
It puts the overflowing widget in the cross-axis when it runs out of space in the
placement line along the main-axis. The `direction` property is used to align
its children widgets either in the horizontal or vertical direction. The `spacing`
property specifies the gap between the children in the same axis. The `runSpac-
ing` property specifies the gap between the runs.
In the following example, the Wrap widget is wrapped in the Center widget.
There are six children widgets assigned to the Wrap widget. The child widgets are
aligned in the horizontal direction using `direction: Axis.horizontal`.
There’s a gap of 20 dips in between the children’s widgets horizontally. Whenever
a number of children overflow the space available in the main axis, the remaining
children widgets run in the next line when they’re aligned horizontally (or in the
138 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 8.8  LayoutBuilder widget rendering on a small screen

next column when aligned vertically). The `runSpacing` property provides the
gap between these runs.
```
child: Wrap(
direction: Axis.horizontal,
spacing: 20.0,
runSpacing: 40.0,
children: [
childWidget("1"),
childWidget("2"),
childWidget("3"),
childWidget("4"),
childWidget("5"),
childWidget("6"),
],
),
```
Responsive Interfaces 139

FIGURE 8.9  LayoutBuilder widget rendering on a large screen

Refer to Figure 8.10 to see Wrap widget wrapping its children into horizontal/verti-
cal runs.

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Responsive Interfaces: Wrap Widget) is available
online at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
This chapter concludes our discussion on the Flutter widget. Flutter has a vast
library of widgets. This chapter covered some of the frequently used layout wid-
gets to build responsive user interfaces. I encourage you to check out the Flutter
widget catalog (Widget Catalog) to learn more about the layout widgets. The
140 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 8.10  Wraps the children into horizontal/vertical runs

following concluding points are the general recommendations for building inter-
faces in Flutter.

• If you know the direction of laying out the widgets, then use Row or Column.
• If you don’t know the main axis direction for widgets, then use the Flex
widget.
• If you have only one child to display, then use Center or Align to posi-
tion the child.
• If a child should be smaller than the parent, then wrap it in the Align
(Align class) widget.
• If a child is going to be bigger than the parent, then wrap it in a
SingleChildScrollView (SingleChildScrollView class) or Overflow
(OverflowBox class) widget.
Responsive Interfaces 141

REFERENCES
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). Align class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Align-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). ElevatedButton class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/material/ElevatedButton-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). Expanded class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Expanded-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). FittedBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/FittedBox-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). Flexible class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Flexible-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). FractionallySizedBox class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev:
https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/FractionallySizedBox-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). LayoutBuilder class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/LayoutBuilder-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). OverflowBox class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/OverflowBox-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). SingleChildScrollView class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/SingleChildScrollView-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). Widget Catalog. Retrieved from Flutter Api Dev: https://flutter.
dev/docs/development/ui/widgets
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 19). Wrap class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/Wrap-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 19). Responsive Interfaces: Expanded Widget. Retrieved from Chapter08:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter08/layouts/expanded.dart#L84
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 19). Responsive Interfaces: FittedBox Widget. Retrieved from Chapter08:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter08/layouts/fitted_box.dart#L80:L84
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 19). Responsive Interfaces: Flexible Widget. Retrieved from Chapter08:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter08/layouts/flexible.dart#L77:L96
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 19). Responsive Interfaces: FractionallySizedBox Widget. Retrieved from
Chapter08: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_f lutter/blob/master/lib/chapter08/layouts/fractionally_sized_box.
dart#L27:L49
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 19). Responsive Interfaces: LayoutBuilder Widget. Retrieved from
Chapter08: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/
pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter08/layouts/layoutbuilder.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 19). Responsive Interfaces: Wrap Widget. Retrieved from Chapter08:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter08/layouts/wrap.dart#L27:L39
9 Building User Interface
for BooksApp
In this chapter, we’ll take the HelloBooksApp created earlier in this book (Chapter 05:
Flutter App Structure) to the next level. Let’s rename it to BooksApp. The BooksApp
lists books’ titles and their authors in a list view.

THE BooksApp INTERFACE

The book listing in the BooksApp will look like below for each of the four platforms.

Android
BooksApp’s primary user interface for the Android platform (Figure 9.1).

iOS
BooksApp’s primary user interface for the iOS platform (Figure 9.2).

Web
BooksApp’s primary user interface for the web platform (Figure 9.3).

Desktop (macOS)
BooksApp’s primary user interface for the desktop-macos platform (Figure 9.4).

THE BooksApp ANATOMY

Let’s take a look at the BooksApp’s widget structure. The MaterialApp widget is
at the root of the BooksApp. It has a Scaffold widget as its child. The Scaffold
widget has an AppBar widget and ListView widget for its `body` property. The
`ListView.builder()` is used to build the ListView of Card (Card class)
widgets. Each Card widget displays title, author, and image information for the
book. We’re using mocked sample book data for demonstration purposes. It has
two book entries. The ListView has two children of Card widgets, as shown in
the app structure diagram (Figure 9.5).
The Card widget displays title, author list, and cover image for the book. The
Card widget has a Padding widget as its child. The Padding widget insets its
child Row widget. The padding makes sure that the content of the Row widget is not
bleeding over the edges. The Row widget displays its children horizontally. The Row
143
144 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 9.1  BooksApp – Android

widget has Flexible and Image as its children. The Flexible widget displays
the book’s title and author list with the title at the top and author list to the bottom.
The Column widget is appropriate to align its children in vertical alignment. The
Column widget has two Text widgets as its children. The first Text widget is to
display the title of the book, and the second Text widget is to display the author list
(Figure 9.6).

IMPLEMENTING USER INTERFACE

The BooksApp extends StatelessWidget. The book listing is constructed in its
own BooksListing widget. The BooksListing widget is a StatelessWidget
as well. The book listing data is hardcoded in the `bookData()` method for dem-
onstration purposes. Refer to Figure 9.5 for visual understanding of the widgets dis-
cussed in this section.
Building User Interface for BooksApp 145

FIGURE 9.2  BooksApp – iOS

Books Sample JSON Data

The books data is being hardcoded and provided using the `bookData()` function
as below:

```
List bookData() {
return [
{'title':'Book Title','authors':['Author1',
'Author2'], 'image':'assets/book_cover.png'},
{'title':'Book Title 2','authors':['Author1'],
'image':'assets/book_cover.png'}
];
}
```

The first book entry has two authors and the second book has only one author. The
same cover art is used for both books to keep it simple. The `bookData()` function
returns a List of JSON (Introducing JSON) entries for each book. The JSON stands
for ‘JavaScript Object Notation’. It is data interchange format. This data format is
146 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 9.3  BooksApp – Web

FIGURE 9.4  BooksApp –Desktop (macos)

Building User Interface for BooksApp 147

FIGURE 9.5  Anatomy of BooksApp

FIGURE 9.6  Anatomy of BooksApp’s card widget

148 Pragmatic Flutter

used for transferring data from one source to another. In later chapters (Chapter 12:
Integrating REST API) and (Chapter 13: Data Modeling), you’ll learn to fetch book
information from JSON formatted data entries and build an interface to display book
information.

BooksApp Widget
The BooksApp is the StatelessWidget. It uses MaterialApp in combination
with the Scaffold widget. The Scaffold widget assigns the AppBar widget
to the `appBar` property. The BooksListing widget is assigned to its `body`
property. The `booksListing` is populated from data returned from the `book-
Data()` function.

```
class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Books Listing")),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
}
}
```

CUSTOM WIDGET: BooksListing

Let’s take a deeper look into implementing the BooksListing widget in this
section. The `booksListing` is populated with data returned from the `book-
Data()` function. The `bookData()` function returns a list of JSON (Introducing
JSON) entries for books. One JSON entry for each book. The `ListView.builder`
widget iterates over each item of `booksListing`, and creates a Card widget for
it. Refer to Figure 9.6 for visual understanding of the Card widget discussed in this
section.

```
class BooksListing extends StatelessWidget {
final booksListing = bookData();
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 :
booksListing.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return Card();
Building User Interface for BooksApp 149

}
}
```

A shape border can be drawn around the Card (Card class) widget. We are creat-
ing a rectangle border with rounded corners. The corner’s radius is assigned using
the `borderRadius` property. The Card widget can be given elevation using the
`elevation` property. The `margin` property is used to provide card spacing
around it.

```
Card(
shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(
borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(10.0),
),
elevation: 5,
margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
);
```

Padding Widget
The Padding (Padding class) widget is added as a child to the Card widget, as
shown in Figure 9.6. It provides the inset around its child. We’ll give a default pad-
ding of 8 logical pixels.

```
Card(
child: Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
),
);
```

Row Widget
The Row widget displays its children in a horizontal array. We’ll use this array to
display the book’s title, authors’ list to the left, and cover image to the screen’s right.
The Row widget’s `mainAxisAlignment` attribute aligns the children widgets
along its main axis, which is horizontal in this case. The `MainAxisAlignment.
spaceBetween` property distributes free space available evenly between the chil-
dren widgets. The first child is the Flexible widget.

```
Card(
child: Padding(
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: [
150 Pragmatic Flutter

Flexible(),
Image.asset(
booksListing[index]['image'],
fit: BoxFit.fill,
),
],
),
),
);
```

Flexible Widget
The Flexible widget renders the book’s title and its authors’ list in a Column
widget. A Column widget renders its children vertically. The Flexible widget
gives flexibility to its child, the Column widget’s children flexibility to expand to
fill the available space in its main axis. The main axis for the Column widget is
vertical. The book’s title and authors’ list expand vertically rather than horizontally
and hereby giving ample space for the cover image to render to the right side of the
screen.

```
Flexible(
child: Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
children: <Widget>[
Text(
’${booksListing[index]['title']}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight:
FontWeight.bold),
),
booksListing[index]['authors'] != null
? Text(
'Author(s): ${booksListing[index]['authors'].join(",
")}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14),
)
: Text(""),
],
),
),
```

In the code above, the `booksListing[index]['title']` provides the title of

the book. The TextStyle provides the styling like font size and font weight for
the title text. The `booksListing[index]['authors']` provides the authors’
list. The list items are joined with a comma and display the items in the list as one
string altogether. However, there could be cases when there’s no explicit authors’ list
available for a given book. It’s a good practice to check for the data availability and
Building User Interface for BooksApp 151

show the widgets accordingly. If the authors’ list is empty, then show a Text widget
with an empty string.

Image Widget
The cover art for the book is displayed using the Image widget. In this app, the book
cover art is available in the ‘assets’ folder of the Flutter project root. In this example,
the sample book cover is the same for both images and is named ‘book_cover.png’.
Don’t forget to add the images under the ‘assets’ section of the ‘pubspec.yaml’ con-
figuration file.

```
assets:
- assets/book_cover.png
```

The image path is retrieved as `booksListing[index]['image']`. If the path is

not available, then show an empty placeholder Container widget. The `BoxFit.
fill` property is used to fill the image in the target box.

```
booksListing[index]['image'] != null
? Image.asset(
booksListing[index]['image'],
fit: BoxFit.fill,
)
: Container(),
```

Source Code Online

The code for this example (Building User Interface for BooksApp) is available
online at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to create the layout for the user interface for BooksApp.
Flutter widgets introduced in previous chapters like Column, Row, Padding,
Flexible, Image, ListView are used to implement the interface. The Card
widget is used to display the book’s title and authors’ list. You briefly touched on to
parse book information from JSON formatted data entries and build an interface to
display book information.

REFERENCES
Flutter Dev. (2020, 12 21). Card class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/Card-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). Card class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
material/Card-class.html
152 Pragmatic Flutter

Google. (2020, 11 20). Padding class. Retrieved from Api Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Padding-class.html
json.org. (2020, 11 20). Introducing JSON. Retrieved from json.org: https://www.json.org/
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 20). Building User Interface for BooksApp. Retrieved from Chapter09:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter09/main_09.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 05: Flutter App Structure. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 12: Integrating REST API. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 13: Data Modeling. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
10 Flutter Themes

In this chapter, you will learn the basics of Flutter themes and how to use it to style
your apps. Flutter theme is used to define application-wide stylings like colors, fonts,
and text. There are two ways to implement themes in Flutter:

• Global Theme: Styling throughout the application. This chapter will define
the global theme to style the BooksApp developed in the previous chapter
(Chapter 09: Building User Interface for BooksApp).
• Local Theme: Styling a specific widget. We will use the local theme to
style one part of the BooksApp. We will style the `BooksListing` widget
displaying books’ information without impacting other parts of the app.

GLOBAL THEME
A global theme is used to style the entire app all at once. Global themes are imple-
mented using ThemeData (ThemeData class). We will create and use a Global theme
for BooksApp using ThemeData to hold styling information for the material apps.
The ThemeData widget uses the following properties to define styling attributes.

• The `brightness` (brightness property) property uses the `brightness`

property to assign light or dark color themes to the app.
• The `appBarTheme` (appBarTheme property) property: The
`appBarTheme` property defines the theme for the AppBar widget.
• The `iconTheme` (iconTheme property) property: The `iconTheme`
property of AppBarTheme declares theme selection for the icons used in
the app bar. However, the iconTheme property for the ThemeData widget
defines the icon colors for the whole app globally. The IconThemeData
(IconThemeData class) class defines the color, size, and opacity of icons.

A ‘Home’ icon is added to the AppBar (AppBar class) widget to demonstrate styl-
ing icons in an app. Let’s create two light themes and one dark theme to understand
creating and using themes.

Default Blue Theme

The blue theme comes by default with the Flutter starter application. The AppBar’s
color scheme can be customized using the `appBarTheme` property. The default
light blue theme is stored in the `defaultTheme` variable.

```
ThemeData defaultTheme = ThemeData(

153
154 Pragmatic Flutter

// Define the default brightness and colors for the overall

app.
brightness: Brightness.light,
primaryColor: Colors.blue,
accentColor: Colors.lightBlueAccent,
appBarTheme: AppBarTheme(
color: Colors.blue,
iconTheme: IconThemeData(
color: Colors.white,
),
),
);
```

Using the Default Theme

The `defaultTheme` is assigned to the `theme` property of MaterialApp. The
BooksApp in default theme is shown in Figure 10.1.

FIGURE 10.1  Default light global theme

Flutter Themes 155

```
MaterialApp(
theme: defaultTheme,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
leading: Icon(Icons.home),
title: Text("Books Listing"),
),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
```

Light Pink Theme

Let’s change the primary and accent color to pink. Unless there’s an app bar specific
styling needed, you don’t need to specify the `appBarTheme` property. The pink
theme is stored in the `pinkTheme` variable.
```
ThemeData pinkTheme = ThemeData(
// Define the default brightness and colors for the overall
app.
brightness: Brightness.light,
primaryColor: Colors.pink,
accentColor: Colors.pinkAccent,
);
```

Using Pink Theme

The `pinkTheme` is assigned to the `theme` property of MaterialApp. The
BooksApp with pink colored theme is shown in Figure 10.2.
```
MaterialApp(
theme: pinkTheme,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
leading: Icon(Icons.home),
title: Text("Books Listing"),
),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
```

Dark Theme
Let’s define a dark theme for the BooksApp. The brightness property is set to
dark. Primary and accent colors are modified to colors appropriate for a darker
156 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 10.2  Pink light theme

theme. Later in the chapter, you will learn to switch from one theme to another. The
dark theme is stored in the `darkTheme` variable.

```
ThemeData darkTheme = ThemeData(
// Define the default brightness and colors for the overall app.
brightness: Brightness.dark,
primaryColor: Colors.orange,
accentColor: Colors.yellowAccent,
);
```

Using Dark Theme

The `darkTheme` is assigned to the `theme` property of `MaterialApp`. The
BooksApp with dark theme is shown in Figure 10.3.

```
MaterialApp(
theme: darkTheme,
Flutter Themes 157

FIGURE 10.3  Dark theme

home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
leading: Icon(Icons.home),
title: Text("Books Listing"),
),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
```

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter Themes) is available at GitHub.

MODULARIZING THEMES
All themes can be kept in a separate file. This file needs to be imported into the ref-
erencing file. This helps to keep all the styling code together. You may be tempted to
create a class with one static method for each theme. However, a class with only static
methods is discouraged per this lint rule (avoid_classes_with_only_static_members).
158 Pragmatic Flutter

If utility methods are not logically related in Dart, they shouldn’t be put inside a
class. Such methods can be put at top-level in a dart file.
All global themes can be put in a file themes.dart to keep all themes together.

File: themes.dart
```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

ThemeData get defaultTheme => ThemeData(

// Define the default brightness and colors for the
overall app.
brightness: Brightness.light,
primaryColor: Colors.blue,
accentColor: Colors.lightBlueAccent,
appBarTheme: AppBarTheme(
color: Colors.blue,
iconTheme: IconThemeData(
color: Colors.white,
),
),
);

ThemeData get pinkTheme => ThemeData(

// Define the default brightness and colors for the
overall app.
brightness: Brightness.light,
primaryColor: Colors.pink,
accentColor: Colors.pinkAccent,
);

ThemeData get darkTheme => ThemeData(

// Define the default brightness and colors for the
overall app.
brightness: Brightness.dark,
primaryColor: Colors.orange,
accentColor: Colors.yellowAccent,
);
```

Importing Themes
The ‘themes.dart’ is imported to access the `defaultTheme` from MaterialApp.
```
import 'themes.dart';
MaterialApp(
theme: defaultTheme,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
leading: Icon(Icons.home),
title: Text("Books Listing"),
Flutter Themes 159

),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
```

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter Themes: Modularizing Themes) is available at
GitHub.

USING CUSTOM FONTS

Download Font
The first step is to download the font that you want to use. I have downloaded the
Pangolin (Pangolin) font from Google Fonts. Copy the ‘*.ttf’ file into the Flutter root
project’s assets directory. I have created a ‘font’ directory under ‘assets’ to keep the
fonts-related files in one place.

Configuration
Once you have got a TTF file copied into the Flutter project, it’s time to add it in the
‘pubspec.yaml’ configuration.

```
fonts:
- family: Pangolin
fonts:
- asset: assets/fonts/Pangolin-Regular.ttf
```

Using Custom Font

Let’s see how to use this font to style the AppBar’s title (Figure 10.4).

```
MaterialApp(
theme: defaultTheme,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
leading: Icon(Icons.home),
title: Text(
"Books Listing",
style: TextStyle(fontFamily: 'Pangolin', fontSize: 30),
),
),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
```
160 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 10.4  Custom font in AppBar title

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Flutter Themes: Using Custom Fonts) is available at
GitHub.

LOCAL THEME
The local theme is used to customize the theme of a part of the screen rather than the
whole app. The local theme is applied by wrapping the target widget in the Theme
widget and providing the custom ThemeData for its `data` property like below:

```
Theme (
data: ThemeData(
//Implement custom theme here
),
//Theme is applied to TargetWidget
child: TargetWidget,
);
```
Flutter Themes 161

In the BooksApp, we’ll learn to create and use a local theme for making Card widget’s
color pink, customizing text themes for the book title, and authors’ listing widgets.

Card Color
The Card widget is wrapped as a child to the Theme (Theme class) widget. This
widget applies the theme to its descendant widget(s) by assigning ThemeData to
the `data` property of the Theme widget, as shown in the code snippet below.
The Card widget is assigned a pink color using the `cardColor` property of
`ThemeData`. Refer to Figure 10.5 to observe the pink color for the Card widget.

```
Theme(
//ThemeData local to Card widget
data: ThemeData(
cardColor: Colors.pinkAccent,
),
child: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {

FIGURE 10.5  Local theme – Card color, book title TextTheme, extending parent theme for
book’s authors’ list TextTheme
162 Pragmatic Flutter

return Card(
...
);
},
),
);
```

Book’s Title TextTheme

We’ll use the custom font ‘Pangolin’ to style the book’s title in the Card widget.
We’ll create a local text theme for the book’s title. The TextTheme (TextTheme
class) widget is used to create a text theme. It applies material design text themes.
Its `headline6` property is assigned to a custom style. The book’s title applies
this custom text theme by assigning its `style` property to `headline6`. The
`headline6` style is accessed using `Theme.of(context).textTheme.
headline6`.
```
Theme(
data: ThemeData(
...,
textTheme: TextTheme(
headline6: TextStyle(fontFamily: 'Pangolin', fontSize:
20),
),
),
child: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return Card(
...
Text(
'${booksListing[index]['title']}',
//Using custom text theme
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline6,
),
...
);
},
),
);
```

Extending Parent’s TextTheme

The parent’s theme can be extended to customize to your needs using the `copyWith`
(copyWith method) method. We will customize the parent’s text theme `bodyText2`
to the italic font style. The `bodyText2` is accessed from book’s authors’ list Text
widget’s style using `Theme.of(context).textTheme.bodyText2`.
Flutter Themes 163

```
Theme(
data: ThemeData(
...,
textTheme: TextTheme(
bodyText2: Theme.of(context)
.copyWith(
textTheme: TextTheme(
bodyText2: TextStyle(fontStyle: FontStyle.italic),
),
). textTheme.bodyText2,
),
),
child: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return Card(
...
Text(
'Author(s): ${booksListing[index]['authors'].join(",
")}',
//Using custom text theme
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.bodyText2,
),
...
);
},
),
);
```

Source Code Online

Source code of this example (Flutter Themes: Local Theme) is available at GitHub.

SWITCHING THEMES
So far, you have learned to create different types of themes. In real-world applica-
tions, you may want to provide functionality in your app to switch from one type of
theme to another. It’s a popular use case to toggle between light to dark themes and
vice versa. For this purpose, the app needs to remember the state of the app. The
BooksApp widget needs to be a StatefulWidget to keep track of the currently
selected theme. The themes are represented using enumeration `AppThemes`.

```
enum AppThemes { light, dark }
```

The ` _ BooksAppState` holds the `currentTheme`.

164 Pragmatic Flutter

```
class _BooksAppState extends State<BooksApp> {
var currentTheme = AppThemes.light;
}
```

The MaterialApp use `theme` property to apply the currently selected theme as
below:
```
MaterialApp(
...
theme: currentTheme == AppThemes.light? defaultTheme :
darkTheme,
...
}
```

Note: The `defaultTheme` and `darkTheme` are defined in themes.dart file, and
are imported using `import 'themes.dart'`.

Switching Themes
An IconButton (IconButton class) widget is added in the AppBar widget to facili-
tate theme switching. Pressing on this icon button toggles the `currentTheme`. If a
light theme is selected, then `currentTheme` is assigned to `darkTheme` or vice
versa. The `currentTheme` is updated inside the `setState` method. The updated
value forces MaterialApp to rebuild and applies the currently selected theme.
```
appBar: AppBar(
...
actions: [
IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.all_inclusive),
// Toggling from light to dark theme and vice versa
onPressed: () {
setState(() {
currentTheme = currentTheme == AppThemes.light
? AppThemes.dark
: AppThemes.light;
});
},
)
])
```

The BooksApp widget look like as below:

```
import 'themes.dart';
Flutter Themes 165

//BooksApp's entry point

void main() => runApp(BooksApp());

//StatefulWidget
class BooksApp extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_BooksAppState createState() => _BooksAppState();
}
class _BooksAppState extends State<BooksApp> {
var currentTheme = AppThemes.light;
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
//NEW CODE: applying selected theme
theme: currentTheme == AppThemes.light? defaultTheme :
darkTheme,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
leading: Icon(Icons.home),
title: Text("Books Listing"),
actions: [
IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.all_inclusive),
//NEW CODE: Toggling from light to dark theme
and vice versa
onPressed: () {
setState(() {
currentTheme = currentTheme ==
AppThemes.light
? AppThemes.dark
: AppThemes.light;
});
},
)
]),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
}
}
```

The BookListing widget remains the StatelessWidget because there’s no

need to update this part of the interface.

Light Theme
The default selected theme is a light blue theme, as shown in the screenshot
(Figure 10.6). The default theme is defined as below in the ‘themes.dart’ file:
166 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 10.6  Default light global theme for BooksApp

```
ThemeData(
// Define the default brightness and colors for the
overall app.
brightness: Brightness.light,
primaryColor: Colors.blue,
accentColor: Colors.lightBlueAccent,
appBarTheme: AppBarTheme(
color: Colors.blue,
iconTheme: IconThemeData(
color: Colors.white,
),
),
);
```

Dark Theme
The dark theme is shown in the screenshot (Figure 10.7). The ThemeData for the
dark theme is defined as below in the `themes.dart` file:
Flutter Themes 167

FIGURE 10.7  After switching to dark global theme for BooksApp

```
ThemeData(
// Define the default brightness and colors for the
overall app.
brightness: Brightness.dark,
primaryColor: Colors.orange,
accentColor: Colors.yellowAccent,
);
```

Source Code Online

The full source code of this example (Flutter Themes: Switching Themes) is avail-
able at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned the basics of creating and using custom themes. The
global and local themes were created for the BooksApp application. The custom
168 Pragmatic Flutter

fonts were used to style the book’s title text in the Card widget. Two global themes,
light and dark, were created for the app. Lastly, you also learned to toggle from one
theme to another.

REFERENCES
Burke, K. (2020, 11 20). Pangolin. Retrieved from Google Fonts: https://fonts.google.com/
specimen/Pangolin#standard-styles
Dart Team. (2020, 11 20). avoid_classes_with_only_static_members. Retrieved from Dart
language: https://dart-lang.github.io/linter/lints/avoid_classes_with_only_static_
members.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). AppBar class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/AppBar-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). appBarTheme property. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/ThemeData/appBarTheme.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). brightness property. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/AppBar/brightness.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). copyWith method. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/TextTheme/copyWith.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). IconButton class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/IconButton-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). iconTheme property. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/AppBar/iconTheme.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). IconThemeData class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/IconThemeData-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). TextTheme class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/TextTheme-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). Theme class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
material/Theme-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 20). ThemeData class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/material/ThemeData-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 20). Flutter Themes. Retrieved from Chapter10: Pragmatic Flutter GitHub
Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter10/
main_10_global.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 20). Flutter Themes: Local Theme. Retrieved from Chapter10: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/
lib/chapter10/main_10_local.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 20). Flutter Themes: Modularizing Themes. Retrieved from Chapter10:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter10/main_10_global_modularize.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 20). Flutter Themes: Switching Themes. Retrieved from Chapter10:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter10/main_10_switchingThemes.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 20). Flutter Themes: Using Custom Fonts. Retrieved from Chapter10:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter10/main_10_global_customfont.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 09: Building User Interface for BooksApp. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic
Flutter: Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC
Press.
11 Persisting Data

This chapter introduces persisting data in a Flutter application. There are two
approaches to persist data on the disk permanently in Flutter applications. In the
previous chapter (Chapter 10: Flutter Themes, 2021) you learned to toggle applica-
tion’s themes from one to another. However, that change doesn’t persist from one
launch to another. Users have to select a theme every time they launch the app. This
is not a very good user experience. It makes sense to persist the theme’s selection
from the previous launch, so that users can have seamless experience across the
multiple launches. In this chapter, you will learn to persist theme selection using two
approaches: Key/Value datastore (Shared preferences) and Local database. Shared
preferences are the better choice when there’s a tiny amount of data that needs to be
stored. Local database is a better choice for a huge dataset. In real-world applica-
tions, it makes sense to use the Shared preference approach to save theme selection.
The difference between persisting data using Shared preferences plugin vs Local
database is that Shared preferences plugin cannot guarantee persisting writes to disk
after app restarts. However, saving data to a Local database is more reliable. In this
chapter, both approaches are demonstrated to persist data for the selected theme on
Android, iOS, web, and desktop-macOS platforms.

LIGHT THEME (DEFAULT)

The BooksApp launches for the first time in the default blue theme. The BooksApp’s
theme can be changed to the dark theme by clicking on the app bar’s infinity icon.
However, if you exit the app and restart it again it restores to the light blue theme. This
happened because the theme selection was not persisted permanently (Figure 11.1).

Dark Theme
The BooksApp’s dark theme is shown in Figure 11.2. The app’s theme can be switched
back to light theme by clicking on the same app bar’s infinity icon. However, none of
the theme selection is persisted to the disk and will be restored to the default theme
every time the app restarts.
In the following sections, you will learn to save the selected theme preference to
the disk using key/value datastore and Local database variations.

KEY/VALUE DATA STORE (SHARED PREFERENCES PLUGIN)

The Shared preference approach uses key/value pairs to store information on the
device using Shared Preference Flutter plugin (Shared preferences plugin). Shared
preference plugin is useful in storing small sized data using key-value format on
disk. This solution is useful when amount of data to be saved is relatively small
like saving user preferences. In the previous chapter, you learned how to implement
169
170 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 11.1  Persisted light theme applied to BooksApp

theme switching from default light theme to dark theme and vice versa, by click-
ing on AppBar’s infinity icon. In this section, we’ll see how to persist the selected
theme using the Shared preferences plugin. The iOS platform uses NSUserDefaults
(NSUserDefaults) and Android platform uses SharedPreferences (SharedPreferences)
implementations to store simple data as key-value pairs to disk asynchronously.

The pubspec.yaml Dependency

The first step is to add the Shared preference plugin to the project’s dependencies in
the pubspec.yaml file. At the time of this writing the shared_preferences plugin’s
version is 0.5.8. Please update it to the latest version.

```
dependencies:
flutter:
sdk: flutter
#SharedPreference-persisting theme selection
shared_preferences: ^0.5.8
```
Persisting Data 171

FIGURE 11.2  Persisted dark theme applied to BooksApp

Loading Theme
The ` _ BooksAppState` class holds the active theme in the `currentTheme`
variable. The default theme is `AppThemes.light`. The theme settings are
restored from persistent store during the app’s startup from the `initState()`
method. The `loadActiveTheme(.)` gets the reference to Shared preference using
`SharedPreferences.getInstance()` which is an asynchronous operation.
The `await/async` keywords are used to get reference to SharedPreferences
class. The AppThemes enumeration’s index is used as theme id, and saved in the
Shared preference using key `theme _ id`. The app’s first launch will return
`null` for `sharedPrefs.getInt('theme _ id')`, and `AppThemes.
light.index` is assigned as default `themeId`. Once `themeId` is available,
the `currentTheme` is assigned to the selected theme using `AppThemes.
values[themeId]`. The `currentTheme` is called from the `setState()`
method that rebuilds the MaterialApp widget, and hence reassigns `current-
Theme` to the `theme` property of the MaterialApp.
172 Pragmatic Flutter

```
import 'package:shared_preferences/shared_preferences.dart';
...
class _BooksAppState extends State<BooksApp> {
AppThemes currentTheme = AppThemes.light;

// Fetching theme_id from SharedPreference

void loadActiveTheme(BuildContext context) async {
var sharedPrefs = await SharedPreferences.getInstance();
//if theme_id key is null (not found), then set default
theme
int themeId = sharedPrefs.getInt('theme_id')? ?
AppThemes.light.index;

setState(() {
currentTheme = AppThemes.values[themeId];
});
}

@override
void initState() {
super.initState();
// Load theme from sharedPreference
loadActiveTheme(context);
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
//Applying theme to the app
theme: currentTheme == AppThemes.light? defaultTheme :
darkTheme,
...
);
}
}
```

Persisting Theme
The `switchTheme()` method toggles the `currentTheme`, and saves the
currently selected theme’s id in the Shared preference using key/value pair. The
`switchTheme()` method is called from the `setState()` method that rebuilds
the MaterialApp widget, and hence reassigns `currentTheme` to the `theme`
property of the MaterialApp.

```
class _BooksAppState extends State<BooksApp> {
AppThemes currentTheme = AppThemes.light;
Persisting Data 173

// Save theme_id using SharedPreference

Future<void> switchTheme() async {
currentTheme =
currentTheme == AppThemes.light? AppThemes.dark :
AppThemes.light;

// save current selection

var sharedPrefs = await SharedPreferences.getInstance();
await sharedPrefs.setInt('theme_id', currentTheme.index);
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
theme: currentTheme == AppThemes.light? defaultTheme :
darkTheme,
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
...,
actions: [
IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.all_inclusive),
onPressed: () {
setState(() {
switchTheme();
});
},
)
]),
body: BooksListing(),
),
);
}
}
```

Source Code Online

The full source code of this example (Persisting Data: Shared preferences) is avail-
able at the GitHub.

LOCAL DATABASE (MOOR LIBRARY)

The Local database implementation uses moor library, which is based on SQLite
database. In this section, you’ll learn to save the preferred theme in the app’s Local
database to persist the last selected theme across app restarts using Moor library
(Moor: Persistence library for Dart).
174 Pragmatic Flutter

The Moor is the reactive persistence library for Dart and Flutter applications. It
lets tables to be defined in Dart or SQL while supporting it with seamless and easy
to use query API and streaming results. It persists selected themes in Flutter applica-
tion’s Local database using Moor plugin (moor plugin).

Package Dependencies
The following dependencies need to be added to pubspec.yaml configuration file.

• moor plugin (moor plugin): Persistence library built on top of sqlite for
Dart and Flutter. It works on Android, iOS, Web platforms, and native Dart
applications for persisting data in Local databases.
• moor_ffi plugin (moor_ffi plugin): This Flutter plugin generates Dart bind-
ings to sqlite by using dart:ffi (dart:ffi library). The ‘ffi’ stands for Foreign
Function Interface. This plugin can be used with Flutter and/or Dart VM
applications and supports all platforms where sqlite3 is installed: iOS,
Android (Flutter), macOS, Linux and Windows. However, at the time of
this writing Moor plugin is in mid of migration to cleaner implementa-
tion, and this plugin is being phased out. It is recommended to migrate to a
newer implementation (Phasing out the moor_ffi package). The newer imple-
mentation requires sqlite3_flutter_libs (sqlite3_flutter_libs) to be added as a
dependency. We’ll be adding `sqlite3 _ flutter _ libs` (sqlite3_
flutter_libs) dependency instead of `moor _ ffi plugin` (moor_ffi plugin).
• path_provider plugin (path_provider): This Flutter plugin is used for access-
ing file systems on Android and iOS platforms.
• path plugin (path): A cross-platform filesystem path manipulation library
for Dart.
• moor_generator plugin (moor_generator): This library contains the genera-
tor that turns your Table classes from moor into database code.
• build_runner plugin (build_runner): This package is used to generate files.
We need this package to be able to run this command `flutter pack-
ages pub run build _ runner build –delete-conflict-
ing-outputs` to generate ‘*.g.dart’ files.

```
dependencies:
moor: ^3.3.1
sqlite3_flutter_libs: ^0.2.0
#Helper to find the database path on mobile
path_provider: ^1.6.11
path: ^1.7.0

dev_dependencies:
flutter_test:
sdk: flutter
build_runner: ^1.10.2
moor_generator: ^3.3.1
```
Persisting Data 175

Preparing Database Using Moor

First, we’ll use Moor to prepare a database to save `themeId` and `theme-
Name`. The active theme’s id will be saved in the database table. This table will
have only one entry at a given time. When the theme switches from light to dark,
the older entry will be deleted, and a newly selected theme’s id will be added to
this table. I kept it simple on purpose to demonstrate how Moor can be integrated
in your app.
The `ThemePrefs` class extends `Table`. ThemePrefs table contains only
two fields: theme _ id to save id for the theme and another field themeName for
saving name.

```
class ThemePrefs extends Table {
IntColumn get themeId => integer()();
TextColumn get themeName => text()();
}
```

It will generate a table called theme _ prefs for us. The rows of that table will be
represented by a class called `ThemePref` auto generated by `moor _ genera-
tor` plugin.
Following part actually prepares the database table. This is the class where
migration strategy is described. I kept the migration strategy simple on purpose.
It resets the tables, and makes the light theme default in case of first launch or
upgrade.

```
@UseMoor(tables: [ThemePrefs])
class MyDatabase extends _$MyDatabase {
@override
MigrationStrategy get migration {...}
}
```

There is one method to activate the theme. It adds the current theme’s index/id to
the table.

```
void activateTheme(AppThemes theme) {
ThemePref pref =
ThemePref(themeId: theme.index, themeName: theme.
toString());
into(themePrefs).insert(pref);
}
```

The other method `deactivateTheme(int i)` removes the entry from the table
for the given `theme _ id`.
176 Pragmatic Flutter

```
void deactivateTheme(int i) =>
(delete(themePrefs)..where((t) => t.themeId.equals(i))).
go();
```

The method `themeIdExists(.)` checks if the entry for given `theme _ id`
already exists, and returns a boolean.

```
Stream<bool> themeIdExists(int id) {
return select(themePrefs)
.watch()
.map((prefs) => prefs.any((pref) => pref.themeId == id));
}
```

The `getActiveTheme()` queries the table and returns the only available row.
Remember there’s only one row for the active theme in the whole table. By the way,
this may not be the good use of a database to just store one entry. I chose to keep this
way to understand the database integration in a Flutter app.

```
Future<ThemePref> getActiveTheme() {
return select(themePrefs).getSingle();
}
```

Let’s take a look at the database file: themes_pref.dart below:

```
import 'package:moor/moor.dart';
import '../themes.dart';
part 'theme_prefs.g.dart';

// It will generate a table called "theme_prefs" for us. The

//rows of that table will be represented by a class called
//"ThemePref".
class ThemePrefs extends Table {
// AppThemes id
IntColumn get themeId => integer()();
TextColumn get themeName => text()();
}

// Moor prepares database table

@UseMoor(tables: [ThemePrefs])
class MyDatabase extends _$MyDatabase {
MyDatabase(QueryExecutor e) : super(e);

// Bump schemaVersion whenever there's change.

@override
Persisting Data 177

int get schemaVersion => 1;

//Keeping it simple
//reset the database whenever there's an update.
// Add light theme as default theme after first launch and
upgrade
@override
MigrationStrategy get migration {
return MigrationStrategy(onCreate: (Migrator m) {
return m.createAll();
}, onUpgrade: (Migrator m, int from, int to) async {
m.deleteTable(themePrefs.actualTableName);
m.createAll();
}, beforeOpen: (details) async {
if (details.wasCreated) {
await into(themePrefs).insert(ThemePrefsCompanion(
themeId: const Value(0),
themeName: Value(AppThemes.light.toString()),
));
}
});
}

void activateTheme(AppThemes theme) {

ThemePref pref =
ThemePref(themeId: theme.index, themeName:
theme.toString());
into(themePrefs).insert(pref);
}

void deactivateTheme(int i) =>

(delete(themePrefs)..where((t) =>
t.themeId.equals(i))).go();

//The stream will automatically emit new items whenever the

underlying data changes.
Stream<bool> themeIdExists(int id) {
return select(themePrefs)
.watch()
.map((prefs) => prefs.any((pref) => pref.themeId == id));
}

Future<ThemePref> getActiveTheme() {
return select(themePrefs).getSingle();
}
}
```

Please note that this line ‘part 'theme _ prefs.g.dart';’ will show an error
in the beginning because this file doesn’t exist yet. You’ll need to execute following
command to generate sqlite bindings:
178 Pragmatic Flutter

```
flutter packages pub run build_runner build
--delete-conflicting-outputs
```

Cross-Platform Database Implementation(s)

Different platforms have different implementations for databases. We need to cre-
ate a shared code that can pull in the correct database implementation for a given
platform. We’ll create one file to write shared code, say shared.dart. This file is
responsible for picking the platform-specific database implementation.

File: shared.dart

```
export 'unsupported.dart'
if (dart.library.html) 'web.dart'
if (dart.library.io) 'native.dart';
```

When the Flutter application is running on Android, iOS, desktop (Linux/Windows/

MacOS) platforms, mobile.dart implementation is picked. For Flutter Web, web.dart
is chosen by the platform. The unsupported.dart implementation is picked for every-
thing else.

File: native.dart

```
import 'dart:io';
import 'package:moor/ffi.dart';
import 'package:moor/moor.dart';
import 'package:path/path.dart' as p;
import 'package:path_provider/path_provider.dart' as paths;
import '../theme_prefs.dart';

//Note: Implementation borrowed from template project: //

https://github.com/appleeducate/moor_shared
MyDatabase constructDb({bool logStatements = false}) {
if (Platform.isIOS || Platform.isAndroid) {
final executor = LazyDatabase(() async {
final dataDir = await paths.
getApplicationDocumentsDirectory();
final dbFile = File(p.join(dataDir.path, 'db.sqlite'));
return VmDatabase(dbFile, logStatements: logStatements);
});
return MyDatabase(executor);
}
Persisting Data 179

if (Platform.isMacOS || Platform.isLinux) {
final file = File('db.sqlite');
return MyDatabase(VmDatabase(file, logStatements:
logStatements));
}
if (Platform.isWindows) {
final file = File('db.sqlite');
return MyDatabase(VmDatabase(file, logStatements:
logStatements));
}
return MyDatabase(VmDatabase.memory(logStatements:
logStatements));
}
```

File: web.dart

```
import 'package:moor/moor_web.dart';
import '../theme_prefs.dart';

MyDatabase constructDb({bool logStatements = false}) {

return MyDatabase(WebDatabase('db', logStatements:
logStatements));
}
```

File: unsupported.dart

```
import '../theme_prefs.dart';
MyDatabase constructDb({bool logStatements = false}) {
throw 'Platform not supported';
}
```

Loading Theme
The `loadActiveTheme()` method is called from `initState()` during the
app start-up time. It calls the `loadActiveTheme()` method to retrieve persisted
`theme _ id` from the database. If no entry is found in the database, then the
default theme is applied. The `currentTheme` is updated in `setState` method
to rebuild the MaterialApp to apply the latest currentTheme.

```
// Fetching theme_id DB
void loadActiveTheme(BuildContext context) async {
ThemePref themePref = await _database.getActiveTheme();
setState(() {
180 Pragmatic Flutter

currentTheme = AppThemes.values[themePref.themeId];
});
}
```

Persisting Theme
The `switchTheme()` method toggles previously selected theme `oldTheme`.
The `oldTheme` is removed from the database using `deactivateTheme(.)`.
Newly updated currentTheme is added to the database using `activateTh-
eme(...)`. The `activateTheme(...)` method is called from the `setState`
method to force rebuild the MaterialApp and update the `theme` property to
the latest currentTheme.

```
// Save theme_id in DB
Future<void> switchTheme() async {
var oldTheme = currentTheme;

currentTheme == AppThemes.light
? currentTheme = AppThemes.dark
: currentTheme = AppThemes.light;

//check if theme_id entry exists in table already

var isOldThemeActive = _database.themeIdExists(oldTheme.
index);
//Only active theme id is present in the db.
// Remove any existing theme id from DB before adding new
entry
if (isOldThemeActive != null) {
_database.deactivateTheme(oldTheme.index);
}
setState(() {
_database.activateTheme(currentTheme);
});
}
```

Source Code Online

The full source code of this example (Persisting Data: Moor Library) is available at
the GitHub.

LIGHT THEME ON MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

This section demonstrates how light theme looks for BooksApp across multiple
platforms.
Persisting Data 181

FIGURE 11.3  Light theme on Android

Android
Light theme preference retrieved from disk on Android platform (Figure 11.3).

iOS
Light theme preference retrieved from disk on iOS platform (Figure 11.4).
182 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 11.4  Light theme on iOS

Web
Light theme preference retrieved from disk on Web platform (Figure 11.5).

Desktop (macOS)
Persisted light theme preference retrieved from disk on Desktop (macOS) platform
(Figure 11.6).

DARK THEME ON MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

This section demonstrates how dark theme renders for BooksApp across multiple
platforms.
Persisting Data 183

FIGURE 11.5  Light theme on Web

FIGURE 11.6  Light theme on Desktop (macOS)

184 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 11.7  Dark theme on Android

Android
Dark theme preference retrieved from disk on Android platform (Figure 11.7).

iOS
Persisted Dark theme applied to BooksApp on iOS platform (Figure 11.8).
Persisting Data 185

FIGURE 11.8  Dark theme on iOS

186 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 11.9  Dark theme on Web

Web
Persisted Dark theme applied to BooksApp on the Web platform (Figure 11.9).

Desktop (macOS)
Persisted dark theme preference retrieved from disk on Desktop (macOS) platform
(Figure 11.10).

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to use Shared preferences and Local databases to
store and retrieve data from the Flutter applications across multiple platforms.
Shared preferences are implemented using Shared preference Flutter plugin. The
Persisting Data 187

FIGURE 11.10  Dark theme on Desktop (macOS)

data saved in Local database using the moor library, a wrapper around the sqlite
database.

REFERENCES
Apple. (2020, 11 22). NSUserDefaults. Retrieved from developer.apple.com: https://developer.
apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsuserdefaults
Binder, S. (2020, 07 23). sqlite3_ flutter_libs. Retrieved from Pub.dev: https://pub.dev/
packages/sqlite3_flutter_libs
Binder, S. (2020, 11 20). Moor: Persistence library for Dart. Retrieved from https://moor.
simonbinder.eu/
Binder, S. (2020, 11 22). moor plugin. Retrieved from simonbinder.eu: https://pub.dev/
packages/moor
Binder, S. (2020, 11 22). moor_ ffi plugin. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/
moor_ffi
Binder, S. (2020, 11 22). moor_generator. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/
moor_generator
Binder, S. (2020, 11 22). Phasing out the moor_ ffi package. Retrieved from GitHub Issues:
https://github.com/simolus3/moor/issues/691
dart.dev. (2020, 11 22). build_runner. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/
build_runner
dart.dev. (2020, 11 22). path. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/path
flutter.dev. (2020, 11 22). path_provider. Retrieved from Pub.Dev: https://pub.dev/packages/
path_provider
Google. (2020, 11 22). dart:ffi library. Retrieved from Dart Documentation: https://api.dart.
dev/stable/2.7.0/dart-ffi/dart-ffi-library.html
Google. (2020, 11 22). SharedPreferences. Retrieved from developer.android.com: https://
developer.android.com/reference/android/content/SharedPreferences
188 Pragmatic Flutter

pub.dev. (2020, 11 03). Shared preferences plugin. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/
packages/shared_preferences
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 22). Persisting Data: Moor Library. Retrieved from Chapter11: Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/tree/
master/lib/chapter11/db
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 22). Persisting Data: Shared preferences. Retrieved from Chapter11:
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter11/main_11_sharedprefs.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 10: Flutter Themes. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
12 Integrating REST API

This chapter is an introduction to fetching data from a remote REST (Representational

state transfer) API (Application Programming Interface) in a Flutter app. The
Representational state transfer is a software architectural style for an API that uses
less bandwidth for data transfer. It uses HTTP requests to access data. You’ll learn
how to access The Google Books API (Books API v1 (Experimental)) to fetch books
listing for the given criteria. The Google Books API allows to view books’ data in
JSON representation (JSON Representation) over the HTTP. The JavaScript Object
Notation (JSON) is a type of data interchange format. The JSON format is a pro-
gramming language that is independent and text-based. It uses key/value pairs to
store information and is human-readable.
Google Books (Google Books) is an effort to digitize the world’s books. The
Google Books API lets developers search books based on content. We will use this
API to search books that match specific criteria and fetch book listings using this
REST API. Once we have data available, we will render the raw JSON formatted
data in a simple Flutter user interface. We will touch base on setting up an API key
on Google API Console, and use Books API. We will dive into API details and learn
how to make a REST API call to fetch results and display it in a Flutter app.
By the end of this chapter, you’ll have a good understanding of getting your own
API key from Google API Console. You will use this API key to make a REST
call to fetch book listings. Finally, you will learn to display the raw JSON response
returned from API in a Flutter widget.

WHAT IS AN API?
An API (API) is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. An API lets
two applications talk to each other. We will use API to fetch book information to
learn to consume APIs in Flutter applications.
The Google Books API v1 (Books API v1 (Experimental)) provides program-
matic access to content and operations available on Google Books Website (Google
Books). Developers can use this API to build creative reading applications using
Google Books data. Google Books API is v1 and experimental at the time of this
writing and provides the following features:

• Searching and browsing a list of books for specified criteria.

• Viewing book information like metadata, sales information, and preview links.
• Access to users’ bookshelves and help manage their own bookshelves.

The Books API contains information about digitized books available through the
Google Books Website. API is the way to facilitate the app to fetch information from
this giant book database into our application. At the time of this writing, the Google

189
190 Pragmatic Flutter

Books API has version v1 and is still experimental. This API provides a generous-
free daily API quota limit of 1,000 queries per day. This is good enough to learn to
use this API and build an application around it. In our BooksApp, we’ll be fetching
public book-related data using Google Books API (Books API v1 (Experimental)).

FLUTTER CONFIGURATION
We need to enable Flutter to be able to make HTTP requests. We’ll use the http (http)
package, a composable, Future-based library for making HTTP requests.

Adding Package in pubspec.yaml

Add the `http` package under the dependencies section. Be careful about indenting
the YAML file. At the time of writing, the package version is 0.12.1. Please update
the package to the latest version, if available.

```
dependencies:
flutter:
sdk: flutter
http: ^0.12.1
```

Importing the Package

We’ll be making HTTP requests from code to fetch remote job data. To do so, we
need Dart’s http package available to the code. Import the http package in your
code. Use the library prefix (Effective Dart: Style) along with `as` for readability.
Using a library prefix `http` is useful to write readable and intuitive code. You can
call methods from the `http.dart` package on the `http` library prefix instead.

```
import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
```

API KEY
An API key is a unique identifier given to a user, application, or developer to be able
to make API requests. Requests to fetch public data from Google Books API need
to be accompanied by either an API key or an access token. It is used to track the
number of requests made by the app and to verify if the requests are being made
from the authorized app.
In the code, we’ll be using a variable `apiKey` to store the API key to access the
Google Books API.

```
final apiKey = "YOUR_API_KEY";
```
Integrating REST API 191

First, you’ll need to get an API key for yourself. You need this to be able to make API
requests to Google servers. Once you have your own API key, don’t forget to replace
it with "YOUR _ API _ KEY".

Getting an API Key

Our BooksApp makes requests to fetch public data from Books API. Such requests
need to be accompanied by an identifier like an API key (Using API keys). Follow
these steps to request an API key for Google Books API:

• The first step is to acquire the API key (Acquiring and using an API key) on
Google Console’s credentials page (Credentials). You need to have a Google
account to be able to log in and create a project.
• Create a project in Google Cloud if you don’t have an existing project yet.
• Click on ‘Create Credentials’ -> ‘API Key’
• Clicking on ‘API Key’ will generate the key and will provide an option to
restrict key access to the chosen APIs. It’s a good idea to restrict API access
to Books API only (Figure 12.1).
• Your API key will be available under the ‘API keys’ section on the
‘Credentials’ page. You may want to rename the key to something memo-
rable for future references.
• Keep this API key safe to be used in the code.
• Update the API key in the code.

Accessing API
Now that you have your API key keep it safe & handy to use in your code later. The
placeholder “YOUR_API_KEY” shall be updated with your API key. Google Books
API gives a generous-free API quota of a limit of 1,000 queries per day to explore
and learn API.

FIGURE 12.1  Creating credentials in the Google Cloud console interface

192 Pragmatic Flutter

API ENDPOINT
An endpoint is a place where the resource lives and where an API sends requests
to. Usually, an endpoint is a URL of the service. The API endpoint or URL to fetch
the listing of Python’s programming books is as below. You would need to replace
`apiKey` with the API keys generated in Google Cloud Console earlier.
https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes?key=apiKey&q=pytho
n±programming

Your endpoint is ready to make an HTTP request. Try to copy and paste this URL
in the browser of your choice, and observe the response displayed in the browser
window. You’ll observe a big blob of text in JSON format displayed in the browser’s
display area. Refer to Figure 12.2 to see how the response from API is rendered in
the Chrome browser. Chrome is used as the browser of choice throughout this book.

Make HTTP Request

At this point, you’re ready to make a REST API call to fetch book listing from your
Flutter app. Let’s check out the code to make an HTTP call to Google Books API.
The package http imported earlier is used to make the HTTP request in the code
snippet below. Let’s create a function `makeHttpCall()` to make such calls. The
`http.get(...)` method returns a `Future` object. That’s why it must be called
from an `async` function. This is the reason to mark `makeHttpCall()` function
with `async` keyword.
The await keyword is used to make network calls asynchronously without
blocking the main thread. The following code returns the API response of the
HtttpResponse (HttpResponse class) type. It will print this text on the console:
`flutter: Instance of 'Response'`.

FIGURE 12.2  Raw dump of JSON response from Google Books API displayed in the Chrome
browser
Integrating REST API 193

```
//Making HTTP request
Future<String> makeHttpCall() async {
final apiKey = "$YOUR_API_KEY";
final apiEndpoint =
"https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes?key=$apiKey&q=pyt
hon+programming";
final http.Response response =
await http.get(apiEndpoint, headers: {'Accept':
'application/json'});

//This will print 'flutter: Instance of 'Response'' on

console.
print(response);
return response.body;
}
```

The `response.body` will return the body of the response, which is the actual
book listing information that we’re interested in.

BUILDING SIMPLE INTERFACE

Let’s create a simple, scrollable interface that can accommodate the large text blob.
Let’s create a simple Flutter app say, BooksApp, which makes a REST API call to
fetch book listing data from Books API and later displays this big blob of text in a
scrollable interface.
Let’s name the app’s root widget as BooksApp, which extends the
StatelessWidget widget. The BooksApp widget is like a container for the
app, which provides the MaterialApp scaffolding to the app. The `debugShow-
CheckedModeBanner` is used to disable the `debug` banner at the top-right
corner of the app. You can leave it on if that’s your preference. The `home` attribute
assigns the homepage for the app.

BooksApp Widget
```
class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: BookListing(),
);
}
}
```

Next, we’ll work on BookListing, a StatefulWidget used as the homepage.

194 Pragmatic Flutter

BooksListing Widget
The BooksApp has BookListing stateful widget as its home property. This wid-
get actually makes the REST call to fetch jobs data. Since remote data is fetched
asynchronously, it may not be available at the time of the building widget. The app
may need to update the displayed data later on. The BookListing widget is a
StatefulWidget. The StatefulWidget helps to rebuild the interface when-
ever data is changed/updated. It uses the `setState()` method to update the data.
The interface rebuilds whenever data is changed inside the `setState()` method.
The widget’s state is managed by the ` _ BookListingState` class. The
` _ BookListingState` defines the method to fetch book listings as the
`fetchBooks()` method. This is marked `async` to support making API calls
asynchronously without blocking the app. The `build()` method makes the REST
call using the `fetchBooks()` method and then goes on building its interface.
The variable `booksResponse` of type `String` holds the data fetched from
the HTTP call.
The `fetchBooks()` method makes the remote call via `makeHttpCall()`
and receives data over the network asynchronously. It stores network response in
variable `response`. Later, `booksResponse` is updated with `response` in
`setState()` method, and `build()` method is called to rebuild the interface
again.

```
class BookListing extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_BookListingState createState() => _BookListingState();
}

class _BookListingState extends State<BookListing> {

String booksResponse;

//method to fetch books asynchronously

fetchBooks() async {
//making REST API call
var response = await makeHttpCall();

//Updating booksResponse to fetched remote data

setState(() {
booksResponse = response;
});
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
//fetching books listing
fetchBooks();
return Scaffold(
body: SingleChildScrollView(
child: booksResponse != null
Integrating REST API 195

? Text("Google Books API response\n $booksResponse")

: Text("No Response from API"),
),
);
}
}
```

Loading Data at App Startup

As you can see that `build()` method is triggered whenever `setState()` is updated.
However, it may not be a wise choice because every time the interface is rebuilt,
`fetchBooks()` will be called, and an API request in turn. It can quickly go in a
cycle and end up making a network request every time. This could lead to numerous
amounts of API calls to Google Books API and can run out your free API quota limit
quickly and/or can incur API request charges needlessly.
To solve this problem, it makes sense to make sure that you make REST API
call only whenever needed. In our case, we need to fetch data only once. To do so, it
makes sense to call `initState()` method from ` _ BookListingState`. This
method is executed only one time in the lifecycle of the StatefulWidget.

```
class _BookListingState extends State<BookListing> {
String booksResponse;

//method to fetch books asynchronously

fetchBooks() async {
//making REST API call
var response = await makeHttpCall();

//Updating booksResponse to fetched remote data

setState(() {
booksResponse = response;
});
}

@override
void initState() {
super.initState();
fetchBooks();
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: SingleChildScrollView(
child: booksResponse != null
? Text("Google Books API response\n $booksResponse")
: Text("No Response from API"),
196 Pragmatic Flutter

),
);
}
}
```

Displaying Data in App

Now that we’ve remote data fetched and updated in the `booksResponse` variable,
we are ready to display it in our interface. Since this data is a large blob of text, we need
a widget that can adapt to scrolling if needed. The `SingleChildScrollView`
widget can help with this requirement. It can accommodate a large blob of text in a
scrolling manner.
As soon as we start the app, it displays a message: ‘No Response from API’ on-
screen since no data is available yet. The remote data is being fetched using the
`await makeHttpCall()` method. The variable `booksResponse` is updated
in the `setState()` method. The `setState` method triggers rebuilding the
interface with newly fetched data, and a large text blob is displayed on the screen.

RUNNING CODE
Let’s put what we have learned so far together and run the code to see the Flutter
application displaying data on the screen on all four platforms: Android, iOS,
MacOS, and Chrome.
Note: Don’t forget to update the apikey with your own key. Replace “YOUR_
API_KEY” with the key you obtained earlier.

Complete Code
```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
import '../config.dart';

//Making HTTP request

Future<String> makeHttpCall() async {
final apiKey = "$YOUR_API_KEY";
final apiEndpoint =
"https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/
volumes?key=$apiKey&q=python";
final http.Response response =
await http.get(apiEndpoint, headers: {'Accept':
'application/json'});

//This will print `flutter: Instance of 'Response'` on

console.
print(response);
return response.body;
}
Integrating REST API 197

class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: BookListing(),
);
}
}

class BookListing extends StatefulWidget {

@override
_BookListingState createState() => _BookListingState();
}

class _BookListingState extends State<BookListing> {

String booksResponse;

//method to fetch books asynchronously

fetchBooks() async {
//making REST API call
var response = await makeHttpCall();

//Updating booksResponse to fetched remote data

setState(() {
booksResponse = response;
});
}

@override
void initState() {
super.initState();
fetchBooks();
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
//fetching books listing
//fetchBooks();

return Scaffold(
body: SingleChildScrollView(
child: booksResponse != null
? Text("Google Books API response\n $booksResponse")
: Text("No Response from API"),
),
);
}
}
```
198 Pragmatic Flutter

MacOS Target
You’ll need to add an entitlement, com.apple.security.network.client (com.apple.
security.network.client) in order to make any network request.
Note: Using App Sandbox (App Sandbox) is required if you plan to distribute your
application in the App Store.

ADDING ENTITLEMENT
The macOS builds are signed by default and sandboxed with App Sandbox. Add
the network entitlement in macos/Runner/DebugProfile.entitlements and macos/
Runner/Release.entitlements as below:

```
<key>com.apple.security.network.client</key><true/>
```

Figure 12.3 shows the API response displayed at desktop (macos).

Android Target
The following screenshot is taken on the Pixel 3 API 28 emulator.

FIGURE 12.3  API response displayed in macos target

Integrating REST API 199

ANDROIDMANIFEST.XML
Add the following permission to enable Internet access. This permission is not
required in debug mode.

```
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.
INTERNET"/>
```

Figure 12.4 shows the API response displayed at Android platform.

FIGURE 12.4  API response displayed in the Android target

200 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 12.5  API response displayed in Chrome target

Chrome Target
Figure 12.5 shows the API response displayed at Web (Chrome) platform.

iOS Target
The following screenshot is taken from iPhone SE (2nd generation) simulator. This is
the default simulator selected for my Xcode configuration. API response is displayed
as shown in Figure 12.6.

Source Code Online

Source code for this example (Calling REST API) is available at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to get an API key to make REST API calls to fetch
remote data in JSON representation. The raw data was displayed in a simple Flutter
app. You learned about making network calls, fetching data using API, and loading
data exactly once during app startup.
In the next chapter (Chapter 13: Data Modeling), you will learn about parsing
JSON data and create object models to better manage code.
Integrating REST API 201

FIGURE 12.6  API response displayed in the iOS target

REFERENCES
Apple. (2020, 11 21). App Sandbox. Retrieved from developer.apple.com: https://developer.
apple.com/documentation/security/app_sandbox
Apple. (2020, 11 21). com.apple.security.network.client. Retrieved from developer.apple.com:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/entitlements/com_apple_
security_network_client
Dart. (2020, 11 21). Effective Dart: Style. Retrieved from dart.dev: https://dart.dev/guides/language/
effective-dart/style#do-name-import-prefixes-using-lowercase_with_underscores
Dart Team. (2020, 12 22). HttpResponse class. Retrieved from Dart Dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.7.1/dart-io/HttpResponse-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 21). http. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/http
Google. (2020, 11 21). Acquiring and using an API key. Retrieved from Google Books API:
https://developers.google.com/books/docs/v1/using#APIKey
202 Pragmatic Flutter

Google. (2020, 11 21). Books API v1 (Experimental). Retrieved from Google Books APIs:
https://developers.google.com/books/docs/overview#books_api_v1
Google. (2020, 11 21). Credentials. Retrieved from Google APIs: https://console.developers.
google.com/apis/credentials
Google. (2020, 11 21). Google Books. Retrieved from books.google.com: https://books.
google.com/
Google. (2020, 11 21). Using API keys. Retrieved from Google Cloud: https://cloud.google.
com/docs/authentication/api-keys?visit_id=637269820995156061-804882371&rd=1
JSON Representation. (2020, 11 21). Retrieved from json.org: https://www.json.org/json-en.
html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 21). Calling REST API. Retrieved from Chapter12: Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter12/main_12.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 13: Data Modeling. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Wikipedia. (2020, 11 21). API. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API
13 Data Modeling

In the previous chapter (Chapter 12: Integrating REST API), you learned to access
books data from Google Books API (or Books API). You queried the API for fetch-
ing ‘Python’ programming books and displayed the raw blob of JSON response in
a Flutter widget of BooksApp. Now that you know how to receive the HttpResponse
(HttpResponse class) response from API. In this chapter, you will learn to convert
the response into JSON and parse it to render views in the Flutter ListView (ListView
class) widget. Later in this chapter, the JSON formatted response is converted into
the BookModel data model by mapping JSON response into the data model class.
These Dart objects are used to build the same book listing Flutter user interface.

PARSING JSON
The JavaScript Object Notation or JSON is a type of data interchange format. The
JSON format is programming language independent and text-based. It uses key/value
pairs to store information and is human-readable. Dart provides the dart:convert
(dart:convert library) library to parse JSON data.

The dart:convert Library

The dart:convert library parses the JSON response into the Dart collection
Map. In the following code, the apiResponse is the response returned from
http.get(apiEndPoint).
The HTTP headers are set to accept JSON encoding using `application/
json`. The json.decode(...) method takes the response’s body to parse it
into Dart data structures. It returns a Map (Map<K, V> class) as a Future object.
Futures are the objects that return the results of the asynchronous operations.

```
//importing the Dart package
import 'dart:convert';

//Making HTTP request

//Function to make REST API call
Future<dynamic> makeHttpCall() async {
//API Key: To be replaced with your key
final apiKey = "$YOUR_API_KEY";
final apiEndpoint = "https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/
volumes?key=$apiKey&q=python+coding";
final http.Response response =
await http.get(apiEndpoint, headers: {'Accept':
'application/json'});

203
204 Pragmatic Flutter

//Parsing API's HttpResponse to JSON format

//Converting string response body to JSON representation
final jsonObject = json.decode(response.body);

//Prints JSON formatted response on console

print(jsonObject);
return jsonObject;
}
```

The print(jsonObject) function prints the JSON object on the console.

The JSON response from API for one book item looks as shown in Figure 13.1.
We need only some parts of the book information to show in the BooksApp. The
parts needed for the app are highlighted in Figure 13.1. We are interested in parsing
this required information only to keep things simple.

JSON Formatted Response

The jsonObject is a JSON encoded response from API. The JSON returned from
the API looks like below. The JSON object consists of items key to hold an array
of book information. The API returns about ten items at one time by default. I have
omitted a few attributes to simplify the structure. Each book or item contains the
following attributes/keys returned from API:

• volumeInfo
• title: Book’s title.
• subtitle: Book’s subtitle.
• authors: Book’s authors.
• publisher: Book’s publisher.
• publishedDate: Publication date.
• description: Book description.
• imageLinks
– smallThumbnail: Link to smaller sized thumbnail.
– thumbnail: Link to thumbnail for book image.
• saleInfo
– saleability: Information whether a book is available for sale
or not.
– buyLink: Link to smaller sized thumbnail.
• accessInfo
– webReaderLink: Link to read the text in the browser.

JSON data structure is shown below for one book entry.

```
{
"items": [
{
"volumeInfo": {
Data Modeling 205

FIGURE 13.1  Image for JSON blob for one item

206 Pragmatic Flutter

"title": "Learning Python",

"subtitle": "Powerful Object-Oriented Programming",
"authors": [
"Mark Lutz"
],
"publisher": "\"O'Reilly Media, Inc.\"",
"publishedDate": "2013-06-12",
"description": "Get a comprehensive, in-depth
introduction to the core Python language with this hands-on
book. Based on author Mark Lutz’s popular training course, this
updated fifth edition will help you quickly write efficient,
high-quality code with Python. It’s an ideal way to begin,
whether you’re new to programming or a professional developer
versed in other languages. Complete with quizzes, exercises,
and helpful illustrations, this easy-to-follow, self-paced
tutorial gets you started with both Python 2.7 and 3.3— the
latest releases in the 3.X and 2.X lines—plus all other
releases in common use today. You’ll also learn some advanced
language features that recently have become more common in
Python code. Explore Python’s major built-in object types such
as numbers, lists, and dictionaries Create and process objects
with Python statements, and learn Python’s general syntax model
Use functions to avoid code redundancy and package code for
reuse Organize statements, functions, and other tools into
larger components with modules Dive into classes: Python’s
object-oriented programming tool for structuring code Write
large programs with Python’s exception-handling model and
development tools Learn advanced Python tools, including
decorators, descriptors, metaclasses, and Unicode processing",
"imageLinks": {
"smallThumbnail": "http://books.google.com/books/con
tent?id=4pgQfXQvekcC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=5&edge=
curl&source=gbs_api",
"thumbnail": "http://books.google.com/books/content?
id=4pgQfXQvekcC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=
curl&source=gbs_api"
}
},
"saleInfo": {
"saleability": "FOR_SALE",
"buyLink": "https://play.google.com/store/books/details
?id=4pgQfXQvekcC&rdid=book-4pgQfXQvekcC&rdot=1&source=gbs_api"
},
"accessInfo": {
"webReaderLink": "http://play.google.com/books/reader?
id=4pgQfXQvekcC&hl=&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_api"
}
}
]
}
```
Data Modeling 207

Let’s re-examine the fetchBooks() method of _ BooksListingState class

in the previous chapter (Chapter 12: Integrating REST API).

```
var booksListing;
fetchBooks() async {
var response = await makeHttpCall();
setState(() {
booksListing = response["items"];
});
}
```

The items property in the JSON response above holds the list of books as JSON
objects.
The response is assigned to the results returned from the
makeHttpCall()function. The booksListing is assigned to the
response["items"] returned from the API. Since the response variable stores
the JSON response above, response["items"] would give the list of books as a
list of JSON objects. We will use this list of JSON objects to retrieve the book infor-
mation and eventually render it in Flutter applications.
Note: The response["items"] returns a list of LinkedHashMap
as List<dynamic>. LinkedHashMap (LinkedHashMap<K, V> class) is a
Hashtable implementation of the Map. The LinkedHashMap preserves the
insertion order of keys.
Each JSON object of this list contains the book information that needs to be dis-
played in each row of the app’s books list. In our app, we’re interested in displaying
the title, authors, and thumbnail image of the book. We can use the following attri-
butes from the above JSON object(s) to get that information.

• volumeInfo->title: title of the book.

• volumeInfo->description: description of the book
• volumeInfo->imageLinks->thumbnail: Link to thumbnail image
of the book’s cover page.

Now that we know how to fetch and access information about the book listing, let’s
start building the interface. We’ll build a simple interface like below (Figure 13.2) to
display the book’s title, author(s), and cover image, if available.

ListView WIDGET: LISTING ENTRIES

In the previous chapter (Chapter 12: Integrating REST API), a big blob of API
responses was displayed on the main screen. In this section, you’ll see how to dis-
play each book entry in its own row using the ListView (ListView class) Flutter
widget.
208 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 13.2  ListView widget listing books (generic)

ListView Widget
The ListView widget is used for laying out its children in a scrolling manner.
One way to build a ListView widget is to use ListView.builder. It has two
main properties:

• itemCount: This property includes the number of items to be displayed

in ListView.
• itemBuilder: This property takes an anonymous function with two
parameters (context, index) to render each row of the list. The index keeps
track of the number of the item in the list.

A BuildContext (BuildContext class) is like the handle to the location of a widget

in the widget tree.
Data Modeling 209

We saw earlier that `booksListing = response["items"];` holds the

entries of the books returned as the API response. The ListView.builder(...)
creates a scrollable, linear array of book item widgets that can be created on-demand.
We’ll be creating a BookTile widget to encapsulate the book item widget. This
BookTile widget takes the current item from the booksListing and passes on
book information for rendering in the list.

```
ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
//current book information passed on to BookTile
return BookTile(book: booksListing[index]);
},
),
```

CUSTOM WIDGET: BookTile

The BookTile widget is used to show each entry in the book listing. It consists of
the book title, authors, and cover image information provided by API, along with a
dividing gray line as the separator (Figure 13.3).

Anatomy of Custom List Entry Widget

Let’s first understand the structure of the custom list entry widget. The custom list
entry widget is built using the following primitive Flutter widgets:

• Card Widget
• Padding Widget
• Row Widget
• Flexible Widget
• Column Widget
• Text Widget
• Image Widget

FIGURE 13.3  Custom list entry widget

210 Pragmatic Flutter

The structure of the custom widget BookTile is shown in Figure 13.4. Since image,
title, and overview text are aligned vertically, we can use the Column widget.

BookTile StatelessWidget
The BookTile widget can be a Stateless widget since it creates a part of the
interface and doesn’t change its state afterward. Create a file booktile.dart to hold
stateless BookTile widget class. The variable `final book` holds the current
book information passed from the ListView.builder() constructor.

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
class BookTile extends StatelessWidget {
final book;
const BookTile({Key key, this.book}) : super(key: key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
//Card widget
//Card's child is Padding
//Padding's child is Row
//Row's children are Flexible and Image
//Flexible's child is Column
//Column's children are two Text widgets
return Card(
child: Padding(
child: Row(
children: [
Flexible(
child: Column(
children: <Widget>[
Text(),

FIGURE 13.4  Anatomy of the custom list entry widget

Data Modeling 211

Text(),
],
),
),
Image.network()
],
),
),
);
}
}
```

Let’s go over each building block widgets one by one

Card Widget
The Card Widget (Card class) creates a Material Design Card (Cards). It’s a
useful widget to show related information together. Since we want to display title,
authors, and image related to one book item, it makes sense to Card widget as
a list entry. It has slightly rounded corners and shadows that we can tweak. The
RoundedRectangleBorder for the shape attribute is used to assign a rounded
corner shape to the Card widget. The elevation can be adjusted using the eleva-
tion property. The margin property is used to give spacing around the Card
widget. The Padding widget was added as its child.

```
Card(
shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(
borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(10.0),
),
elevation: 5,
margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
child: Padding(...),
)
```

Padding Widget
We want little space between the Card widget edges and Row widget. We can achieve
this padding around the Row widget using Padding Widget. The Padding widget
is used to give padding around the Row widget.

```
Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
child: Row(),
)
```
212 Pragmatic Flutter

Row Widget
The Row widget (Row class) aligns its children in a horizontal direction. Row wid-
get is used to display the title and author text to the left side of the screen and the book’s
cover page image to the right side. The mainAxisAlignment property tells Row
how to place its children widgets in the available space. The MainAxisAlignment.
spaceBetween helps to distribute the free space evenly between the children. The
Row widget has two children to display the book’s text details and image.
```
Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: [
Flexible(),
Image.network()
],
)
```

Flexible Widget
The Flexible widget (Flexible class) is used to display the book’s text details.
It uses the Column widget as its child to align title and author information verti-
cally. The Flexible widget gives Column widget flexibility to expand to fill the
available space in the main axis. If the book’s title is too long, it’ll expand vertically
rather than overflowing.
```
Flexible(
child: Column()
)
```

Column Widget
The Column widget (Column class) aligns its children vertically. The book’s title
and author’s information are displayed in Column widget’s children. The cros-
sAxisAlignment property is set to CrossAxisAlignment.start, which
helps to place the children with their start edge aligned with the start side of the
cross axis. This property makes sure that children widgets are aligned to the left of
the Column widget.
```
Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
children: <Widget>[
Text(),
Text()
],
)
```
Data Modeling 213

Text Widgets
The Text (Text class) widgets are used to display text. Two Text widgets are placed
vertically in the Column widget. The first Text widget is for the book’s title text.
The variable book is a parsed JSON response returned from the API for the given
index. The related piece of JSON is:

```
"volumeInfo": {
"title": "Learning Python",
"authors": [
"Mark Lutz"
],
}
```

The title is available at path 'volumeInfo'->'title'. The authors’ list is avail-

able at path 'volumeInfo'->'authors'.

```
Text(
'${book['volumeInfo']['title']}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight: FontWeight.bold),
)
```

The second Text widget is to display the author(s) name(s). The author’s name(s) is
available as a List. The authors’ name list is concatenated with commas. A null check
is added for authors’ information to handle cases when there’s no author list available.

```
book['volumeInfo']['authors'] != null
? Text(
'Author(s): ${book['volumeInfo']['authors'].join(", ")}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14),
)
: Text(""),
```

Both Text widgets are styled with the same font size. However, the title is styled to
be bold as well.

Image Widget
The Image widget is used to display the book’s cover page image. The `Image.
network()` method uses network URL to load and display images. The fit prop-
erty is assigned to BoxFit.fill, which helps to fit the image in the given target
box. An empty Container widget is added when there’s no thumbnail information
available.
214 Pragmatic Flutter

```
book['volumeInfo']['imageLinks']['thumbnail'] != null
? Image.network(
book['volumeInfo']['imageLinks']['thumbnail'],
fit: BoxFit.fill,
)
: Container(),
```

Finished Code (Part 1): BookTile Widget

The BookTile Stateless Widget is available in booktile.dart (Chapter 13: BookTile
(Part 1)) file available at GitHub repo.

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
class BookTile extends StatelessWidget {
final book;
const BookTile({Key key, this.book}) : super(key: key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Card(
shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(
borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(10.0),
),
elevation: 5,
margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
child: Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: [
Flexible(
child: Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
children: <Widget>[
Text(
'${book['volumeInfo']['title']}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight:
FontWeight.bold),
),
book['volumeInfo']['authors'] != null
? Text(
'Author(s):
${book['volumeInfo']['authors'].join(", ")}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14),
)
: Text(""),
],
),
Data Modeling 215

),
book['volumeInfo']['imageLinks']['thumbnail'] != null
? Image.network(

book['volumeInfo']['imageLinks']
['thumbnail'],
fit: BoxFit.fill,
)
: Container(),
],
),
),
);
}
}
```

Finished Code (Part 1): Main Method

This code is available in the GitHub repo under part1 (Chapter 13: Custom Widget
(Part 1)) folder.

```
//importing the Dart package
import 'dart:convert';

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
import 'package:pragmatic_flutter/chapter15/part1/booktile.
dart';

import '../../config.dart';

//Showing book listing in ListView

class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: BooksListing(),
);
}
}

//Making HTTP request

//Function to make REST API call
Future<dynamic> makeHttpCall() async {
//API Key: To be replaced with your key
final apiKey = "$YOUR_API_KEY";
216 Pragmatic Flutter

final apiEndpoint = "https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1

/volumes?key=$apiKey&q=python+coding";
final http.Response response =
await http.get(apiEndpoint, headers: {'Accept': 'application/
json'});

//Parsing API's HttpResponse to JSON format

//Converting string response body to JSON representation
final jsonObject = json.decode(response.body);

//Prints JSON formatted response on console

print(jsonObject);
return jsonObject;
}

class BooksListing extends StatefulWidget {

@override
_BooksListingState createState() => _BooksListingState();
}

class _BooksListingState extends State<BooksListing> {

var booksListing;
fetchBooks() async {
var response = await makeHttpCall();
setState(() {
booksListing = response["items"];
});
}
@override
void initState() {
super.initState();
fetchBooks();
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Books Listing"),
),
body: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.
length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return BookTile(book: booksListing[index]);
},
),
);
}
}
```
Data Modeling 217

CONSTRUCTING DATA MODEL

In this section, you’ll learn to create a data model object from a JSON formatted
API response. We will create a BookModel Dart class to parse the JSON response
returned from API.
BookModel class will have members for each of the response["items"]
JSON attributes returned as API response.

Revisiting Books API Response Structure

The JSON response returned from Books API looks like a huge blob of string. It
could be hard to access the attributes by calling their names every time from code.
A spelling mistake can make debugging very hard.
To avoid this problem, it makes sense to create a Dart object mapped to the
response. We will call this class BookModel.
Earlier, if you would want to access the ‘title’ of the book, you had to access it as
response["items"]["volumeInfo"]["title"].
After mapping data to the BookModel class, you can access ‘title’ as
bookModelObj.volumeInfo.title and so on.

Google Books API JSON Response

```
{
"items": [
{
"volumeInfo": {
"title": "Learning Python",
"subtitle": "Powerful Object-Oriented Programming",
"authors": [
"Mark Lutz"
],
"publisher": "\"O'Reilly Media, Inc.\"",
"publishedDate": "2013-06-12",
"description": "Get a comprehensive, in-depth
introduction to the core Python language with this hands-on
book.",
"imageLinks": {
"smallThumbnail": "http://books.google.com/books/
content?id=4pgQfXQvekcC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=5&edge=
curl&source=gbs_api",
"thumbnail": "http://books.google.com/books/content?
id=4pgQfXQvekcC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=
curl&source=gbs_api"
}
},
"saleInfo": {
"saleability": "FOR_SALE",
218 Pragmatic Flutter

"buyLink": "https://play.google.com/store/books/detail
s?id=4pgQfXQvekcC&rdid=book-4pgQfXQvekcC&rdot=1&source=gbs_
api"
},
"accessInfo": {
"webReaderLink": "http://play.google.com/books/reader?
id=4pgQfXQvekcC&hl=&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_api"
}
}
]
}
````

Constructing BookModel
Let’s create a BookModel class to hold the API movie listing data set. The
BookModel class will have members for each attribute of the JSON response.

The BookModel.fromJson(...)
The BookModel.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) takes a JSON
map and assigns corresponding values to the BookModel object’s members. This
is the entry point method that is called to parse JSON responses received from the
network. In this case, JSON response attributes are tiered. Each tier will have its own
models. The BookModel class needs access to volumeInfo, accessInfo, and
saleInfo attributes/members.

BookModel Class
BookModel.fromJson() uses a factory constructor. The factory constructor
is used when implementing a constructor that doesn’t always create a new instance
of its class. It’s useful when getting an object from a cache rather than creating a
duplicate.

```
class BookModel {
final VolumeInfo volumeInfo;
final AccessInfo accessInfo;
final SaleInfo saleInfo;

BookModel({this.volumeInfo, this.accessInfo, this.saleInfo});

factory BookModel.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {

return BookModel(
volumeInfo: VolumeInfo.fromJson(json['volumeInfo']),
accessInfo: AccessInfo.fromJson(json['accessInfo']),
saleInfo: SaleInfo.fromJson(json['saleInfo']));
}
}
```
Data Modeling 219

VolumeInfo Class
The VolumeInfo class has a title, authors as its members. It has a reference
to the ImageLinks class to access thumbnail information.
```
class VolumeInfo {
final String title;
final String subtitle;
final String description;
final List<dynamic> authors;
final String publisher;
final String publishedDate;
final ImageLinks imageLinks;

VolumeInfo(
{this.title,
this.subtitle,
this.description,
this.authors,
this.publisher,
this.publishedDate,
this.imageLinks});

factory VolumeInfo.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {

return VolumeInfo(
title: json['title'],
subtitle: json['subtitle'],
description: json['description'],
authors: json['authors'] as List,
publisher: json['publisher'],
publishedDate: json['publishedDate'],
imageLinks: ImageLinks.fromJson(json['imageLinks']));
}
}
```

The ImageLinks class provides information about the image thumbnails. A null
check helps to handle cases where there’s no thumbnail information available.
```
class ImageLinks {
final String smallThumbnail;
final String thumbnail;
ImageLinks({this.smallThumbnail, this.thumbnail});
factory ImageLinks.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {
return ImageLinks(
smallThumbnail: json != null? json['smallThumbnail'] :
'',
thumbnail: json != null? json['thumbnail'] : '');
}
}
```
220 Pragmatic Flutter

AccessInfo Class
The AccessInfo class provides the webReaderLink, a link to the URL to read
on the web.
```
class AccessInfo {
String webReaderLink;
AccessInfo({this.webReaderLink});
factory AccessInfo.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {
return AccessInfo(webReaderLink: json['webReaderLink']);
}
}
```

SaleInfo Class
The class SaleInfo provides the link to buy the book as 'buyLink'.
```
class SaleInfo {
final String saleability;
final String buyLink;
SaleInfo({this.saleability, this.buyLink});
factory SaleInfo.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) {
return SaleInfo(saleability: json['saleability'], buyLink:
json['buyLink']);
}
}
```

Now that our BookModel is ready to parse and create a data model for JSON data
let’s learn to put it in use in the next section.

CONVERTING API RESPONSE TO BookModel LIST

In this section, you’ll learn to use the BookModel object to build a list of book
entries returned from the API response. You will convert the API response to a list
of BookModel objects. The makeHttpCall() function returns the Future of
List<BookModel>.
```
//Function to make REST API call
Future<List<BookModel>> makeHttpCall() async {
//API Key: To be replaced with your key
final apiKey = "$YOUR_API_KEY";
final apiEndpoint = "https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/
volumes?key=$apiKey&q=python+coding";
final http.Response response =
await http.get(apiEndpoint, headers: {'Accept': 'application/
json'});
Data Modeling 221

//Converting string response body to JSON representation

final jsonObject = json.decode(response.body);

var list = jsonObject['items'] as List;

//return the list of Book objects
return list.map((e) => BookModel.fromJson(e)).toList();
}
```

Passing BookModel to BookTile Widget

The booksListing holds the list of BookModel objects returned from the
REST API call. The ListView.builder() builds the BookTile widgets for
each entry passing BookModel for the current index.

```
class _BooksListingState extends State<BooksListing> {
List<BookModel> booksListing;
fetchBooks() async {
var response = await makeHttpCall();
setState(() {
booksListing = response;
});
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.
length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
//Passing bookModelObj to BookTile widget
return BookTile(bookModelObj: booksListing[index]);
},
),
);
}
}
```

Displaying Data
Now, data values can be accessed from the BookModel object using its members.
For example, book['volumeInfo']['title']can be accessed as bookMod-
elObj.volumeInfo.title, and so on.

RUN THE CODE

Let’s put what we have learned so far together and run the code on all four platforms:
Android, iOS, MacOS, and Chrome.
222 Pragmatic Flutter

Note: Don’t forget to update the apikey with your own key. Replace “YOUR_
API_KEY” with the key you obtained earlier.

Finished Code (Part 2): BookTile Widget

The BookTile is a stateless widget that is available in part2/booktile.dart (Chapter
13: BookTile (Part 2)) file at GitHub repo. The BookModel (Chapter 13: BookModel
(Part2)) is available at GitHub as well.

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'book.dart';

class BookTile extends StatelessWidget {

final BookModel bookModelObj;
const BookTile({Key key, this.bookModelObj}) : super(key:
key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Card(
shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(
borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(10.0),
),
elevation: 5,
margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
child: Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: [
Flexible(
child: Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
children: <Widget>[
Text(
'${bookModelObj.volumeInfo.title}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight:
FontWeight.bold),
),
bookModelObj.volumeInfo.authors != null
? Text(
'Author(s): ${bookModelObj.
volumeInfo.authors.join(", ")}',
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14),
)
: Text(""),
],
),
),
Data Modeling 223

bookModelObj.volumeInfo.imageLinks.thumbnail != null
? Image.network(
bookModelObj.volumeInfo.imageLinks.
thumbnail,
fit: BoxFit.fill,
)
: Container(),
],
),
),
);
}
}
```

Finished Code (Part 2): Main Method

This code is available in the GitHub repo in part2 (Chapter 13: Data Modeling (main
method - Part 2)) folder.
```
//importing the Dart package
import 'dart:convert';

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;

import '../../config.dart';
import 'book.dart';
import 'booktile.dart';

//Showing book listing in ListView

class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: BooksListing(),
);
}
}

//Making HTTP request

//Function to make REST API call
Future<List<BookModel>> makeHttpCall() async {
//API Key: To be replaced with your key
final apiKey = "$YOUR_API_KEY";
final apiEndpoint = "https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/vol
umes?key=$apiKey&q=python+coding";
final http.Response response =
224 Pragmatic Flutter

await http.get(apiEndpoint, headers: {'Accept': 'application/

json'});

//Parsing API's HttpResponse to JSON format

//Converting string response body to JSON representation
final jsonObject = json.decode(response.body);

var list = jsonObject['items'] as List;

//return the list of Book objects
return list.map((e) => BookModel.fromJson(e)).toList();
}

class BooksListing extends StatefulWidget {

@override
_BooksListingState createState() => _BooksListingState();
}

class _BooksListingState extends State<BooksListing> {

List<BookModel> booksListing;
fetchBooks() async {
var response = await makeHttpCall();

setState(() {
booksListing = response;
});
}

@override
void initState() {
super.initState();
fetchBooks();
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Books Listing"),
),
body: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.
length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
//Passing bookModelObj to BookTile widget
return BookTile(bookModelObj: booksListing[index]);
},
),
);
}
}
```
Data Modeling 225

FIGURE 13.5  Final code run results for Android platform

Android Target
The following screenshot (Figure 13.5) is taken on the Pixel 3 API 28 emulator.

iOS Target
The following screenshot (Figure 13.6) is taken from iPhone SE (2nd generation)
simulator. This is the default simulator selected for my XCode configuration.
226 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 13.6  Final code run results for iOS platform

Desktop (macOS)
Figure 13.7 shows the book listing in a desktop app running at macOS platform.

Web (Chrome)
Figure 13.8 shows the book listing for web in Chrome browser.

Source Code Online

The source code for this chapter (Chapter 13) is available online at GitHub.
Data Modeling 227

FIGURE 13.7  Final code run results for macOS platform

FIGURE 13.8  Final code run results for Chrome platform

CONCLUSION
Congratulations! You’ve made your own book listing app using Flutter. In this
chapter, you learned how to parse API responses in JSON and access needed book
information for the app. We learned to parse HttpResponse fetched from API into
JSON format. Finally, you learned to map JSON responses in data model classes.
228 Pragmatic Flutter

REFERENCES
Dart Dev. (2020, 12 22). LinkedHashMap<K, V> class. Retrieved from Dart API: https://api.
dart.dev/stable/2.8.4/dart-collection/LinkedHashMap-class.html
Dart Team. (2020, 11 24). dart:convert library. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.
dev/stable/2.7.1/dart-convert/dart-convert-library.html
Dart Team. (2020, 11 24). HttpResponse class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.
dev/stable/2.7.1/dart-io/HttpResponse-class.html
Dart Team. (2020, 11 24). Map<K, V> class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.8.4/dart-core/Map-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 24). BuildContext class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/BuildContext-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 24). ListView class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/ListView-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 24). Card class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
material/Card-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 24). Cards. Retrieved from material.io: https://material.io/components/
cards
Google. (2020, 11 24). Column class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Column-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 24). Flexible class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Flexible-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 24). ListView class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/ListView-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 24). Row class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/Row-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 24). Text class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/Text-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 24). Chapter 13: BookModel (Part2). Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter13/part2/book.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 24). Chapter 13: BookTile (Part 1). Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter13/part1/booktile.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 24). Chapter 13: BookTile (Part 2). Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter13/part2/booktile.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 24). Chapter 13: Custom Widget (Part 1). Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter13/part1/main_13.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 24). Chapter 13: Data Modeling (main method - Part 2). Retrieved from
Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/
blob/master/lib/chapter13/part2/main_13.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 12 22). Chapter 13. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo: https://
github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/tree/master/lib/chapter13
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 12: Integrating REST API. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
14 Navigation and Routing

In the previous chapter (Chapter 12: Integrating REST API), we learned to

make RESTful HTTP requests to Books API and fetch book listings data. In
last chapter (Chapter 13: Data Modeling), the book listing was rendered in the
ListView widget using data model class. A custom widget – BookTile was
used to render each list item. The BookTile widget displayed only three pieces
of information about the book: title, author(s), and image of the cover page. The
ListView widget displayed a BookTile widget for each item returned from
API. Next, we want to show additional details about the book like its publi-
cation date, publisher, description, etc. Each book has its own detailed infor-
mation page BookDetailsPage. In this chapter, we will start creating this
simple page – BookDetailsPage, by rendering the book’s description. Later
on, we will learn to build navigation from the BookListing screen to the
BookDetailsPage screen for selected list item in the BookListing screen.
Figure 14.1 shows the homepage for the BooksApp that we created in the previ-
ous chapter (Chapter 13: Data Modeling).
In this chapter, we will learn about the three types of navigation and rout-
ing to implement navigation from the BookListing homepage to the
BookDetailsPage screen. The BookDetailsPage page only displays the
book details as shown in Figure 14.2.
In the next chapter (Chapter 15: The Second Page: BookDetails), we will continue
building the BookDetailsPage interface.

SIMPLE BookDetailsPage SCREEN

In this section, you will learn to build a basic secondary page widget –
BookDetailsPage, which is used as a placeholder to understand navigation and
routing concepts in Flutter application. The anatomy of this simple page looks like
as shown in Figure 14.3.
The BookDetailsPage is a StatelessWidget with two children wid-
gets: AppBar and Center. The AppBar widget displays the book’s title, and the
Center widget is assigned to the `body` property for the Scaffold widget. This
Center widget has a child Text widget to display the book’s detailed description.

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'book.dart';
class BookDetailsPage extends StatelessWidget {
final BookModel book;
const BookDetailsPage({Key key, this.book}) : super(key: key);
@override

229
230 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 14.1  BookListing – The homepage of BooksApp. Listing books using the
BookTile widget

Widget build(BuildContext context) {

return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(book.volumeInfo.title),
),
body: Center(
child: Text(book.volumeInfo.description),
),
);
}
}
```
Navigation and Routing 231

FIGURE 14.2  BookDetailsPage – Simple page for book details. Only shows title in the
appBar and book’s description in the main area

The data structure BookModel was constructed in the chapter (Chapter 13:
Data Modeling) from the Books API’s JSON response. The BookDetailsPage
requires the currently selected book item information passed along to be able
to render its title and description. The `book` object of BookModel data type
provides the book’s title information as `book.volumeInfo.title`, and its
description is available as `book.volumeInfo.description`. At this point,
we display only the title and description in the book details page. In the next chap-
ter (Chapter 15: The Second Page: BookDetails), we will build a more detailed
interface to display selected book information.
232 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 14.3  Anatomy of simple BookDetailsPage widget

NAVIGATOR WIDGET
The Flutter framework implements navigation across multiple pages using the
Navigator (Navigator class) widget. It’s a widget to manage children widgets
using a stack discipline. There are three different ways to implement navigation in
the Flutter application.

• Direct Navigation: The direct navigation is also known as Unnamed

Routing. It is implemented with the help of MaterialPageRoute
(MaterialPageRoute<T> class).
• Static Navigation: The static navigation is a type of Named Routing. It is
implemented by assigning a map of routes to MaterialApp `routes`
(routes property) property. The routes property acts like the applica-
tion’s top-level routing table. The route name is pushed using Navigator.
pushNamed(...). The routing table decides which route will map to what
widget.
• Dynamic Navigation: The dynamic navigation is a type of Named Routing
as well. In this navigation type, routes are generated by implementing
the onGenerateRoute (onGenerateRoute property) callback in the
MaterialApp class. It’s a function that provides the routes dynamically.
This routing function is assigned to the onGenerateRoute property
of MaterialApp, as mentioned earlier. The route name is pushed using
Navigator.pushNamed(...) similar to static navigation.

Let’s explore these three types of routings next.

Navigation and Routing 233

DIRECT NAVIGATION
Direct navigation is also known as unnamed routing. As mentioned earlier, it is
implemented using MaterialPageRoute. The MaterialPageRoutes is
pushed directly to the navigator widget stack. This approach can contribute to dupli-
cate and boilerplate code across multiple pages. This boilerplate code multiplies with
growing screens/pages. It is challenging to keep track of logic wrapped around these
routes in a commonplace since it spreads around multiple classes.
Let’s implement this type of navigation in our BooksApp for navigating from the
BookListing page to BookDetailsPage.

Entry Point
The MaterialApp assigns the BooksListing screen to its home property.

```
class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
//Using Direct Navigation (un-named routing)
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: BooksListing(),
);
}
}
```

Navigation Implementation
This routing is implemented using Navigator.push() (push<T extends Object>
method) method. The MaterialPageRoute (MaterialPageRoute<T> class) is
pushed on the Navigator (Navigator class). The Navigator is a widget that man-
ages a set of child widgets as a stack. These child widgets are pages or screens
pushed on the Navigator widget. The Navigator widget refers to these children as
Route (Route class) objects.

DETECTING GESTURE
The navigation is initiated from the user activity on the homepage screen. That means
the BookListing page list items need to be interacted with to navigate to its detailed
page. The GestureDetector (GestureDetector class) widget is used to detect the
gestures. It handles the taps on the listing items using its `onTap:` property.

```
class BooksListing extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_BooksListingState createState() => _BooksListingState();
234 Pragmatic Flutter

class _BooksListingState extends State<BooksListing> {

List<BookModel> booksListing;
...
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
...
body: ListView.builder(
itemCount: booksListing == null? 0 : booksListing.
length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
//Passing bookModelObj to BookTile widget
return GestureDetector(
child: BookTile(bookModelObj: booksListing[index]),
onTap: () {});
},
),
);
}
}
```

PASSING DATA
The MaterialPageRoute uses a builder to build the primary contents of the route
(page/screen). The `book` object is passed as an argument to the BookDetailsPage
widget.

```
onTap: () {
Navigator.of(context).push(
MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (context) => BookDetailsPage(
book: booksListing[index],
),
),
);
},
```

Tip
The above code can also be written in one line without using curly braces.

```
onTap: () =>
Navigator.of(context).push(
MaterialPageRoute(
Navigation and Routing 235

builder: (context) => BookDetailsPage(

book: booksListing[index],
),
),
)
```

Source Code
The full source code of this example (Chapter 14: Direct Navigation) is available on
GitHub.

STATIC NAVIGATION
In a static navigation application’s top-level routing table is implemented using a
Map (Map<K, V> class) of routes (pages/screens). This routing table is assigned
to MaterialApp routes (routes property) property. The route names for pages
are pushed using Navigator.pushNamed(...) (pushNamed<T extends Object>
method). This routing is known as Named Routing because each page is given a
unique name, which is pushed on the Navigator widget.
The MaterialApp and WidgetApp provide the routes property. This prop-
erty enables assigning routes as Map<String, WidgetBuilder>. This option
works better when there are not many logical steps wrapped around the routes. For
example, authentication or verification related code wrapped around the logic for
navigating to a particular page. In this type of navigation, only the app’s global data
can be passed on to the second page.

Entry Point
The static navigation provides two ways to assign the initial page – BooksListing
widget. One option is to assign BooksListing widget to the home property.
Second option is to assign a route Map containing </, BooksListing()> entry
to routes property. The ‘/’ stands for the home page mapping.

```
//The booksListing data is available global to app
List<BookModel> booksListing;
class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
//Using Static Navigation (Named Routing)
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
//home: BooksListing(),
//Named-Routing using Map routing-table
routes: <String, WidgetBuilder>{
'/': (BuildContext context) => BooksListing(),
'/details': (BuildContext context) => BookDetailsPage(
236 Pragmatic Flutter

book: booksListing[0],
),
},
);
}
}
```

In static navigation, the routing table is assigned statically. That means any object
can be passed in the routing map only. This requires data to be available at the
top-level. We need to pass the `book` object to the BookDetailsPage for the
`/details` route name. As you can see that this value is static and cannot be
changed with the update in the book selection in the BookListing book items
list. The value is retrieved by accessing `List<BookModel> booksListing`,
which gets updated after the REST API response is returned. For the `/details`
route, only one book object is assigned for the lifecycle of the app as `book:
booksListing[0]`. This causes to show the same book’s details for every book
displayed in the BookListing widget.

Navigation Implementation
All routes/pages have entries in the routing table above. The Map entry ‘</details,
BookDetailsPage()>‘is added to navigate to the BookDetailsPage screen.
The '/details' is the alias/name to the BookDetailsPage screen. This name is
pushed on the Navigator widget using Navigator.pushNamed (pushNamed<T
extends Object> method).

DETECTING GESTURE
The navigation is initiated from the user activity on the homepage screen, similar
to a direct navigation example. The GestureDetector widget is used to detect
the gestures. It handles the tap gesture on the listing with 'onTap: ' property. Let’s
check out the new way of pushing routes on the Navigator widget in the code
below. Please note the named route '/details' are pushed on the Navigator stack.
This route is declared in the MaterialApp routing table.

```
onTap: () =>
Navigator.pushNamed(context, '/details')
```

PASSING DATA
As we saw earlier, the data can be passed to the BookDetailsPage() at the
top-level only when the routes are assigned to routes property. In this case, only
globally available data can be passed to another widget. In this implementation,
only the first item `booksListing[0]` detail page is available for any selection
on the homepage.
Navigation and Routing 237

Source Code
The full source code of this example (Chapter 14: Static Navigation) is available on
GitHub.

DYNAMIC NAVIGATION
In dynamic navigation, routes are generated dynamically with the help of a function.
This function implements the onGenerateRoute (onGenerateRoute property)
callback in the MaterialApp class. This is a type of Named Routing that makes
use of onGenerateRoute property.
The MaterialApp and WidgetApp provide the onGenerateRoute prop-
erty to assign the callback function, say generateRoute returning a route. It
allows the data to pass using RouteSettings (RouteSettings class). It carries the
data to help construct a Route (Route class).
Any authorization or verification logic can be extracted to a single place. This
routing provides the option to show a default page when a route or match is not
found. In our BooksApp, we will use the `PageNotFound` widget when no route
is matched. It’s a simple page that displays the message that the requested page is
not available.

Entry Point
The entry page BookListing is assigned to home property. The initialRoute
property can be used to set the beginning route/page. The generateRoute call-
back function handles the navigational logic.

```
class BooksApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
//Using Dynamic Navigation (Named Routing)
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
home: BooksListing(),
//Named with onGenerateRoute
initialRoute: '/',
onGenerateRoute: generateRoute,
);
}
}
```

THE generateRoute() FUNCTION

The generateRoute() function takes the RouteSettings as an argu-
ment, which allows sending data along. The arguments property on the
RouteSettings object retrieves any arguments sent with the widget.
238 Pragmatic Flutter

```
Route<dynamic> generateRoute(RouteSettings routeSettings) {
final args = routeSettings.arguments;
switch (routeSettings.name) {
case '/':
return MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (context) => BooksListing(),
);

case '/details':
if (args is BookModel) {
return MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (context) => BookDetailsPage(
book: args,
),
);
}

return MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (context) => PageNotFound(),
);

default:
return MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (context) => PageNotFound(),
);
}
}
```

Navigation Implementation
The Navigator uses the Route object to represent the page/screen. The genera-
teRoute() function returns the appropriate route based on the matching name. The
RouteSettings is useful in passing around these route names and arguments, if
any. The route name is extracted using routeSettings.name. The arguments
can be extracted using routeSettings.arguments. When no match is found, a
common default page is shown to display the appropriate message.

DETECTING GESTURE
The navigation is initiated from the user activity on the homepage screen, similar to
direct and static navigation examples. The GestureDetector widget is used to
detect the gestures. It handles the tap gesture on the listing with `onTap: ` property.

PASSING DATA
Dynamic navigation uses named-routing as well. This routing allows passing selected
book object `booksListing[index]` as an argument to generateRoute()
Navigation and Routing 239

callback function. The generateRoute() function extracts the route name and
its arguments using the RouteSettings object. Refer to generateRoute() to
understand extracting route names and arguments from the RouteSettings object.

```
onTap: () =>
Navigator.pushNamed(
context,
'/details',
arguments: booksListing[index],
)
```

Source Code
The full source code of this example (Chapter 14: Dynamic Navigation) is available
on GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we learned to navigate from one page to another. We created a simple
second page to navigate from the first page. In the next chapter, we will work on the
second page to layout book’s details more intuitively.

REFERENCES
Chapter 14: Dynamic Navigation. (2020, 11 25). Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter GitHub
Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter14/
main_14_dynamic.dart
Dart Team. (2020, 11 25). Map<K, V> class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.8.4/dart-core/Map-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 25). MaterialPageRoute<T> class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev:
https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/material/MaterialPageRoute-class.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 25). pushNamed<T extends Object> method. Retrieved from Flutter
Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/Navigator/pushNamed.html
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 25). routes property. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/MaterialApp/routes.html
GestureDetector class. (2020, 11 24). Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/GestureDetector-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 25). Navigator class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/Navigator-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 25). onGenerateRoute property. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/Navigator/onGenerateRoute.html
Google. (2020, 11 25). onGenerateRoute property. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/material/MaterialApp/onGenerateRoute.html
Google. (2020, 11 25). push<T extends Object> method. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/Navigator/push.html
Google. (2020, 11 25). Route class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/
widgets/Route-class.html
240 Pragmatic Flutter

Google. (2020, 11 25). RouteSettings class. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/RouteSettings-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 25). Chapter 14: Direct Navigation. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter14/main_14_direct.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 25). Chapter 14: Static Navigation. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter14/main_14_static.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 12: Integrating REST API. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 15: The Second Page: BookDetails. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter:
Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (n.d.). Chapter 13: Data Modeling. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
15 The Second Page –
BookDetailsPage Widget
In previous chapter (Chapter 12: Integrating REST API), we learned to make
REST calls to Google Books API and fetch book listings. In chapter (Chapter 13:
Data Modeling), we learned to render book listings in a list using the ListView
widget. We also learned to create a custom widget – BookTile to generate
each list item. The BookTile widget displayed only three essential informa-
tion about the book: title, author(s), and image of the cover page. Later in chap-
ter (Chapter 14: Navigation & Routing), we learned about navigation from the
homepage to another page. We started working on adding the second page –
BookDetailsPage to display detailed information about the selected book.
However, the BookDetailsPage only showed the book’s title in the appBar
and its description in the screen’s main area.
In this chapter, we will continue designing and implementing BookDetailsPage
to display more relevant information about the given book.

ANATOMY OF BookDetailsPage WIDGET

Let’s start listing out the pieces of information that we are interested in displaying
about the book.

• Book’s title and subtitle.

• Author(s) listing.
• Publication details like publisher and publishing date.
• Cover page imagery.
• Web reader link to preview book sample.
• Link to buy the book, if it is available for sale.
• Detailed book description.

Typically, the above can be categorized into three groups: quick book information,
action items, and detailed description. Let’s rearrange the above information per
their groups.

1. Book Information: Title, subtitle, authors, publisher, publication date, and

cover imagery.
2. Action items: Web reader and buying links.
3. Detailed Description: Book’s detailed description.

Figure 15.1 shows the labeled interface for BookDetailsPage.

241
242 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 15.1  Labeled interface for BookDetailsPage

BookDetailsPage SCREEN’S LAYOUT

Let’s layout the above three main interface elements in the BookDetailsPage
screen, as shown in Figure 15.2. Like any other Flutter page, the Scaffold widget
is the root of the page. The Scaffold widget has an AppBar widget to display
the book’s title and the arrow button to navigate back to the last screen. The `body`
property is assigned to SingleChildScrollView (SingleChildScrollView class).
It provides a box in which a widget can be scrolled. The scrolling widget is used to
avoid the content overflow problem that may surface when the book’s description
is too long to fit on the screen. The SingleChildScrollView widget occupies
all the space on the screen and doesn’t leave any spacing around it. If we put any
widget inside, it will expand to full screen as well. We will use the Padding widget
to inset its child by `8.0` around all sides. Next, we want to vertically align book
information, actions, and book description data. The Column widget helps to align
its children in a vertical array. The Column widget uses the following three custom
widgets to organize the book’s information on the BookDetailsPage screen.

1. InformationWidget
2. ActionsWidget
3. DescriptionWidget
The Second Page – BookDetailsPage Widget 243

FIGURE 15.2  Anatomy of BookDetailsPage

Refer to Figure 15.2 to understand the mapping visually.

IMPLEMENTING BookDetailsPage WIDGET

Now that you have an understanding of how the widgets are arranged in
BookDetailsPage, it’s time to dive into code. The BookDetailsPage is a
StatelessWidget. It receives the BookModel object `book` passed from the
BookListing page. The title is retrieved as `book.volumeInfo.title`, and dis-
played in the AppBar. The Column widget’s contents are aligned to the starting off the
screen using `crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start`. The
extra vertical space is divided evenly between children using `mainAxisAlign-
ment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween`. The Column widget has three
children: InformationWidget, ActionsWidget, and DescriptionWidget.
All three widgets are passed the BookModel object to render relevant information.

```
class BookDetailsPage extends StatelessWidget {
final BookModel book;
const BookDetailsPage({Key key, this.book}) : super(key:
key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(book.volumeInfo.title),
),
body: SingleChildScrollView(
child: Padding(
244 Pragmatic Flutter

padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),

child: Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: <Widget>[
InformationWidget(
book: book,
),
ActionsWidget(
book: book,
),
DescriptionWidget(
book: book,
),
],
),
),
),
);
}
}
```

InformationWidget
The InformationWidget builds the top part of the BookDetailsPage. It dis-
plays the book’s title, subtitle, authors, publisher, publishing date, and cover imagery.
There’s a total six-piece of information that needs to be displayed. The first five
elements stay to the left of the screen, and cover imagery is aligned to the right side
of the screen. All elements are aligned horizontally. It makes sense to use the Row
widget as the parent widget since it aligns its children in a horizontal array. The five
elements to the right are arranged in a Flexible widget. The Column widget is
assigned as a child to the Flexible widget. The Flexible widget provides the
flexibility to its Column child to expand to fill the available space vertically. The
Column holds all the five Text widgets as its children. Refer to Figure 15.3 to see
the visual representation of the InformationWidget layout.

FIGURE 15.3  Anatomy of InformationWidget

The Second Page – BookDetailsPage Widget 245

Let’s check out the InformationWidget code implementation below:

```
class InformationWidget extends StatelessWidget {
final BookModel book;

const InformationWidget({Key key, this.book}) : super(key:

key);

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Row(
//Divides extra space evenly horizontally
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceEvenly,
children: [
Flexible(
child: Column(
//Children are aligned to start of the screen
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
//Divides extra space evenly vertically
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceEvenly,
children: <Widget>[
//Book Title
//Book SubTitle
//Author(s)
//Publisher
//PublishedDate
],
),
),
//Displaying cover image
],
);
}
}
```

The book title, subtitle, author(s), publisher, and published date are rendered in a
Text widget. The image is rendered in the Image widget. Only the non-null values
are rendered in the Text and/or Image widget; otherwise, an empty Container
widget is rendered. A style is applied to Text widgets to font size as fourteen and
bold font weight.

```
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight: FontWeight.bold)
```

Let’s checkout implementations for each of the widgets in the code below:
```
class InformationWidget extends StatelessWidget {
246 Pragmatic Flutter

final BookModel book;

const InformationWidget({Key key, this.book}) : super(key:
key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceEvenly,
children: [
Flexible(
child: Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceEvenly,
children: <Widget>[
//Book Title
book.volumeInfo.title != null
? Text(
’${book.volumeInfo.title}’,
style:
TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight:
FontWeight.bold),
)
: Container(),

//Book subtitle
book.volumeInfo.subtitle != null
? Text(
’${book.volumeInfo.subtitle}’,
style: TextStyle(
fontSize: 14,
fontWeight: FontWeight.bold,
fontStyle: FontStyle.italic),
)
: Container(),
//Book authors. Used join() method on list to
convert list into comma-separated String
book.volumeInfo.authors != null
? Text(
’Author(s): ${book.volumeInfo.authors.
join(", ")}’,
style:
TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontWeight:
FontWeight.bold),
)
: Container(),

//Publisher
book.volumeInfo.publisher != null
? Text(
"Published by: ${book.volumeInfo.
publisher}",
style:
The Second Page – BookDetailsPage Widget 247

TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontStyle:

FontStyle.italic),
)
: Container(),
//PublishedDate
book.volumeInfo.publishedDate != null
? Text(
"Published on: ${book.volumeInfo.
publishedDate}",
style:
TextStyle(fontSize: 14, fontStyle:
FontStyle.italic),
)
: Container(),
],
),
),
//Rendering cover page image
book.volumeInfo.imageLinks.thumbnail != null
? Image.network(
book.volumeInfo.imageLinks.thumbnail,
fit: BoxFit.fill,
)
: Container(),
],
);
}
}
```

ActionsWidget
The ActionsWidget renders two material design floating action buttons (FABs)
to let users read the sample and/or buy the book by clicking on respective but-
tons. These buttons are implemented using the FloatingActionButton
(FloatingActionButton class) widget. Clicking on each button, launch the URL pro-
vides by Books API for the given book. For launching URL, the url _ launcher
plugin (url_launcher plugin) is used. At the time of this writing, the current version
for url _ launcher is ‘5.4.11’. Add this dependency in pubspec.yaml under the
`dependencies` section.

```
dependencies:
#To open web reader link and buyLink from BookDetailsPage
url_launcher: ^5.4.11
```

The ActionsWidget sits below the InformationWidget in BookDetailsPage.

The ActionsWidget has a Padding widget at the top. The Padding widget has
a child Row widget. The Row widget aligns its children horizontally. This Row widget
248 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 15.4  Anatomy of ActionsWidget

has two children of type FloatingActionButton or FAB with the extended

variant. The FloatingActionButton.extended() method allows FAB to be
more giant and have icons and label as well. The `onPressed: ` has the imple-
mentation to launch the URL for FAB. Refer to Figure 15.4 to see the visual repre-
sentation of the ActionsWidget layout.
Let’s check out the ActionsWidget code implementation:

```
class ActionsWidget extends StatelessWidget {
final BookModel book;
const ActionsWidget({Key key, this.book}) : super(key: key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceEvenly,
children: [
book.accessInfo.webReaderLink != null
? FloatingActionButton.extended(
label: Text("Read"),
heroTag: "webReaderLink",
onPressed: () => launch(book.accessInfo.
webReaderLink),
)
: Container(),
book.saleInfo.saleability == "FOR_SALE"
? FloatingActionButton.extended(
label: Text("Buy"),
heroTag: "buy_book",
onPressed: () => launch(book.saleInfo.
buyLink),
)
: Container(),
],
),
);
}
}
```
The Second Page – BookDetailsPage Widget 249

DescriptionWidget
The description widget is a simple widget to render the book’s description in the
Text widget. This widget is not required to be in its own widget. However, I extracted
this widget on its own to keep things simple. Here’s the DescriptionWidget
implementation.

```
class DescriptionWidget extends StatelessWidget {
final BookModel book;
const DescriptionWidget({Key key, this.book}) : super(key: key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return book.volumeInfo.description != null
? Text(book.volumeInfo.description.toString())
: Container();
}
}
```

Source Code Online

The full source code for this example (Chapter 15: BookDetailsPage) is available on
GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we implemented the BookDetailsPage screen to display detailed
book information. The page’s body shows the necessary information like title, author(s),
and publication details in the top part. The middle part has the action items to preview
the book sample and purchase the book. The bottom part displays the detailed book
description.

REFERENCES
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 25). url_launcher plugin. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/
packages/url_launcher
Google. (2021, 11 25). FloatingActionButton class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/material/FloatingActionButton-class.html
Google. (2021, 11 25). SingleChildScrollView class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://
api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/SingleChildScrollView-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 25). Chapter 15: BookDetailsPage. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter15/book_details_page.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 12: Integrating REST API. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 13: Data Modeling. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 14: Navigation & Routing. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building
Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
16 Introduction to State
Management
Any real-world application needs to handle the application state sooner or later. As
developers, we might start to build an application with one screen, but soon mul-
tiple screens supporting different features join the band. These additional screens
may need to know the state of the application at a given time. For example, for an
e-commerce shopping application, the cart page should be updated based on what
was selected from the catalog on the page before it.
When it comes to building Flutter applications where everything is a ‘widget’,
the deeply nested widget trees start to build up quickly. The widgets in widget-trees
might need to share the application’s state and pass their state to other widgets. It
becomes crucial to handle the widget’s state sharing or ‘State Management’ appro-
priately and efficiently to avoid the scaling issues that can lead to technical debts.
In Flutter development, the architecture patterns and state management are used
interchangeably. However, architecture patterns help to streamline code organization
into separate layers to segregate responsibilities. There are many options to manage
the state of the application in the Flutter applications. The Flutter app states are cat-
egorized into two types: Local (or Ephemeral) State and Application State. In broader
terms, the local state refers to the state scoped to a single widget, whereas the applica-
tion state is application-wide. Refer to Flutter’s official documentation (Differentiate
between ephemeral state and app state) to learn about state management in detail.
The local state can be managed using a combination of StatefulWidget
(StatefulWidget class) and setState() (setState method) methods. However, there
are several solutions available for managing an application-wide state. We’ll use
Flutter’s default sample CounterApp to understand the various state-management
solutions throughout several next chapters. I have preferred this example to show
the contrast in state-management implementations while, still, full code can fit in a
single page.

REVISITING DEFAULT CounterApp

Flutter creates a simple counter app by default when a Flutter project is created either
by command line or Android studio. The following command creates the default
counter app.
```
flutter create.
```

It is a basic app with an app bar, two Text widgets in the middle of the screen to
display the counter information, and a FloatingActionButton (or FAB) widget
251
252 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 16.1  Anatomy of CounterApp for vanilla implementation

to increase the counter every time it clicked. There is a total of seven widgets in this
app:

1. Scaffold: The root widget.

2. AppBar: Displays title of the app.
3. Center: Aligns its children in the center of the screen.
4. FloatingActionButton: FAB to increase the counter.
5. Column: Align its children vertically.
6. Text: Displays the information text.
7. Text: Displays the updated counter number.

Refer to Figure 16.1 for the visual structure of the app’s widgets.

VANILLA PATTERN
This sample app is a classic example showcasing local state management. This app
comes with local state management in-built. Using different state-management
approaches, we will be using this example to increase the counter and display its
value. The goal is to introduce various state-management solutions and understand
the implementation differences between different approaches while achieving the
same purpose. In this chapter, we’ll be focusing on basic or vanilla implementation
without any whistles and bells.
Let’s get started with the default in-built state-management solution that comes
with the CounterApp. It uses StatefulWidget in combination with the `set-
State()` method to update and reflect a widget state at a given time. Let’s check
out the code for the app below:
Introduction to State Management 253

```
import ’package:flutter/material.dart’;

void main() {
runApp(CounterApp());
}

class CounterApp extends StatelessWidget {

// This widget is the root of your application.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
theme: ThemeData(
primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
visualDensity: VisualDensity.adaptivePlatformDensity,
),
home: MyHomePage(title: 'CounterApp (Vanilla)'),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {

MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);

final String title;

@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {

int _counter = 0;

void _incrementCounter() {
setState(() {
_counter++;
});
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
print("Building _MyHomePageState");
//Widget#1
return Scaffold(
//Widget#2
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(widget.title),
),
//Widget#3
body: Center(
254 Pragmatic Flutter

//Widget#5
child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
children: <Widget>[
//Widget#6
Text(
'You have pushed the button this many times:',
),
//Widget#7
Text(
'$_counter',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
],
),
),
//Widget#4
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: _incrementCounter,
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
);
}
}
```

As you can see from the code above, the stateful widget `MyHomePage` is
assigned to the `home` property of MaterialApp. The `MyHomePage` has ` _
MyHomePageState` as its state widget responsible for managing the state for the
widget. It’s `build()` method builds the widgets. The seven widgets discussed
above are used to build the CounterApp’s interface. Pressing on FAB’s executes ` _
incrementCounter()` method to increase the counter by one. The ` _ counter`
variable is keeping track of the count. Every time the method ` _ increment-
Counter()` executes, it increases ` _ counter` by one. The counter is increased
from `setState()` method. This method triggers the `build()` method. This
behavior can be verified by adding a debug print statement `print("Building
_ MyHomePageState");`. Every time the widget ` _ MyHomePageState` is
rebuilt, this print statement will be executed as well.

```
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
int _counter = 0;
void _incrementCounter() {
setState(() {
_counter++;
});
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
Introduction to State Management 255

FIGURE 16.2  Visual for building vanilla implementation

print("Building _MyHomePageState");
return Scaffold(
//appBar
body: Center(
...
Text('$_counter'),
...
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: _incrementCounter,
...
),
);
}
}
```

Figure 16.2 shows the widgets that get rebuilt every time the counter is updated,
enclosed in a gray box.
In this simple app with less than ten widgets, managing state using the `set-
State()` method would work without impacting performance. This approach is
appropriate when managing a state within a single widget. However, in production
apps, this approach for managing state may not work very well for large widgets.
We’ll learn managing state application-wide in upcoming chapters.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned about the types of states in a Flutter application’s con-
text. The default state-management solution for managing the ephemeral state is
256 Pragmatic Flutter

discussed in detail. You learned how to manage state in a single widget using the
`setState()` method for StatefulWidget. We also discussed the performance
issues caused by rebuilding the whole widget every time the `setState()` method
is called. In the next chapter, we’ll implement state management using a different
approach known as ValueNotifier to address these performance issues.

REFERENCES
Google. (2020, 11 26). Differentiate between ephemeral state and app state. Retrieved
from flutter.dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/development/data-and-backend/state-mgmt/
ephemeral-vs-app
Google. (2020, 11 26). setState method. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/widgets/State/setState.html
Google. (2020, 11 26). StatefulWidget class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/widgets/StatefulWidget-class.html
17 ValueNotifier

In the previous chapter (Chapter 16: Introduction to State Management), we dis-

cussed managing the widget’s state using the stateful widget. You learned to man-
age state in StatefulWidget using the `setState()` method. We noticed
that the interface is rebuilt every time the counter was updated inside the `set-
State()` method. In this chapter, we will look into one of the solutions to avoid
rebuilding the entire widget tree of StatefulWidget. We will learn to use
ValueNotifier (ValueNotifier<T> class) to only rebuild the Text widget dis-
playing the counter value rather than rebuilding the entire widget tree. The widgets
subscribed to the ValueNotifier get notified whenever its value is updated. Using
ValueNotifier implementation for managing state helps to reduce the number of
times a widget is rebuilt.
In this chapter, you will also learn to implement the state-management solution with
the help of ValueNotifier, ValueListenable, ValueListenableBuilder
widgets as described below:

1. ValueNotifier: This class belongs to Flutter’s foundation library (foun-

dation library). It extends ChangeNotifier (ChangeNotifier class).
The ValueNotifier holds a single value at a time. You will learn more
about ChangeNotifier in the next chapter (Chapter 18: Provider &
ChangeNotifier).
2. ValueListenable (ValueListenable<T> class): This class belongs
to Flutter’s foundation library as well. It is the value emitted by
ValueNotifier.
3. ValueListenableBuilder (ValueListenableBuilder<T> class): This
widget listens to the value emitted by ValueNotifier. It gets rebuilt
whenever the ValueNotifier emits a new value.

USING ValueNotifier APPROACH

Let’s review the CounterApp widgets from the previous chapter. The app consists
of Scaffold, AppBar, Center, FAB, Column, and Text widgets. Tapping the
floating action button (FAB) is responsible for increasing the counter by one. In
the vanilla (default) implementation, the `counter` variable is incremented inside
the `setState()` method, which triggers rebuilding the whole interface at the
Scaffold widget level.
In this chapter, we will learn to use ValueNotifier to implement incrementing
the counter functionality. The implementation will make use of ValueNotifer,
ValueListenable, and ValueListenableBuilder widgets.
In this implementation, the Text (Figure 17.1 – Widget #8 in the app
anatomy visual) widget to display the counter’s value is wrapped inside the
257
258 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 17.1  Anatomy of CounterApp for ValueNotifier implementation

ValueListenableBuilder (Figure 17.1 – Widget #7 in the app anatomy visual)

widget. There are a total of eight widgets in this app:

1. Scaffold: The root widget.

2. AppBar: Displays title of the app.
3. Center: Aligns its children in the center of the screen.
4. FloatingActionButton: FAB to increase the counter.
5. Column: Aligns its children vertically.
6. Text: Displays the information text.
7. ValueListenableBuilder: Wraps Text widget displaying the coun-
ter value.
8. Text: Displays the counter value.

Refer to Figure 17.1 for the visual structure of the app’s widgets.
Let’s dive into the code to understand the implementation details.

ValueNotifer
This class belongs to Flutter’s foundation library. It extends ChangeNotifier. It
holds a single value of any data type like `String`, `bool`, `int`, or a custom data
type. Whenever its current value is replaced with a different value, it notifies its listeners.
The variable ` _ counter` is a ValueNotifier of type `int`. It holds
the count that’s displayed in the Text widget. The count is updated inside
` _ incrementCounter()` method. Whenever this method is executed, it notifies
ValueNotifier’s subscriber about this change.

```
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
ValueNotifier 259

final ValueNotifier<int> _counter = ValueNotifier<int>(0);

void _incrementCounter() {
_counter.value += 1;
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
print("Building _MyHomePageState");
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(widget.title),
),
body: Center(
child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
children: <Widget>[
Text(
'You have pushed the button this many times:',
),
//Builds when valueNotifier is changed/updated
ValueListenableBuilder(
builder: (BuildContext context, int value,
Widget child) {
print("Building ONLY Text widget");
return Text(
'$value',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.
headline4,
);
},
valueListenable: _counter,
),
],
),
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: _incrementCounter,
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
);
}
}
```

ValueListenable
This class (ValueListenableBuilder<T> class) belongs to Flutter’s foundation library
as well. It holds the value emitted by ValueNotifier. The ValueListenable
exposes only one single current value at a given point in time. You depend on
ValueListenable’s value to rebuild the widget tree. The ` _ counter` is the
260 Pragmatic Flutter

value emitted by ValueNotifier when ` _ counter` is updated in ` _ incre-

mentCounter()` method. The ValueListenable is notified about the updated
` _ counter`.

```
ValueListenableBuilder(
builder: (BuildContext context, int value, Widget child) {
print("Building ONLY Text widget");
return Text(
'$value',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
},
valueListenable: _counter,
),
```

ValueListenableBuilder
This widget listens to the value emitted by ValueNotifier. It gets rebuilt
whenever the ValueNotifier emits a new value. Its content is synced with
ValueListenable. This widget registers itself with ValueListenable and
calls its `builder` whenever an updated value is received.
The `ValueListenableBuilder` is called every time ` _ counter`
is updated to a new value and rebuilds only Widget #8 rather than building the
StatefulWidget’s entire widget tree.

```
//Mapping to Widget #7
ValueListenableBuilder(
builder: (BuildContext context, int value, Widget child) {
print("Building ONLY Text widget");
//Widget #8
return Text(
'$value',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
},
valueListenable: _counter,
),
```

Complete Code
Let’s put together all the pieces in one place and run code in the IDE of your choice.

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
ValueNotifier 261

runApp(CounterApp());
}

class CounterApp extends StatelessWidget {

// This widget is the root of your application.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
theme: ThemeData(
primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
visualDensity: VisualDensity.adaptivePlatformDensity,
),
home: MyHomePage(title: 'CounterApp (ValueNotifier)'),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {

MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);
final String title;
@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
final ValueNotifier<int> _counter = ValueNotifier<int>(0);
void _incrementCounter() {
_counter.value += 1;
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
print("Building _MyHomePageState");
//Widget#1
return Scaffold(
//Widget#2
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(widget.title),
),
//Widget#3
body: Center(
//Widget#5
child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
children: <Widget>[
//Widget#6
Text(
’You have pushed the button this many times:’,
),
//Widget#7. Builds when valueNotifier is changed/
updated
ValueListenableBuilder(
262 Pragmatic Flutter

builder: (BuildContext context, int value, Widget

child) {
print("Building ONLY Text widget");
//Widget#8
return Text(
'$value',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
},
valueListenable: _counter,
),
],
),
),
//Widget#4
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: _incrementCounter,
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
);
}
}
```

Source Code Online

You can also review the full source code for this example (Chapter 17: ValueNotifier)
at GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to implement the state-management solution with
ValueNotifier, ValueListenable, ValueListenableBuilder wid-
gets. Using ValueNotifier implementation for managing state helps to reduce the
number of times a widget is rebuilt. In the next chapter (Chapter 18: Provider &
ChangeNotifier), you will be introduced to another approach for state management
using the `provider` package.

REFERENCES
Google. (2020, 11 26). ChangeNotifier class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/foundation/ChangeNotifier-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 26). foundation library. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/foundation/foundation-library.html
Google. (2020, 11 26). ValueListenableBuilder<T> class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev:
https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/ValueListenableBuilder-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 26). ValueNotifier<T> class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/foundation/ValueNotifier-class.html
ValueNotifier 263

Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). Chapter 17: ValueNotifier. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter GitHub
Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter17/
valuenotifier_counterapp.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). ValueListenable<T> class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/foundation/ValueListenable-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 16: Introduction to State Management. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic
Flutter: Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC
Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 18: Provider & ChangeNotifier. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter:
Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
18 Provider and
ChangeNotifier
In this chapter, we will add one more approach to our exploration of state management.
This approach will use a combination of ChangeNotifier (ChangeNotifier class)
and Provider (provider) package to manage the counter state in CounterApp. This
state-management solution help manages the state of widgets at the application level.

WHAT IS Provider
The Provider (provider) package is a wrapper around the InheritedWidget
(InheritedWidget class) to make them easier to use and more reusable. The
InheritedWidget is a base class for all widgets, and it efficiently propagates
information down the widget tree. The provider(s) are placed above the widget(s)
they’re supposed to provide data.
In the CounterApp, the `CounterApp()` is added as a child to
ChangeNotifierProvider widget. The ChangeNotifierProvider wid-
get automatically manages ChangeNotifier. It creates ChangeNotifier
(ChangeNotifier class) using `create`, and makes sure to dispose of it when
ChangeNotifierProvider is removed from the widget tree. We will be imple-
menting a custom ChangeNotifier named `CountNotifier()` later in this
chapter.

```
ChangeNotifierProvider(
create: (_) => CountNotifier(),
child: CounterApp(),
),
```

Adding Dependency
The provider package needs to be added to pubspec.yaml under the dependencies
section. You may want to upgrade the provider package’s version to the latest.

```
dependencies:
flutter:
sdk: flutter
#Provider package
provider: ^4.1.2
```

265
266 Pragmatic Flutter

WHAT IS ChangeNotifier
The ChangeNotifier class belongs to Flutter’s Foundation library (foundation
library). It does what its name says. It notifies about the change to any widgets that
are subscribed to it. It can either be extended or mixed using mixins (mixins) to
provide a change notification API.
The CounterApp has `CountNotifier` that notifies about the update in the
counter. It uses `notifyListeners()` method to do so. This method notifies all
listeners/subscribers about the new update.

```
class CountNotifier with ChangeNotifier {
int _counter = 0;
int get counter => _counter;
void incrementCounter() {
print("Incrementing and notifying");
_counter++;
//Notifies about the change in counter
notifyListeners();
}
}
```

ANATOMY OF CounterApp
Now that we understand ChangeNotifier and Provider widgets’ responsibili-
ties, let’s take a look at CounterApp’s widget tree in Figure 18.1.
Most of the widgets are arranged similar to examples discussed in previous
chapters. There’s a custom widget, CountWidget, responsible for displaying the
updated counter value on the screen. There are a total of eight widgets in this app:

1. Scaffold: The root widget.

2. AppBar: Displays title of the app.
3. Center: Aligns its children in the center of the screen.
4. FAB: FloatingActionButton to increase the counter.
5. Column: Aligns its children vertically.
6. Text: Displays the information text.
7. CountWidget: A custom widget to display a counter value on the screen.
8. Text: It’s the child to `CountWidget`. Displays the counter value.

Refer to Figure 18.1 for the anatomy of CounterApp’s implementation using Provider
and ChangeNotifier.
Let’s dive into the code to understand the implementation details. The
CounterApp’s homepage is a StatelessWidget. This is because the state is man-
aged using ChangeNotifier and Provider. The ChangeNotifier updates
the value and notifies its subscribers. The provider package takes care of passing
along this updated value to the appropriate widgets.
Provider and ChangeNotifier 267

FIGURE 18.1  Anatomy of CounterApp for Provider and ChangeNotifier implementation

INCREASING COUNTER
The counter is increased by pressing the floating action button (FAB). Let’s check out
the implementation of `onPressed:` for this FAB. The `incrementCounter()`
is accessed by calling `read<CountNotifier>().incrementCounter()` on
the `context`. It executes the `incrementCounter()` method and updates the
count without rebuilding the widget. The CountNotifier notifies its subscribers.

```
//Widget#4
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: () => context.read<CountNotifier>().
incrementCounter(),
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
```

CUSTOM WIDGET: CountWidget

The CountWidget is the custom widget that displays the latest value of the
` _ counter` on the screen. The Text widget watches for any broadcasts/notifications
sent by the CountNotifier. As soon as it gets a new update, it gets rebuilt.

```
class CountWidget extends StatelessWidget {
const CountWidget({Key key}) : super(key: key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
268 Pragmatic Flutter

print("Building Count widget");

//Widget#8
return Text(
//Rebuilds [CountWidget] when [CountNotifier]
ChangeNotifier notifies about the change in count
'${context.watch<CountNotifier>().counter}',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
}
}
```

FINISHED IMPLEMENTATION
Here is the complete source code for the ChangeNotifier implementation with
the Provider package.

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:provider/provider.dart';

//The CounterApp uses Provider package + ChangeNotifier

void main() {
//Providers are above CounterApp.
runApp(
ChangeNotifierProvider(
create: (_) => CountNotifier(),
child: CounterApp(),
),
);
}

//ChangeNotifier. Notifies about the change/update in counter

class CountNotifier with ChangeNotifier {
int _counter = 0;
int get counter => _counter;

void incrementCounter() {
print("Incrementing and notifying");
_counter++;
//Notifies about the change in counter
notifyListeners();
}
}

class CounterApp extends StatelessWidget {

// This widget is the root of your application.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
Provider and ChangeNotifier 269

debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
theme: ThemeData(
primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
visualDensity: VisualDensity.adaptivePlatformDensity,
),
home: MyHomePage(title: 'CounterApp (Provider +
ChangeNotifier)'),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatelessWidget {

final String title;
MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
print("Building MyHomePage widget");
//Widget#1
return Scaffold(
//Widget#2
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(this.title),
),
//Widget#3
body: Center(
//Widget#5
child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
children: <Widget>[
//Widget#6
Text(
'You have pushed the button this many times:',
),

//Widget#7
//Extracting into separate widget helps it to
rebuild independently of [HomePage]
const CountWidget(),
],
),
),
//Widget#4
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
//Using read() instead of watch() helps NOT TO rebuild
the widget when there's change in count (or Counter
ChangeNotifier notifies)
onPressed: () => context.read<CountNotifier>().
incrementCounter(),
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
270 Pragmatic Flutter

),
);
}
}

//Implementation of Widget#7
class CountWidget extends StatelessWidget {
const CountWidget({Key key}) : super(key: key);
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
print("Building Count widget");
//Widget#8
return Text(
//Rebuilds [CountWidget] when [CountNotifier]
ChangeNotifier notifies about the change in count
'${context.watch<CountNotifier>().counter}',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
}
}
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter 18: Provider & ChangeNotifier) is avail-
able online on GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to implement the state-management solution with the
help of the Provider package and ChangeNotifier class. In this implemen-
tation, the homepage is a StatelessWidget since it’s not managing the state
directly but through ChangeNotifier. The Provider package is facilitating
the state to pass along the children widgets.

REFERENCES
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 26). provider. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/
provider
Google. (2020, 11 26). ChangeNotifier class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/foundation/ChangeNotifier-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 26). foundation library. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/foundation/foundation-library.html
Google. (2020, 11 26). InheritedWidget class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flut-
ter.dev/flutter/widgets/InheritedWidget-class.html
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). Chapter 18: Provider & ChangeNotifier. Retrieved from Pragmatic
Flutter GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/mas-
ter/lib/chapter18/provider_changenotifier.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). mixins. Retrieved from dart.dev: https://dart.dev/guides/language/
language-tour#adding-features-to-a-class-mixins
19 BLoC Design Pattern

In this chapter, we will explore BLoC Pattern to manage states in Flutter applications.
The ‘BLoC’ stands for ‘Business Logic Component’. The BLoC pattern was introduced
by Google I/O 2018 (Build reactive mobile apps with Flutter (Google I/O ’18)) that uses
reactive programming to manage the data flow across the Flutter application(s). We
will also learn to use the BLoC pattern for managing states in CounterApp.

WHAT IS BLoC PATTERN?

The BLoC is a design pattern to facilitate data flow to Flutter widgets and vice versa.
It stands for Business Logic Component. The data sources can be API responses or
data/events generated from widgets. The BLoC receives streams of the event(s) from
data sources and/or widgets, perform business logic on events received and emits
corresponding states. A BLoC architecture looks like as shown in Figure 19.1.

ANATOMY OF CounterApp
Now that we understand ChangeNotifier and Provider widgets’ responsibili-
ties from previous chapter (Chapter 18: Provider & ChangeNotifier), let’s take a look
at CounterApp’s widget tree in Figure 19.2.
Most of the widgets are arranged similar to example discussed in previous chap-
ters. There are a total of seven widgets in this app:

1. Scaffold: The root widget.

2. AppBar: Displays title of the app.
3. Center: Aligns its children in the center of the screen.
4. FAB: FloatingActionButton to increase the counter.
5. Column: Aligns its children vertically.
6. Text: Displays the information text.
7. Text: Displays the counter value.

Widget #7 is the Text widget, which displays the updated counter. In the `setState()`
approach, the whole widget tree was rebuilt. In the ‘Provider & ChangeNotifier’ imple-
mentation, the Text widget was notified about the counter change.

FIGURE 19.1  BLoC architecture overview

271
272 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 19.2  Anatomy of CounterApp for Provider and ChangeNotifier implementation

In this BLoC implementation, the BLoC’s output state stream emits the state for
a particular event, such as pressing the increment floating action button (FAB) to
increase the counter. This increment event is fed into BLoC to generate a state for
this event reflected in Widget #7, the Text widget.
Refer to Figure 19.3 for the anatomy of CounterApp’s implementation using the
BLoC pattern.
In this chapter, we will explore three different implementations using the BLoC
pattern.

FIGURE 19.3  Anatomy of CounterApp’s implementation using BLoC pattern

BLoC Design Pattern 273

1. Basic BLoC Pattern: In this implementation, you will learn to imple-

ment a BLoC pattern using Dart’s built-in data types like Stream
(Stream<T> class), Sink (Sink<T> class), StreamController
(StreamController<T> class) to manage the state of the counter in the
default CounterApp application.
2. Improvised BLoC Pattern: In this implementation, you will improvise on
the basic implementation by creating classes representing event(s) and state(s).
3. BLoC Library: In this implementation, you will learn to use the `flutter _
bloc` (flutter_bloc) library to implement the BLoC pattern.

BASIC BLoC PATTERN IMPLEMENTATION

In this section, we will understand the fundamental and minimal implementation of
the BLoC pattern. Let’s look into the BLoC to understand how streams, sink, and
stream controllers fit together to manage the state in the CounterApp Flutter appli-
cation. First, let’s understand the meaning of streams, sink, and stream controllers.

• Stream (Stream<T> class): A stream is a source of asynchronous data

events. The Stream class provides a way to receive such a sequence of
asynchronous data events. A stream is listened on to make it start generat-
ing events.
• Sink (Sink<T> class): The Sink class provides the destination for data.
When an event is fired from the user interface, it can be put in a sink. A sink
should be closed when no more data is being added to it.
• StreamController (StreamController<T> class): The
StreamController class manages a stream. It creates a stream that can
be listened to by others and adds events to it using Sink class.

Refer to Figure 19.4 to understand the BLoC internals.

FIGURE 19.4  BLoC internal details

274 Pragmatic Flutter

There are two streams in a BLoC. The first stream is to handle input events. In
CounterApp, these input events are generated by user interaction with FAB. This
‘event stream’ is managed by the ‘StreamController-Event’. The event stream sends
these events to a logic box ‘event to state’ mapper. This is where the events are han-
dled as per the business logic and provides the appropriate state to be passed on to
the widgets. The second stream handles these output states. The ‘StreamController-
State’ manages this output states stream. This ‘state stream’ provides the output
states to listening widgets to rebuild the specific widgets.
Let’s understand the architecture shown in Figure 19.4 in the code implementation.

App Structure
The CounterApp will use the BLoC pattern to manage the state of the counter.
An increment counter event is added to the bloc’s event stream. The bloc’s state
stream will provide the output state to update Widget #7. You will learn to imple-
ment the `CounterBloc` class next. The `CounterBloc` class is initiated in
` _ MyHomePageState` as `final _ bloc = CounterBloc()`. It’s impor-
tant to close streams in ` _ MyHomePageState`’s `dispose()` method to avoid
memory leaks.
The overall CounterApp code structure is shown as below:

```
void main() {
runApp(CounterApp());
}

class CounterApp extends StatelessWidget {

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
...
home: MyHomePage(title: ’BLoC Pattern’),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {

@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {

//Initializing BLoC
final CounterBloc _bloc; //Implementation varies
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
...
body: Center(
BLoC Design Pattern 275

child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
children: <Widget>[
//Widget #6,
//Building Widget #7 with updated state emitted by
BLoC’s State stream
//Widget #7,
],
),
),
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
//Sending Increment event to BLoC
onPressed: () => _bloc.eventSink.add(CounterEvent.
increment),
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
);
}

@override
void dispose() {
super.dispose();
//Closing bloc’s stream controllers to avoid memory leaks
_bloc.dispose();
}
}
```

CounterEvent
The `CounterEvent` enumeration is used to declare the event to increment the
count. Whenever the FAB is pressed, a `CounterEvent.increment` event is
pushed to the event stream’s sink.

```
enum CounterEvent { increment }
```

CounterState
The CounterApp has only one state, which is the counter itself. In this case, the state
can be represented with an `int _ counter`. The counter is ‘0’ in the beginning,
so it can be set to ‘0’ as its initial state. It’s declared inside `CounterBloc`.

```
Class CounterBloc {
//Declaring state of the counter as int
int _counter = 0;
}
```
276 Pragmatic Flutter

CounterBloc
The CounterBloc class manages both the event and state streams with respec-
tive StreamController(s). It declares StreamController(s), Stream, and
Sink for the event(s) and state(s). Let’s look at these pieces one by one, which makes
a CounterBloc class. Each step is marked with numbers in Figure 19.4.

```
Class CounterBloc {
//#2. Listening to the event’s stream in CounterBloc
constructor
//Setting up event Stream, Sink & StreamController
//Setting up state Stream, Sink & StreamController
//#3. Mapping event to state (business logic)
//Closing StreamControllers
}
```

EVENT StreamController
The _ eventController manages the input event stream and sink. This
`StreamController` only supports the event type of `CounterEvent`, so
generic is used to declare it.

```
final _eventController = StreamController<CounterEvent>();
```

EVENT Sink
User interface’s interaction events are pushed into sink _ eventController’s
sink. The `eventSink` is returned using ` _ eventController.sink`.

```
Sink<CounterEvent> get eventSink => _eventController.sink;
```

EVENT Stream/CounterBloc CONSTRUCTOR

The input event Stream is being listened to, and the event(s) are retrieved. This step
maps to ‘#2’ in Figure 19.4. The event controller’s stream is listening to the events
and feeding into the event to the State mapper. It’s listening to incoming UI events
and mapping them into corresponding output States.

```
CounterBloc() {
_eventController.stream.listen(
(event) {
_mapEventToState(event);
BLoC Design Pattern 277

},
);
}
```

The same code above can also be written using lambda expression like below:

```
CounterBloc() {
_eventController.stream.listen(_mapEventToState);
}
```

STATE StreamController
The State StreamController manages the stream of output states. The state is of
int type, and it’s declared as `StreamController<int>()`.

```
final _stateController = StreamController<int>();
```

STATE Sink
The output state generated by the event for state mapper will be added to the
` _ stateSink`. Details are yet to come in the ‘Mapping Event to State’ section.

```
StreamSink<int> get _stateSink => _stateController.sink;
```

STATE Stream
The ` _ stateController` manages the stream of output states of int type.
It provides the updated state(s) to the UI widgets. This step maps to the ‘#5’ in
Figure 19.4.

```
Stream<int> get counter => _stateController.stream;
```

Mapping Event to State

This ` _ mapEventToState(CounterEvent event)` method maps a given
event to its corresponding state based on the business logic. When an event of incre-
ment type is passed, then the state of the _ counter increases by one. This step
maps to the ‘#3’ in Figure 19.4.
278 Pragmatic Flutter

This newly generated state is added into the StateController’s sink

` _ stateSink`. This step maps to the ‘#4’ in Figure 19.4.

```
//#3. Mapping event to state
void _mapEventToState(CounterEvent event) {
//Increment counter if event is matched
if (event == CounterEvent.increment) _counter++;

//#4: Adding output state to _stateSink

_stateSink.add(_counter);
}
```

Closing StreamController
Don’t forget to close the stream controllers for the event and state streams; otherwise,
you’ll get memory leaks in your app.

```
//close stream controllers to stop memory leak
void dispose() {
_stateController.close();
_eventController.close();
}
```

Initializing CounterBloc
The `CounterBloc` is initialized in the ` _ MyHomePageState` and _ bloc
holds the reference to it.

```
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
final CounterBloc _bloc = CounterBloc();
}
```

Pushing UI Events
This step maps to the #1 in Figure 19.4. In this step, the user interaction with the
app’s FAB as `CounterEvent.increment` is added to the CounterBloc’s
` _ eventSink`.

```
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
//#1: Events added to eventController's sink
onPressed: () => _bloc.eventSink.add(CounterEvent.increment),
tooltip: 'Increment',
BLoC Design Pattern 279

child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
```

Rebuilding Widget/Consuming State

This is the last step of rebuilding the interface based on the generated output state for
the given event. This step maps to the #6 in Figure 19.4. StreamBuilder builds the
Text widget based on a new state received from _ bloc’s StateController’s
stream. The bloc’s output stream is fed into StreamBuilder by assigning its
`stream` property to ` _ bloc.counter`. The `snapshot` carries the output state,
which is `int` in this case. The `snapshot.data` displays the updated counter value.

```
//#6: StreamBuilder(
stream: _bloc.counter,
initialData: 0,
builder: (BuildContext context, AsyncSnapshot<int> snapshot)
{
return Text(
’${snapshot.data}’,
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
},
),
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter 19: Basic BLoC) is available on GitHub.

IMPROVISED BLoC PATTERN IMPLEMENTATION

In this section, we will improvise the earlier implementation of declaring the
events and states for the BLoC. In the last section, the event was declared using
enumeration, and the state was declared as `int`. You’ll learn to define event
and state as a class implementation. Such implementation is useful when build-
ing complex apps where states/events are not trivial enough to represent as int
or enumeration.

CounterEvent
The `CounterEvent` is declared as an `abstract` class. This is a good design
practice when planning to support multiple different types of events handled by
the app. In this case, you’ve only increment event, so define another subclass as
`IncrementEvent` extending to `CounterEvent`. Whenever the FAB is
pressed, an `IncrementEvent()` event is pushed to the event stream’s sink.
280 Pragmatic Flutter

```
abstract class CounterEvent {}
class IncrementEvent extends CounterEvent {}
```

CounterState
The counter’s state is defined using a `CounterState` class. It has a `counter`
variable of `int` type to hold the counter’s value at a given time. The factory method
`CounterState.initial()` provides the counter’s state initialized to ‘0’ by
default.

```
class CounterState {
final int counter;
const CounterState({this.counter});
factory CounterState.initial() => CounterState(counter: 0);
}
```

CounterBloc
The `CounterBloc` class remains the same as we discussed in the previous sec-
tion. Let’s discuss only the implementations that are different from the basic imple-
mentation above. There’s no change in the event stream controller, sink, and the
`CounterBloc()` constructor implementation.

STATE StreamController
The state StreamController manages the stream of output states. The state is
of CounterState type, and it’s declared as `StreamController<CounterS
tate>()`.

```
final _stateController = StreamController<CounterState>();
```

STATE Sink
The output state generated by the event to state mapper will be added to the
` _ stateSink`. Note that the stream is of `CounterState` type as declared as
`StreamSink<CounterState>`.

```
StreamSink<CounterState> get _stateSink =>
_stateController.sink;
```
BLoC Design Pattern 281

STATE Stream
The ` _ stateController` manages the stream of output states of
CounterState type. It provides the updated state(s) to the UI widgets. This step
maps to the ‘#5’ in Figure 19.4.

```
Stream<CounterState> get counter => _stateController.stream;
```

Mapping Event to State

This ` _ mapEventToState(CounterEvent event)` method maps a
given event to its corresponding state based on the business logic. When an event
`IncrementEvent()` is passed, then the current state _ currentState gets
updated to have counter incremented by one. This step maps to the ‘#3’ in Figure 19.4.
This newly generated state is added into the StateController’s sink ` _
stateSink`. This step maps to the ‘#4’ in Figure 19.4.

```
//#3. Mapping event to state
void _mapEventToState(CounterEvent event) {
//Increment counter if event is matched
if (event is IncrementEvent) {
_currentState = CounterState(counter: _currentState.counter
+ 1);
}

//#4: Adding current output state to _stateSink

_stateSink.add(_currentState);
}
```

Closing StreamController
Closing stream controllers are similar to the previous implementation.

Initializing CounterBloc
The `CounterBloc` initialization stays the same as before.

Pushing UI Events
This step maps to the #1 in Figure 19.4. In this step, the user interaction with the app’s
FAB as `IncrementEvent()` is added to the CounterBloc’s ` _ eventSink`.

```
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
282 Pragmatic Flutter

//#1: Events added to eventController’s sink

onPressed: () => _bloc.eventSink.add(IncrementEvent()),
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
```

Rebuilding Widget/Consuming State

This is the last step of rebuilding the interface based on the given event’s generated
output state. This step maps to the #6 in Figure 19.4. StreamBuilder builds the
Text widget based on a new state received from _ bloc’s StateController’s
stream. The bloc’s output stream is fed into StreamBuilder by assigning its
`stream` property to ` _ bloc.counter`. The `snapshot` carries the output
state, which is `CounterState` in this case. The `snapshot.data.counter`
displays the updated counter value.

```
//#6
StreamBuilder<CounterState>(
stream: _bloc.counter,
initialData: CounterState.initial(),
builder:
(BuildContext context, AsyncSnapshot<CounterState>
snapshot) {
return Text(
"${snapshot.data.counter}",
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
},
),
```

Source Code Online

The source code for this example (Chapter 19: Improvised BLoC) is available on
GitHub.

IMPLEMENTING BLoC PATTERN USING LIBRARY

In this section, we will implement the BLoC pattern using a Flutter package/library
`flutter _ bloc` (flutter_bloc) available at pub.dev (Flutter & Dart Packages).
At the time of this writing, the version of `flutter _ bloc` library is `6.0.1`. It’s
added in pubspec.yaml as a dependency as shown below:

```
#flutter_bloc package
flutter_bloc: ^6.0.1
```
BLoC Design Pattern 283

FIGURE 19.5  BLoC using ‘flutter_bloc’ library

The reason behind using this library is to reduce the boiler-plate code. The library
provides the abstraction for managing events and state streams. Refer to <bloclib_
arch.jpg> to see the parts of the BLoC managed by the ‘flutter_bloc’ (flutter_bloc)
library (Figure 19.5).
As you see in the diagram above, the library provides stream controllers, sinks,
and streams management. The developers must manage to push events to the bloc,
mapping/business logic, and handle the states emitted by the bloc.
The `CounterEvent`, `IncrementEvent`, `CounterState` classes remain
the same as of previous section. Let’s check out the differentiated implementation
below.

CounterBloc
The library manages CounterBloc implementation. The `CounterBloc`
extends the `Bloc` class provided by the library. The event type-`CounterEvent`
and state type-`CounterState` are passed as the generics. Step #2 shown in the
diagram above is taken care of by the class definition itself. The bloc library provides
automatic stream management for us.
The initial state of the `CounterState` is passed in the `CounterBloc`
constructor.

```
//#2: Stream management
class CounterBloc extends Bloc<CounterEvent, CounterState> {
//Initializing initial CounterState
CounterBloc(CounterState initialState) :
super(initialState);
Stream<CounterState> mapEventToState(CounterEvent event)
async* {
284 Pragmatic Flutter

//Implementation in Mapping Event to State section

}
}
```

Mapping Event to State

The `Stream<CounterState> mapEventToState(CounterEvent event)
async*{}` method maps a given event to its corresponding state based on the
business logic. When an event of type `IncrementEvent` is passed, the new
state is generated using the generator function. The new state is calculated as
`CounterState(counter: state.counter + 1)` where `state.coun-
ter` is the current value of the counter. It gets updated to have a counter incre-
mented by one. The combination of `async*` & `yield` provides the stream of
CounterState as it becomes available. This step maps to the ‘#3’ in the diagram
Figure 19.5. Internally, this step maps to the ‘#4’ & ‘#5’ in Figure 19.5.

```
//#3: Mapping events to their corresponding state based on the
business logic
@override
Stream<CounterState> mapEventToState(CounterEvent event)
async* {
if (event is IncrementEvent) {
//#4 + #5: Stream<State> provides the stream of state.
Heavy lifting done by BLoC library
yield CounterState(counter: state.counter + 1);
}
}
```

Closing StreamController
Closing stream controllers is the same as in the previous implementations.

Initializing CounterBloc
The `CounterBloc` initialization is similar to previous examples with a twist. The
`CounterBloc` constructor takes the initial state for the `CounterState`.

```
final CounterBloc _bloc = CounterBloc(CounterState.initial());
```

Pushing UI Events
This step maps to the #1 in Figure 19.5. In this step, the user interaction with the
app’s FAB as `IncrementEvent()` is added to the `CounterBloc` and man-
aged by the library thereafter.
BLoC Design Pattern 285

```
floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
//#1: Events added to eventController’s sink
onPressed: () => _bloc.add(IncrementEvent()),
tooltip: 'Increment',
child: Icon(Icons.add),
),
```

Rebuilding Widget/Consuming State

This is the last step of rebuilding the interface based on the generated output state for
the given event. This step maps to the #6 in Figure 19.5. The `BlocBuilder` from
the library is used to listen to the stream of output `CounterState`. Its `cubit`
property is assigned to an instance of `CounterBloc` ( _ bloc). The widget
Text is built inside `builder`, which provides the current `CounterState` to
display the content.

```
//#6
BlocBuilder<CounterBloc, CounterState>(
cubit: _bloc,
builder: (context, state) {
return Text(
'${state.counter}',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
);
},
)
```

Source Code Online

The source code for (Chapter 19: Using BLoC Library) is available on GitHub.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to implement the state-management solution with the BLoC
pattern using in-built dart features like Stream, Sink, and StreamController.
You also learned to improvise the implementations by converting events and state
into their classes. Lastly, the bloc library is explored to reduce the boiler-plate code
due to manual implementation.

REFERENCES
Dart Team. (2020, 11 26). Sink<T> class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.8.4/dart-core/Sink-class.html
Dart Team. (2020, 11 26). Stream<T> class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://api.dart.dev/
stable/2.8.4/dart-async/Stream-class.html
286 Pragmatic Flutter

Dart Team. (2020, 11 26). StreamController<T> class. Retrieved from api.dart.dev: https://
api.dart.dev/stable/2.8.4/dart-async/StreamController-class.html
Flutter & Dart Team. (2020, 11 26). Flutter & Dart Packages. Retrieved from pub.dev:
https://pub.dev/
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 26). flutter_bloc. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/
flutter_bloc
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). Chapter 19: Basic BLoC. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter GitHub
Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/chapter19/
bloc_pattern1.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). Chapter 19: Improvised BLoC. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter19/bloc_pattern2.dart
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 26). Chapter 19: Using BLoC Library. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/lib/
chapter19/flutter_bloc.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 18: Provider & ChangeNotifier. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter:
Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
YouTube. (2020, 11 26). Build reactive mobile apps with Flutter (Google I/O ‘18). Retrieved
from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS36gBEp8OI
20 Unit Testing

In this chapter, you will learn the basics of unit testing (Unit Testing) in a Flutter
application. Unit tests are useful for testing a particular functionality of a method/
function or class. The modified version of default counter application is used to learn
writing unit tests for a Flutter application. In the modified default CounterApp, we
will add two buttons. We will use a Flutter plugin font _ awesome _ flutter
(font_awesome_flutter) for the increment and decrement button icons. This plugin
comes with a rich set of Flutter icons. We will add one green button with an incre-
ment icon for increasing the counter by one. Another red button with a decrement
icon is used for reducing the counter value by one.
Once this modified interface for CounterApp is ready, you will learn how to
write unit tests to test the logical functions for the given Dart class ‘Counter’. The
default CounterApp is improvised, as shown in Figure 20.1 to demonstrate testing in
Flutter applications.

PACKAGE DEPENDENCIES
The test (test package) package is enough to write unit tests for pure Dart code.
However, the flutter _ test (flutter_test) package is the right choice when testing
Flutter applications. It also comes with tools to test Flutter widgets, which we will be
exploring in the next chapter (Chapter 21: Widget Testing). In this chapter, you have
the option to add either the test or flutter _ test package to pubspec.yaml. The
test package is the minimum required dependency for unit tests. The test is added
under the `dev _ dependencies` section of the pubspec.yaml file.

```
dev_dependencies:
test: ^1.15.3
```

The font _ awesome _ flutter is added under the `dependencies` section

of the pubspec.yaml file.

```
dependencies:
font_awesome_flutter: ^8.8.1
```

THE CounterApp
In this section, we’ll build each part of the app one by one starting from Counter
pure Dart class.
287
288 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 20.1  Improvised CounterApp for demonstrating testing in Flutter

Counter Class
The Counter class contains the current value of the number in the `number`
variable. The `increment()` method increases the `number` by one, while the
`decrement()` method decreases the `number` by one.

```
class Counter {
int number = 0;
void increment() => number++;
void decrement() => number--;
}
```
Unit Testing 289

CounterApp StatelessWidget
The CounterApp extends StatelessWidget. It’s the root level widget that
works as a container for its descendent widgets. The MaterialApp is returned
in its `build()` method. The default theme is applied to the MaterialApp
as well. The homepage for the app is assigned using the `home` property of the
MaterialApp.

```
class CounterApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
theme: ThemeData(
primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
visualDensity: VisualDensity.adaptivePlatformDensity,
),
home: MyHomePage(title: 'My Counter App'),
);
}
}
```

MyHomePage StatefulWidget
The StatefulWidget keeps track of the state of the variable(s) in the widget. The
MyHomePage is a StatefulWidget. It uses the ` _ MyHomePageState` class
to hold the state(s) of the variables. It keeps a reference to the `Counter` class we
created earlier to access the counter’s number.

```
class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);
final String title;
@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}
class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
Counter _counter = Counter();
}
```

Method to Increment Counter Number

The ` _ MyHomePageState` class has a private method to increment the coun-
ter by one. It calls ` _ counter.increment()` method from `setState()`
method to trigger rebuild the widgets to render the current counter number on the
screen.
290 Pragmatic Flutter

```
void _incrementCounter() {
setState(() {
_counter.increment();
});
}
```

Method to Decrement Counter Number

The ` _ decrementCounter()` method is similar to ` _ increment-
Counter()` method but decrements the counter number by one.

```
void _decrementCounter() {
setState(() {
_counter.decrement();
});
}
```

MyTextWidget StatelessWidget
Let’s create a reusable custom Text widget to display all the Text widgets through-
out the app. This custom widget takes a string to be displayed, TextStyle to
be applied to this widget, and Key to preserving the state of the widget. We also
need to specify the directionality of the Text widget using TextDirection
(TextDirection enum) because this widget will be tested independently as a unit. The
`textDirection` property of the Text widget is assigned to `TextDirection.
ltr`. However, you don’t need to specify textDirection in your Text wid-
get when it’s a descendent of the Scaffold widget because textDirection is
implicitly provided in that case.

```
class MyTextWidget extends StatelessWidget {
final String textString;
final TextStyle style;
final Key myKey;
const MyTextWidget({this.myKey, this.textString, this.
style});
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Text(
textString,
style: style,
textDirection: TextDirection.ltr,
key: myKey,
);
}
}
```
Unit Testing 291

Displaying Label
The MyTextWidget custom widget is used to display the label ‘My Counter:’ as
below:

```
MyTextWidget(
myKey: Key('L'),
textString: 'My Counter:',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
```

This widget is added as the first child to the centered Column widget.

Displaying Number
The MyTextWidget is also used to display the current counter number. The widget’s
key is `Key(‘L’)`. The current counter number is assigned to the `textString`
property of MyTextWidget. It’s accessed as `${ _ counter.number}`.

Displaying Decrement Button

The `ElevatedButton` (ElevatedButton class) widget is used to decrement the
counter’s number by one. Its `key` property is assigned to `Key(‘D’)`. It’s also assigned
a red color using `Colors.red`. The minus icon is applied using the `font _
awesome _ flutter` Flutter plugin. The icon `FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.
minus)` is assigned as the child to the `ElevatedButton` widget. The
`onPressed()` method calls the ` _ decrementCounter()` to decrement the
counter number by one.

```
ElevatedButton(
key: Key('D'),
style: ElevatedButton.styleFrom(primary: Colors.red),
onPressed: () => _decrementCounter(),
child: FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.minus),
),
```

Displaying Increment Button

The increment button is assigned to the key `Key('I')`, and green color. The
ElevatedButton widget’s child is `FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.plus)`.
The `onPressed()` method increases the counter number by one.

```
ElevatedButton(
key: Key('I'),
292 Pragmatic Flutter

style: ElevatedButton.styleFrom(primary: Colors.green),

onPressed: () => _incrementCounter(),
child: FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.plus),
)
```

TEST FILE
The next step is to create a test file to test the counter number’s increment and dec-
rement functionality. Usually, this test file is created under the ‘test’ folder of the
root of the Flutter project. The file name ends in the ‘_test.dart’ suffix. Since our
CounterApp is located in ‘lib/chapter20/main_20.dart’, the test file will be ‘test/
main_20_test.dart’. The tests are written in a `test` block like below:

```
test('Test description', () {
//test code
});
```

Multiple tests can be combined in one group like below:

```
group('Test group, () {
test('Test#1 Description', () {});
test('Test#2 Description', () {});
});
```

We’ll be testing the `Counter` class for four scenarios: default number at the begin-
ning, increasing the number by one, decreasing the number by one, and finally incre-
menting and decrementing number in order.

Testing Default Number

In this test case, the default counter number is tested. It’s expected to have a default num-
ber as ‘0’. The number is accessed from the `Counter` class as `counter.number`.

```
test('Default Number is 0', () {
final counter = Counter();
expect(counter.number, 0);
});
```

Incrementing Number
Increasing the number by one will increase the counter by one. In this case, it’s
expected `counter.number` to be equal to ‘1’.
Unit Testing 293

```
test('Increment number by 1', () {
final counter = Counter();
counter.increment();
expect(counter.number, 1);
});
```

Decrementing Number
Decreasing a number by one will decrement the default counter ‘0’ by one, which is
‘−1’. It’s expected `counter.number` to be equal to ‘−1’ in this case.

```
test('Decrement number by 1', () {
final counter = Counter();
counter.decrement();
expect(counter.number, -1);
});
```

Increment & Decrement Together

In this test case, the number is first incremented by one and then decremented by one
resulting in the final number as ‘0’.
```
test('Increment & Decrement number by 1', () {
final counter = Counter();
counter.increment();
expect(counter.number, 1);
counter.decrement();
expect(counter.number, 0);
});
```

Complete Source Code

```
import 'package:pragmatic_flutter/chapter24/main_24.dart';
import 'package:test/test.dart';
//Unit Testing: CounterApp
void main() {
group('CounterApp-Unit Tests', () {
test('Default Number is 0', () {
final counter = Counter();
expect(counter.number, 0);
});

test('Increment number by 1', () {

final counter = Counter();
294 Pragmatic Flutter

counter.increment();
expect(counter.number, 1);
});

test('Decrement number by 1', () {

final counter = Counter();
counter.decrement();
expect(counter.number, -1);
});

test('Increment & Decrement number by 1', () {

final counter = Counter();
counter.increment();
expect(counter.number, 1);

counter.decrement();
expect(counter.number, 0);
});
});
}
```

Source Code Online

The full source code of this example (Chapter20: Unit Testing) is available at GitHub.

RUNNING UNIT TESTS

There are two ways to run unit tests. One way is to right-click on the test file and the
second way is to choose the option to run tests from the pop-up menu. Tests can also
be run from the command line using the following command:

```
flutter test test/<testfile-suffixed-with_test>.dart
```

Let’s run the test file for the current example with the command below:

```
flutter test test/main_20_test.dart
```

Output
The output shows the time taken to execute all the tests, followed by the number of
tests completed and the message on whether tests were passed.

```
00:14 +4: All tests passed!
```
Unit Testing 295

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned how to test the logical functionalities for the given Dart
`Counter` class. In the next chapter, you will learn to test the widgets that compose
the user interface.

REFERENCES
dart.dev. (2020, 11 27). test package. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/test
Flutter Community. (2020, 11 27). font_awesome_ flutter. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://
pub.dev/packages/font_awesome_flutter
Flutter Team. (2020, 11 27). flutter_test. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
cookbook/testing/widget/introduction#1-add-the-flutter_test-dependency
Google. (2020, 11 27). TextDirection enum. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/dart-ui/TextDirection-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 30). ElevatedButton class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/material/ElevatedButton-class.html
Google. (2020, 11 30). Unit Testing. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
cookbook/testing/unit
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 30). Chapter20: Unit Testing. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter GitHub Repo:
https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/test/main_20_
test.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 21: Widget Testing. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
21 Widget Testing

In this chapter, you will learn the basics of testing widgets (Widget Testing) in a
Flutter application. The widget test lets build and test widgets interactively. We
will use the improvised default CounterApp example from the previous chapter
(Chapter 21: Unit Testing). Earlier, we used the CounterApp to learn writing unit
tests for Flutter applications. In this chapter, you will use the same CounterApp
to learn writing tests for this app;s widgets. We will test the custom Text widget
`MyTextWidget` used for displaying label text and counter number. Additionally,
we will write a widget test case for the `ElevatedButton` widget to increment
and decrement the number on the screen.

PACKAGE DEPENDENCY
In the last chapter, the test (test) package was enough to write unit tests for pure
Dart code. For testing Flutter widgets, you need tools shipped with the `flutter _
test` (flutter_test) package. The `flutter _ test` dependency is automatically
added to pubspec.yaml under the `dev _ dependencies` section when creating
the Flutter project.

```
dev_dependencies:
flutter_test:
sdk: flutter
```

The `flutter _ test` package comes with tools useful to widget testing. We will
use the following tools to write widget tests:

1. WidgetTester (WidgetTester class): The WidgetTester let’s build

interactive test widgets. It interacts with widgets and test environments.
These widgets can be tapped programmatically to mimic the real-world
user interface interactions. We will be using the following methods of
WidgetTester class:
a. pumpWidget(Widget widget) (pumpWidget method): This method
builds the given widget `widget` in a test environment.
b. pump() (pump method): This method rebuilds the already built wid-
gets in the test environment. This is a useful method when testing
StatefulWidgets, which needs to be rebuilt when their state is
modified.
c. tap(Finder finder) (tap method): This method simulates the tap-
ping on a widget in the test environment on the found widget using
Finder (Finder class) class.

297
298 Pragmatic Flutter

2. Function testWidgets (testWidgets function): The `testWidgets()`

functions are similar to `test()` functions used in unit tests. This is
where you write a test code for verifying a widget’s behavior. It creates a
WidgetTester for the given test case.
3. Finder (Finder class): It helps search for widgets in the test app. The
Finder class searches a widget tree to find a match for the pattern(s) and
returns the matched node(s).
4. Matcher (Matcher class): This helps verify whether the Finder class
was able to locate a given widget in the test environment.

TESTING WIDGETS
We will use all tools and functions mentioned above to write widget tests for
CounterApp. The MyTextWidget custom Text widget is used to render the dis-
play label as well as to render the current counter number. The `textWidgets()`
function is used to write test code. It provides a `WidgetTester` class to create
widgets in the test environment. The `testWidget()` function is executed asyn-
chronously and doesn’t block another test case’s execution. The widgets to be tested
are created using the `pumpWidget()` method asynchronously.

Custom Text Widget (label)

In this test, we will be testing the widget rendering the ‘My Counter:’ text label on
the screen. The `testWidgets()` function is used to write the test code for test-
ing custom widget MyTextWidget with `textString` property. This widget
is created using WidgetTester provided by the `testWidgets` function. The
WidgetTester class uses the `pumpWidget()` method to create MyTextWidget
widget with `textString` property assigned to `My Counter:` string. Once the wid-
get to be tested is created, the Finder class method `find()` is used to find the
occurrence of a `Text` widget rendering ‘My Counter:’ string. The matched widget in
the widget tree is stored in the `myCounterText` variable. The `Matcher` constant
`findsOneWidget` matches one widget that meets the criteria. The `expect()`
function asserts if `myCounterText` matches the `findsOneWidget` matcher.

```
testWidgets('Testing Label Text Widget (My Counter:)',
(WidgetTester widgetTester) async {
//Building Text widget using WidgetTester
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(MyTextWidget(textString: 'My
Counter:'));

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('My Counter:');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
```
Widget Testing 299

Custom Text Widget (number)

The counter number is displayed as a string using MyTextWidget on the screen.
The MyTextWidget is created in a test environment with a default `textString`
property initialized to ‘0’. The `widget.pumpWidget()` method creates the
MyTextWidget widget. The `find()` method finds the Text widget rendering
‘0’ text. Since there’s only one Text widget rendering ‘0’, the `Matcher` constant
`findsOneWidget` is used to assert using the `expect()` method as shown in
the code below:

```
testWidgets('Testing Counter Text Widget for number 0',
(WidgetTester widgetTester) async {

//Creating Text widget

await widgetTester.pumpWidget(MyTextWidget(textString: '0'));
//Creating Finder to widget created
final myCounterText = find.text('0');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
```

Finding Widget Using Key

The other way to find a widget in the widget tree is by using the widget key. A Key
(Key class) is an identifier to identify widgets in a widget tree. We will create the
test widget using Key. We will run the test for the counter number the same as in
the last test case, but using the Key this time. The `widgetKey` is created using
`Key(‘T’)`, and assigned to the custom widget MyTextWidget using the `mKey`
property. Refer to the last chapter on Unit testing to review the CounterApp in detail.
The MyTextWidget is found using the same `find()` method but with a key
`widgetKey` created earlier: `find.byKey(widgetKey)`, and store its refer-
ence in `myCounterText` variable. Finally, we assert the `myCounterText`
with the `findsOneWidget` matcher.

```
testWidgets('Finding widget by Key', (WidgetTester
widgetTester) async {
final widgetKey = Key('T');
//Creating Text widget
await widgetTester
. pumpWidget(MyTextWidget(myKey: widgetKey, textString:
'0'));

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.byKey(widgetKey);

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

300 Pragmatic Flutter

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
```

Increment ElevatedButton Widget

The green button with the plus icon increases the counter number by one each time
it’s pressed. First, we create the app CounterApp in the test environment like
below using MediaQuery (MediaQuery class) and adding `CounterApp()` as
its descendent. The MediaQuery helps establish a subtree in which media queries
resolve to the given data. The MediaQueryData (MediaQuery class) is needed to
get the media information, like the size of the device the app is rendered on. The test
app is created using `pumpWidget()` method by passing on the `testWidget`
variable.

```
Widget testWidget = MediaQuery(
data: MediaQueryData(),
child: CounterApp(),
);
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);
```

Next, we want to find the increment button and press it to increment the counter num-
ber. The increment ElevatedButton widget is created using key `I` as below:

```
ElevatedButton(
key: Key('I'),
style: ElevatedButton.styleFrom(primary: Colors.green),
onPressed: () => _incrementCounter(),
child: FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.plus),
)

The increment button is found using `find.byKey(Key(‘I’))`. This widget is

tapped on using `await widgetTester.tap(.)`. The `pump()` method needs to
be called to propagate the action to the widget tree.

```
await widgetTester.tap(
find.byKey(Key('I')),
);
```

The number counter will be incremented by one. This is tested by finding the
Text widget displaying the number as ‘1’ and matching it with the `findsOne-
Widget` matcher. The full incrementing counter button widget testing code is as
below:
Widget Testing 301

```
testWidgets('Increment Number', (WidgetTester widgetTester)
async {
Widget testWidget = MediaQuery(
data: MediaQueryData(),
child: CounterApp(),
);
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);

//Tap increment Button (Green)

await widgetTester.tap(
find.byKey(Key('I')),
);

await widgetTester.pump();

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('1');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
```

Decrement ElevatedButton Widget

The red button with the minus icon decrements the counter number by one every
time it’s pressed. In this test case, the tapping button will decrease the number by
one. The default starting number is ‘0’. If it’s decremented by one, then the number
counter will be ‘−1’. The test case is below:

```
testWidgets('Decrement Number', (WidgetTester widgetTester)
async {
Widget testWidget =
MediaQuery(data: MediaQueryData(), child: CounterApp());
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);

//Tap increment Button (Red)

await widgetTester.tap(find.byKey(Key('D')));

await widgetTester.pump();

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('-1');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
```
302 Pragmatic Flutter

Incrementing and Decrementing

In this test case, let increment and decrement counter number one at a time. The
starting number rendered as ‘0’. Incrementing the counter by one will render the
number as ‘1’. Tapping on a button to decrease the number by one will decrement it
by one. The result will be ‘0’ again. The test case is below:

```
testWidgets('Incrementing & Decrementing Number',
(WidgetTester widgetTester) async {
Widget testWidget =
MediaQuery(data: MediaQueryData(), child:
CounterApp());
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);

//Tap increment Button (Green)

await widgetTester.tap(find.byKey(Key('I')));

await widgetTester.pump();

//Tap increment Button (Red)

await widgetTester.tap(find.byKey(Key('D')));

await widgetTester.pump();

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('0');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
});
```

Complete Source Code

The full source code of widget tests for CounterApp is below:

```
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter_test/flutter_test.dart';
import 'package:pragmatic_flutter/chapter25/main_25.dart';

//Widget Testing: CounterApp

void main() {
group("CounterApp-Widget Testing", () {
testWidgets('Testing Label Text Widget (My Counter:)',
(WidgetTester widgetTester) async {
//Building Text widget using WidgetTester
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(MyTextWidget(textString:
'My Counter:'));
Widget Testing 303

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('My Counter:');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});

testWidgets('Testing Counter Text Widget for number 0',

(WidgetTester widgetTester) async {
//Creating Text widget
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(MyTextWidget(textString:
'0'));

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('0');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});

testWidgets('Finding widget by Key', (WidgetTester

widgetTester) async {
final widgetKey = Key('N');
//Creating Text widget
await widgetTester
.pumpWidget(MyTextWidget(myKey: widgetKey,
textString: '0'));

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.byKey(widgetKey);

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});

testWidgets('Increment Number', (WidgetTester widgetTester)

async {
Widget testWidget = MediaQuery(
data: MediaQueryData(),
child: CounterApp(),
);
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);

//Tap increment Button (Green)

await widgetTester.tap(
find.byKey(Key('I')),
);

await widgetTester.pump();

//Creating Finder to widget created

304 Pragmatic Flutter

final myCounterText = find.text('1');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});

testWidgets('Decrement Number', (WidgetTester widgetTester)

async {
Widget testWidget =
MediaQuery(data: MediaQueryData(), child:
CounterApp());
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);

//Tap decrement Button (Red)

await widgetTester.tap(find.byKey(Key('D')));

await widgetTester.pump();

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('-1');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});

testWidgets('Incrementing & Decrementing Number',

(WidgetTester widgetTester) async {
Widget testWidget =
MediaQuery(data: MediaQueryData(), child: CounterApp());
await widgetTester.pumpWidget(testWidget);

//Tap increment Button (Green)

await widgetTester.tap(find.byKey(Key('I')));

await widgetTester.pump();

//Tap increment Button (Red)

await widgetTester.tap(find.byKey(Key('D')));

await widgetTester.pump();

//Creating Finder to widget created

final myCounterText = find.text('0');

//Verifying widget using Matcher constant

expect(myCounterText, findsOneWidget);
});
});
}
```
Widget Testing 305

Source Code Online

The full source code for this example (Chapter 21: Widget Testing) is available at
GitHub. The CounterApp code is available here (Chapter 21: Widget Testing).

RUNNING WIDGET TESTS

The widget tests can be run using the same command as unit tests.

```
$ flutter test test/main_21_test.dart
```

Output
The total time taken for executing all tests is displayed as `00:04`. The `+6` repre-
sents the number of tests executed. The last part, `All tests passed!`, displays
the status of the test run.

```
00:04 +6: All tests passed!
```

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to write widget tests for CounterApp. You learned to
use the `flutter _ test` package to write tests for verifying the behavior of wid-
gets. You used WidgetTester, testWidgets(), Finder, and Matcher to test
the widgets’ behavior. The WidgetTester helped build interactive test widgets.
The testWidgets()methods were used to write test code for verifying a wid-
get’s behavior. The Finder class is used to search for widgets in the test app. The
Matcher class helped verify whether the Finder class could locate a given widget
in the test environment.

REFERENCES
Dart Dev. (2020, 11 30). test. Retrieved from pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/test
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). Finder class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/flutter_test/Finder-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). Key class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/foundation/Key-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). Matcher class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/package-matcher_matcher/Matcher-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). MediaQuery class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/MediaQuery-class.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). pump method. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/flutter_test/TestWidgetsFlutterBinding/pump.html
306 Pragmatic Flutter

Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). pumpWidget method. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.
dev/flutter/flutter_test/WidgetTester/pumpWidget.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). tap method. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.flutter.dev/
flutter/flutter_test/WidgetController/tap.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). testWidgets function. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/flutter_test/testWidgets.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). WidgetTester class. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/flutter_test/WidgetTester-class.html
Flutter Team. (20202, 11 27). flutter_test. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
cookbook/testing/widget/introduction#1-add-the-flutter_test-dependency
Google. (2020, 11 30). Widget Testing. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://flutter.dev/docs/
cookbook/testing/widget/introduction
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 30). Chapter 21: Widget Testing. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/blob/master/test/
main_21_test.dart
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 21: Unit Testing. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
22 Integration Testing

In the previous chapter on Unit Testing (Chapter 20: Unit Testing), you learned to
test the logic of functions, classes, and methods. Later, in the Widget Testing chapter
(Chapter 21: Widget Testing) you learned to test widgets. In this chapter, you will
learn to test an app on a real device while interacting with other system-level compo-
nents. Integration testing allows running multiple pieces together. It’s useful to test
the performance of an app on real hardware.
Integration testing is done using two files known as ‘test pair‘. The first file
deploys the instrumented application (Instrument the app) to the test device. It could
either be a real device or an emulator. The second file contains the test cases that
drive the application to execute the app’s actions.

PACKAGE DEPENDENCY
The integration testing requires the testing pair of two files. The flutter _ driver
(flutter_driver library) package needs to be included in the pubspec.yaml file. This
package provides the tools to create the test pair. You need the following package
added under the `dev _ dependencies` section of the pubspec.yaml config file.

```
dev_dependencies:
flutter_test:
sdk: flutter

flutter_driver:
sdk: flutter
```

PREVIEW CounterApp CODE

In this section, we will be writing integration tests for the CounterApp with two but-
tons. The application’s code from the Unit Testing chapter (Chapter 20: Unit Testing)
for your reference is as below:

```
void main() {
runApp(CounterApp());
}

class CounterApp extends StatelessWidget {

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(

307
308 Pragmatic Flutter

debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
theme: ThemeData(
primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
visualDensity: VisualDensity.adaptivePlatformDensity,
),
home: MyHomePage(title: 'My Counter App'),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {

MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);

final String title;

@override
_MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class Counter {
int number = 0;

void increment() => number++;

void decrement() => number--;
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {

Counter _counter = Counter();

void _incrementCounter() {
setState(() {
_counter.increment();
});
}

void _decrementCounter() {
setState(() {
_counter.decrement();
});
}

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(widget.title),
),
body: Center(
child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceEvenly,
children: <Widget>[
Integration Testing 309

MyTextWidget(
myKey: Key('L'),
textString: 'My Counter:',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline4,
),
MyTextWidget(
myKey: Key('N'),
textString: '${_counter.number}',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.headline3,
),
Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.
spaceEvenly,
children: [
ElevatedButton(
key: Key('D'),
style: ElevatedButton.styleFrom(primary:
Colors.red),
onPressed: () => _decrementCounter(),
child: FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.minus),
),
ElevatedButton(
key: Key('I'),
style: ElevatedButton.styleFrom(primary:
Colors.green),
onPressed: () => _incrementCounter(),
child: FaIcon(FontAwesomeIcons.plus),
)
],
)
],
),
),
);
}
}

class MyTextWidget extends StatelessWidget {

final String textString;
final TextStyle style;
final Key myKey;

const MyTextWidget({this.myKey, this.textString, this.style});

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Text(
textString,
style: style,
//Need to specify the directionality because this widget
will be tested independently.
310 Pragmatic Flutter

//You don't need to specify textDirection in your Text

widget when it's a child to Scaffold widget because
textDirection is implicitly provided in that case.
textDirection: TextDirection.ltr,
key: myKey,
);
}
}
```

TEST PAIR FILES

The test pair has two files, which are located in a directory named `test _ driver`.
This directory is located at the top-level of the Flutter project.

Instrumentation App
The first file is created in the `test _ driver/` directory. You can name it as
you like. I named it that goes with the name of this chapter: `test _ driver/
main _ 22.dart`. This file is an instrumented version of the app and helps record
the instrumentation information like performance profiles to the integration tests
suite. The contents of this file look like below:

```
//Instrumented CounterApp
import 'package:flutter_driver/driver_extension.dart';
import '../lib/chapter22/main_22.dart' as app;

void main() {
enableFlutterDriverExtension();
app.main();
}
```

Test Suite
The second file is also present in the same directory, `test _ driver/`. It has the
same name as the instrumented file but suffixed with ` _ test`. So, the integration
test suites will be present in the test_driver/main_22_test.dart file. In the next sec-
tion, we will write integration tests to test the increment and decrement buttons of
the CounterApp.

WRITING INTEGRATION TESTS

In this section, we will be writing test cases to test the app’s functionality and user
interface interactions. There are three parts to writing integration test suites.
Integration Testing 311

Test Suite
The multiple integration tests can be grouped based on their relevance in groups. In
this section, we will create one group for testing increment and decrement function-
ality in CounterApp.

```
void main() {
group(‘Description about the test suite', () {
//Test cases go here
});
}
```

Setting Up
In this test, we will be incrementing and decrementing the number by pressing the
buttons and verifying the number displayed on the screen. We acquire a reference
to each of these widgets using the `find.byValueKey()` method. The `num-
berTextFinder` stores a reference to the widget rendering the number. The
`incrementFinder` holds the reference to the `ElevatedButton` widget for
incrementing the counter. The `decrementFinder` holds the reference to the
`ElevatedButton` widget for decrementing the counter.

```
final numberTextFinder = find.byValueKey('N');
final incrementFinder = find.byValueKey('I');
final decrementFinder = find.byValueKey('D');
```

Next, we’ll get the reference to `FlutterDriver` (flutter_driver library), which

connects the test suites to the instrumented app to verify the test cases.

```
FlutterDriver flutterDriver;
//connect to the instrumented app in test_driver/main_22.dart
setUpAll(() async {
flutterDriver = await FlutterDriver.connect();
});
```

Tearing Down
The `tearDownAll()` function is called after all test cases are executed to close
the app’s connection.

```
//Close the connection between driver and instrumented app
tearDownAll(() async {
312 Pragmatic Flutter

if (flutterDriver != null) {
flutterDriver.close();
}
});
```

Test Case
In this test case, we will increment the counter number using the green button and
decrement it twice. Increasing the number by one will render ‘1’ on the screen.
Decrementing it two times will render the number as ‘−1’.
The `ElevatedButton` widget to increment the number is tapped using
`flutterDriver.tap(incrementFinder)`. Similarly, the button to decrement
number is tapped using `flutterDriver.tap(decrementFinder)`. Tapping
on either of the buttons will increase or decrease the number displayed. This num-
ber can be retrieved using `flutterDriver.getText(numberTextFinder)`.
Finally, you can verify the expected behavior using `expect(flutterDriver.
getText(numberTextFinder), 'number')`. In the following test case, the
increment button is tapped once and verified as ‘1’. Next, the decrement button
is tapped twice, which will decrease the number by two. Subtracting two from
one gives ‘−1’. The ‘−1’ is verified using `expect(await flutterDriver.
getText(numberTextFinder), '-1');`.

```
test(' Increment & Decrement Counter', () async {
//Tap increment counter
await flutterDriver.tap(incrementFinder);

//Verify if Number text becomes 1

expect(await flutterDriver.getText(numberTextFinder), '1');

//Tap decrement counter twice

await flutterDriver.tap(decrementFinder);
await flutterDriver.tap(decrementFinder);

//Verify if Number text becomes -1

expect(await flutterDriver.getText(numberTextFinder), '-1');
});
```

Complete Test Code

The complete test code for this integration test suite is as below:

```
//Integration Testing: CounterApp
import 'package:flutter_driver/flutter_driver.dart';
import 'package:test/test.dart';
Integration Testing 313

void main() {
group('Integration Testing CounterApp:', () {
final numberTextFinder = find.byValueKey('N');
final incrementFinder = find.byValueKey('I');
final decrementFinder = find.byValueKey('D');

FlutterDriver flutterDriver;

//connect to the instrumented app in test_driver/main_26.dart

setUpAll(() async {
flutterDriver = await FlutterDriver.connect();
});

//Close the connection between driver and instrumented app

tearDownAll(() async {
if (flutterDriver != null) {
flutterDriver.close();
}
});

test(' Increment & Decrement Counter', () async {

//Tap increment counter
await flutterDriver.tap(incrementFinder);

//Verify if Number text becomes 1

expect(await flutterDriver.getText(numberTextFinder), '1');

//Tap decrement counter twice

await flutterDriver.tap(decrementFinder);
await flutterDriver.tap(decrementFinder);

//Verify if Number text becomes -1

expect(await flutterDriver.getText(numberTextFinder),
'-1');
});
});
}
```

Source Code Online

Source code for this integration test suite (Chapter 22: Integration Testing) is avail-
able at GitHub. The source code for companion CounterApp is available here
(Chapter 22: Integration Testing).

RUNNING INTEGRATION TESTS

The integration tests are run using the following command on terminal (command
line):
314 Pragmatic Flutter

```
$ flutter drive --target=test_driver/main_22.dart --browser-
name=chrome –debug
```

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned to setup and write a test suite for integration tests. The
test suite helped test the CounterApp functionality end-to-end by increasing and
decreasing the counter displayed on the screen and verifying the results.

REFERENCES
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). flutter_driver library. Retrieved from api.flutter.dev: https://api.
flutter.dev/flutter/flutter_driver/flutter_driver-library.html
Flutter Dev. (2020, 11 30). Instrument the app. Retrieved from Flutter Dev: https://flutter.dev/
docs/cookbook/testing/integration/introduction#4-instrument-the-app
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 30). Chapter 22: Integration Testing. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/tree/master/test_
driver
Tyagi, P. (2020, 11 30). Chapter 22: Integration Testing. Retrieved from Pragmatic Flutter
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ptyagicodecamp/pragmatic_flutter/tree/master/lib/
chapter22
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 20: Unit Testing. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
Tyagi, P. (2021). Chapter 21: Widget Testing. In P. Tyagi, Pragmatic Flutter: Building Cross-
Platform Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, Web & Desktop. CRC Press.
23 Rolling into the World

Congratulations! You made it to the end of the book. Now that your app is looking
good in your development environment, you may want to share it with others. In this
chapter, you will learn to release Android, iOS, web, and desktop applications built
on the Flutter platform. The Android applications are distributed on Google Play
Store (Google Play Store). Google Play is a digital distribution service for apps by
Google. It distributes apps on Android and Chrome OS platforms. Chrome OS is
based on Chromium OS (Chromium OS), which is an open-source project to build
a fast, simple, and secure operating system targeted to web users. The Chrome OS
(Chrome OS) is a Linux kernel-based operating system that uses Google Chrome
web browser as its user interface. Google Chrome (Google Chrome) is a cross-plat-
form web browser developed by Google.
In this chapter, you’ll learn the basics of preparing your app for publishing to
Google Play Store – Android, App Store Connect – iOS (Apps). You’ll also learn to
deploy the web app to Firebase hosting and building a self-contained desktop app
that can be distributed to macOS users.

ADDING LAUNCHER ICON

An effective way to update app icons for Android and iOS variants is to use the flut-
ter_launcher_icons (flutter_launcher_icons) package. This package helps to resize
the icons for different screen form factors and devices accordingly and update icons
for Android and iOS all at once. Let’s see how to use it in a Flutter project.

Adding Dependency
Add dependency in pubspec.yaml:

```
dependencies:
flutter_launcher_icons: ^0.8.1
```

After adding a dependency in the pubspec.yaml, don’t forget to fetch it using

`flutter pub get` in the terminal.

Configuring pubspec.yaml
Add your app icon in the assets directory of the Flutter project’s root level. You can
choose to organize launcher-related images in their own folder like assets/launcher.
Android supports adaptive icons (Adaptive icons), and it requires two layers: fore-
ground and background images to make an icon. You need a background image,

315
316 Pragmatic Flutter

additionally. You can choose to keep foreground and background images separately
as two images or use a solid-colored image as the background and icon as the fore-
ground image. Assume that the app icon image is assets/launcher/app_logo.png.
The background layer image is assets/launcher/app_logo_background.png.

```
flutter_icons:
ios: true
android: true
image_path_ios: "assets/launcher/app_logo.png"
image_path_android: "assets/launcher/app_logo.png"
adaptive_icon_background: "assets/launcher/app_logo_
background.png"
adaptive_icon_foreground: "assets/launcher/app_logo.png"
```

Generating Launcher Icons

Running the following command in the terminal will generate the required app icons
for Android and iOS platforms.

```
flutter pub run flutter_launcher_icons:main
```

The above command will generate icons in ‘android/app/src/main/res/mipmap-*’

for the Android platform. The adaptive icons are generated in ‘android/app/src/
main/res/drawable-*’ folders.
Icons for iOS are generated/replaced in the ‘ios/Runner/Assets.xcassets/’ folders. The
desktop macOS app icons can be updated in ‘macos/Runner/Assets.xcassets/AppIcon.
appiconset/’ folder. The web icons need to be updated in the ‘web/icons/’ folder.

RELEASING ANDROID APPS

In this section, you’ll get pointers on building and preparing your application to dis-
tribute on Google Play Store (Play Store). If this is your first-time publishing apps on
Play Store, then you would need to pay a $25 developer registration fee for signing
up (Create a new developer account) on the publishing platform.
An app needs to be digitally signed to be able to be published on Google Play
Store. There are two types of artifacts supported by the Google Play Store: App
Bundle and APK.
Note: Make sure to run `flutter analyze` before you build artifacts for pub-
lishing to Play Store.

Create Keystore
You create a keystore only once for the application’s lifetime in the store. Use the fol-
lowing command to generate a keystore in the following environments. The `key-
store.jks` is the keystore file and meant to be kept private.
Rolling into the World 317

```
keytool -genkey -v -keystore <path-to-dir>/keystore.jks
-keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000 -alias key
```

The above commands will ask a couple of questions related to your organization
that you will provide in the command line. You’ll also be providing a password.
Once you provide all the required information, you’ll have keystore.jks generated
in the given directory. In case you’re planning to keep this keystore file in your
project directory, make sure to add it to the ‘.gitignore’ file to avoid accidental
check-in to the public repository. Learn more about creating keystores here (Create
a keystore).
Note: The keytool tool comes with Java installation. Run `flutter doctor
-v` to find Java binary installation that came with Android Studio.

Referencing Keystore
Add a file `key.properties` in the `<flutter-project-root>/android`
folder to reference `keystore.jks` and other related details. Add the `key.prop-
erties` file in the `.gitignore` as well. You don’t want to check-in this file in the
version control.

```
storePassword=<password created during keystore.jks
generation>
keyPassword=<password created during keystore.jks generation>
keyAlias=<alias chosen during keystore.jks generation>
storeFile=<path-to-keystore>/keystore.jks>
```

Signing Configuration
Android application’s signing details are configured in `<flutter-project-
root>/android/app/build.gradle` file.

Loading `key.properties`
The configuration details are loaded from `key.properties` above the `android
{}` block of the gradle file.

```
def keystoreProperties = new Properties()
def keystorePropertiesFile = rootProject.file('key.
properties')
if (keystorePropertiesFile.exists()) {
keystoreProperties.load(new
FileInputStream(keystorePropertiesFile))
}
318 Pragmatic Flutter

android {
...
}
```

Adding Release Signing Configuration

```
android {
...

signingConfigs {
release {
keyAlias keystoreProperties['keyAlias']
keyPassword keystoreProperties['keyPassword']
storeFile keystoreProperties['storeFile'] ?
file(keystoreProperties['storeFile']) : null
storePassword keystoreProperties['storePassword']
}
}
buildTypes {
release {
signingConfig signingConfigs.release
}
debug {
signingConfig signingConfigs.debug
}
}
}

Note: Run the `flutter clean` command to refresh the gradle configuration.

Code Shrinking
Add `minifyEnabled` and `shrinkResources` to true for R8 code shrinker
(Shrink, obfuscate, and optimize) to automatically remove the code that’s not
required at runtime.

```
buildTypes {
release {
minifyEnabled true
shrinkResources true
signingConfig signingConfigs.release
}
}
```

The R8 code shrinker is enabled by default when building a release artifact. However,
it can be disabled by passing the `–no-shrink` flag while building release artifacts.
Rolling into the World 319

AndroidManifest.xml
Make sure that you’ve internet permission enabled in `<flutter-project-root>/
android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml`. It allows internet access
during development to enable communication between Flutter tools and the app.
```
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
```

Another thing you want to ensure the name of your app is declared using the
`android:label` attribute.
```
<application
...
android:label="appName">
...
</application>
```

This is defined in the `name` attribute in the `pubspec.yaml`.

```
name: appName
```

Build Configuration
The app’s default build configuration is declared in the `defaultConfig` block of
`<flutter-project-root>/android/app/build.gradle`.
applicationId:
The `applicationId` contains the unique app id for your app. It can’t be changed
once an app is published on the Play Store.
```
defaultConfig {
applicationId "com.domain.appId"
minSdkVersion 18
targetSdkVersion 28
versionCode flutterVersionCode.toInteger()
versionName flutterVersionName
multiDexEnabled true
}
```

minSdkVersion:
Minimum Android API level supported by the app.
targetSdkVersion:
The targeted Android API level on which the app is designed to run.
320 Pragmatic Flutter

versionCode & versionName:

This can be set in the `version` attribute in the `pubspec.yaml` file. The ver-
sionCode specifies the internal app version, while versionName specifies the
display string for the version in Play Store. The `version` in `pubspec.yaml` is
specified as `1.0.0+1`. The first part, `1.0.0` is the versionName, and every-
thing after the `+` sign is the versionCode. You can update the versionName to
‘1.0.1’, and versionCode to ‘2’ at once in pubspec.yaml file like below:

```
version: 1.0.1+2
```

Building App Bundle

The app bundles are the newer and recommended artifact type. Execute the follow-
ing command in the Flutter project’s root directory to build the release artifact in the
‘*.aab’ file format. It’s generated in the `<flutter-project-root>/build/app/
outputs/bundle/release/` directory. The artifact created is `app-release.
aab`.

```
flutter build appbundle
```

The ‘app-release.aab’ contains Dart and Flutter code compiled for ARM 32-bit
(armeabi-v7a), ARM 64-bit (arm64-v8a), and x86-64. There’s only one artifact for
each target application binary interface (ABI).

Building APK
An APK artifact is needed for the distribution platforms that don’t support app
bundle formats. By default, one APK contains native binaries for all the platforms/
ABI(s) in one fat artifact and risks users to download files that are not an application
to their device. In this case, it makes sense to create an APK targeted to a specific
platform. The APK artifacts targeted to each application binary interface or ABI can
be created using the following command:

```
flutter build apk --split-per-abi
```

The above command will generate artifacts in multiple ABI targeted artifacts
in `<flutter-project-root>/build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/` and
`<flutter-project-root>/build/app/outputs/apk/release` directo-
ries. The artifacts generated in both directories are:

• app-arm64-v8a-release.apk
• app-armeabi-v7a-release.apk
• app-x86_64-release.apk
Rolling into the World 321

Distributing App on Google Play Store

In this section, we’ll go over the basic steps to publish your app bundle ‘*.aab’ artifact to
the Play Store. I recommend reviewing the detailed launch checklist here (Google Play).

Creating Application
Once you’re at Google Play’s publishing portal (Google Play Console), click the
‘Create Application’ button to get started with publishing your app. You’ll get a
prompt to enter the name of your application. Once you enter the name for your app
and choose the target language, you’re redirected to the store listing next. Make sure
to keep saving the draft as you make progress.

App Releases
In this section of the portal, you upload the ‘*.aab’ artifact. There are four tracks that
you can choose to upload your app bundle/APK artifacts.

1. Production track (Production): In this track, the app becomes available to

all users on the Google Play Store.
2. Open track (Beta): In this track, the app is available for open testing. Anyone
with the link can access the app.
3. Closed track (Alpha): In this track, the app becomes available for closed
testing. The app becomes available to allowed listed users.
4. Internal test track: In this track, the app becomes available for internal test-
ing quickly. In contrast, other options may take several hours to become
available. It requires the allowed testers listed.

It’s recommended to upload artifacts for internal testing first and then gradually
move up to the production track. This strategy helps to catch the bugs and issues
much earlier to provide a quality experience to users worldwide later.

Store Listing
This is where you provide the app’s short and detailed description. Be ready with a
high-resolution app icon (512 × 512), feature graphic (1024 w × 500 h), and screen-
shots for supported devices like phones and tablets in our case. You can use the
Android Asset Studio (Launcher icon generator) to generate app icons. All screen-
shot images’ sizes should follow a 2:1 ratio.
Choose the application type and category for the app. It’s required to apply a content
rating on your app listing. Take a content rating questionnaire to apply a content rating.
You need to upload your ‘*.aab’ artifact before you can take a content rating question-
naire. Provide your contact details under the ‘Contact details’ part of the Store Listing.

App Content
In this section, you need to provide details about the privacy policy, ads integration,
granular login-based app access, target audience information, and content rating.
322 Pragmatic Flutter

Price & Distribution

In this section, the price and availability of the app are declared. Information about
the content guidelines and US export laws is found in this section.
At this point, the app is ready to be published. There are many other options to
customize your app’s listing that you may want to go over in the Play Store publish-
ing portal.

RELEASING iOS APPS

This section will touch base briefly on preparing and distributing iOS apps on App
Store Connect. The detailed instructions on building and releasing an iOS app are
available at Flutter’s official documentation (Build and release an iOS app).
Your app must meet the App Store’s review guidelines (App Review). If this is
your first-time publishing iOS apps, then you need to enroll in the Apple Developer
Program (Develop) and choose one of the available membership programs (Choosing
a Membership).

Register Identifier (bundle ID)

An iOS app has a Bundle ID. It’s a unique identifier registered on Apple Developer.
Create Bundle ID (Register a new identifier) on your Apple Developers account.
Select ‘App’ and follow the directions, as shown in Figure 23.1. Choose ‘Explicit
App ID’ when the option is available.

Register App
Register your app at App Store Connect (App Store Connect). Open the App Store
Connect in a browser and choose the ‘My Apps’ icon. Click on the ‘+’ button next to
‘Apps’ as shown in Figure 23.2.
You will get a dialog, as shown in Figure 23.3, to enter details about your new
app. Once you enter the app’s basic details, click on ‘Create’ to add the app. You’ll be

FIGURE 23.1  Registering a new identifier

Rolling into the World 323

FIGURE 23.2  App Store Connect: Add new app

presented with a page to add detailed information about the app. Check out official
documentation (Add a new app) on adding an app to the App Store Connect.

Xcode Project Settings

Open the Flutter’s iOS variant in Xcode to review (Review Xcode project settings)
the settings. First, open Xcode IDE and choose the ‘Open a project or file’ option and
navigate to ‘ios/Runner.xcworkspace’. This will open the project in Xcode.

FIGURE 23.3  App Store Connect: New app details

324 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 23.4  Xcode project settings: General tab

Select ‘Runner’ in the Xcode project navigator to view the app’s settings. Select
the ‘Runner’ target in the main view’s sidebar and select the ‘General’ tab. You can
update the app’s display name and bundle id, as shown in Figure 23.4.
Select the ‘Signing & Capabilities’ section to select the team and update provi-
sioning profile settings. I’m using Xcode managed profile, as shown in Figure 23.5.

Building Archive
Run `flutter build ios` from Flutter project’s root to create the release build.
Restart Xcode to refresh the configuration if the Xcode version is below 8.3. In
Xcode, select ‘Product’ > ‘Scheme’ > ‘Runner’ as shown in Figure 23.6.
Select ‘Product’ > ‘Destination’ > ‘Any iOS Device’ as shown in Figure 23.7.

Distributing App on App Store

Finally, let’s create a build archive to upload it to App Store Connect. In Xcode,
select ‘Product’ > ‘Archive’ as shown in Figure 23.8 to prepare the archive.
Once the archive is built, you will see the ‘Organizer’ window popup. Select the
build archive that just built and click the ‘Validate App’ button, as shown in Figure
23.9. This will validate your build against the App Store’s guidelines. Address any
reported issues and rebuild the archive. Once the archive is successfully built, click
on ‘Distribute App’ button, as shown in Figure 23.9.
Rolling into the World 325

FIGURE 23.5  Xcode project settings: Signing & Capabilities tab

FIGURE 23.6  Xcode project settings: Product > Scheme > Runner
326 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 23.7  Xcode project settings: Product > Destination > Any iOS Device

FIGURE 23.8  Xcode project settings: Product > Archive

Rolling into the World 327

FIGURE 23.9  Organizer: Validate App & Distribute App

You will see a dialog to choose the method of distribution. Choose ‘App Store
Connect’, as shown in Figure 23.10 and click the ‘Next’ button.
Select the ‘Upload’ option in Figure 23.11 and follow the screens to upload archive
(Upload an app to App Store Connect) to App Store Connect.
Once your build is uploaded to App Store Connect, prepare it for submission,
and set the pricing and availability details. Lastly, click on ‘Submit for Review’. You
should get notified from Apple about the app’s review status updates in 24–48 hours.

RELEASING WEB APPS

The Flutter Web provides support for compiling Flutter’s Dart code into native cli-
ent code that can be deployed to any web server of your choice. I will give pointers
to setup the Firebase project for hosting web app BooksApp created in the previous
chapter (Chapter 15: The Second Page: BookDetails Widget).

FIGURE 23.10  Selecting a method of distribution

328 Pragmatic Flutter

FIGURE 23.11  Selecting a destination

Building WebApp
Run the following command to create a release build for a web app.

```
flutter build web
```

The above command generates web content in the ‘build/web’ folder. Everything in
this folder needs to be moved to the hosting folder. A Flutter web app release build
can also be created using the alternative command as below:

```
flutter run --release
```

The above commands use the dart2js (dart2js: Dart-to-JavaScript compiler) compiler
to produce ‘main.dart.js’ JavaScript file for ‘main.dart’.

Deploying Web App

The artifacts are generated in the ‘<Flutter-project-root>/build/web’ directory along
with the ‘assets’ directory. Move the contents of the ‘web’ directory to the publicly
hosting directory to deploy the web app. The next few steps will describe how I
deployed BooksApp to Firebase hosting (Firebase Hosting). First, you need to cre-
ate an account on Firebase Hosting. Its first tier is free and provides enough tooling
to host your web app. Follow directions on the official Firebase website to setup
Firebase CLI (Get started with Firebase Hosting). You need a Firebase project cre-
ated and a site added in the console, as shown in Figure 23.12.
You need to start by logging into your account using `firebase login`. Once
you’re logged in, run `firebase init` to setup the hosting. This will create a few
configuration files like firebase.json and .firebaserc.
Rolling into the World 329

FIGURE 23.12  Adding site name to Firebase hosting portal

firebase.json:

```
{
"hosting": {
"site": "pragmatic-flutter-booksapp",
"public": "public/web",
"ignore": [
"firebase.json",
"**/.*",
"**/node_modules/**"
]
}
}
```

.firebaserc:

```
{
"projects": {
"default": "firbase_project_id"
}
}
```

I prefer to create a ‘deploy’ folder (Chapter 23: Rolling into the World) in the root of
the project to save web hosting related content. Check it out at GitHub repo.
In the deploy folder, ‘public/web’ contains hosting contents. You need to
move contents from the ‘build/web’ to the ‘deploy/public’ folder. Finally, run the
330 Pragmatic Flutter

`firebase deploy` command to push contents to Firebase hosting site. You’ll

see the following messages on the console while deploying to Firebase:
```
i deploying hosting
i hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: beginning deploy...
i hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: found 52 files in
public/web
✓ hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: file upload complete
i hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: finalizing version...
✓ hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: version finalized
i hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: releasing new
version...
✓ hosting[pragmatic-flutter-booksapp]: release complete

✓ Deploy complete!

Project Console: https://console.firebase.google.com/project/

fir-recipes-b5611/overview
Hosting URL: https://pragmatic-flutter-booksapp.web.app
```

The BooksApp web app is available on the hosting URL now (BooksApp Flutter
Web App).

RELEASING DESKTOP (macOS) APPS

At the time of this writing (Distribution), desktop support is available in the Flutter
dev channel (Flutter’s channels - dev). It’s not recommended to release a desktop
application until its support becomes stable.

Setting Up Entitlements
Setting up entitlements (macOS-specific support) are necessary to access device
capabilities. You need to add sandbox entitlement to enable the app to distribute to
the App Store. The network entitlement is needed to make network calls to connect
to the Books API to fetch data. These entitlements need to be added to the ‘macos/
Runner/Release.entitlements’ file.
```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key>
<true/>
<key>com.apple.security.network.client</key>
<true/>
</dict>
Rolling into the World 331

</plist>
```

Building Release App

Run the following command to create a release build for a macOS desktop app.

```
flutter build macos
```

The above command builds a self-contained application file with the suffix ‘.app’ in
the Flutter project’s root in the build folder. The full path for the artifact for BooksApp
is located at ‘build/macos/Build/Products/Release/pragmatic_ flutter.app’.

Distributing App
There are two ways to distribute your macOS desktop application. You can distribute
it on App Store (Distributing software on macOS). Distributing on the App Store
makes it easier for users to discover and manage apps and helps you to send new
updates to the app seamlessly. Another way is to distribute self-contained ‘*.app’ to
macOS users directly.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, you learned the basics for releasing a Flutter application’s Android, iOS,
Web, and Desktop variants on to their respective distribution platforms. You learned
to build release artifacts, preparing them for distribution, and releasing to the world.

REFERENCES
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https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/launch
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oper.android.com: https://developer.android.com/studio/build/shrink-code
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apple.com/apps
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com: https://developer.apple.com/macos/distribution/
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com/app-store-connect/#/dev2cd126805
Apple Inc. (2020, 12 09). App Review. Retrieved from developer.apple.com: https://developer.
apple.com/app-store/review/
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apple.com/
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https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
Apple Inc. (2020, 12 09). Develop. Retrieved from developer.apple.com: https://developer.
apple.com/develop/
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Apple Inc. (2020, 12 09). Register a new identifier. Retrieved from developer.apple.com:
https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/identifiers/add/appId/bundle
Apple Inc. (2020, 12 09). Upload an app to App Store Connect. Retrieved from help.apple.
com: https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/dev442d7f2ca
Dart Dev. (2020, 12 08). dart2js: Dart-to-JavaScript compiler. Retrieved from dart.dev:
https://dart.dev/tools/dart2js
Firebase. (2020, 12 08). Get started with Firebase Hosting. Retrieved from firebase.google.
com: https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting/quickstart
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google.com/products/hosting
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pub.dev/packages/flutter_launcher_icons
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flutter.dev/desktop#distribution
Flutter Dev. (2020, 12 08). macOS-specific support. Retrieved from Setting up entitlements:
https://flutter.dev/desktop#setting-up-entitlements
Flutter Dev. (2020, 12 09). Build and release an iOS app. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://
flutter.dev/docs/deployment/ios
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docs/deployment/android#create-a-keystore
Flutter Dev. (2020, 12 09). Review Xcode project settings. Retrieved from flutter.dev: https://
flutter.dev/docs/deployment/ios#review-xcode-project-settings
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developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/icon_design_adaptive
Google. (2020, 12 07). Chromium OS. Retrieved from The Chromium Projects: https://www.
chromium.org/chromium-os
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https://play.google.com/console/signup
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google.com/apps/publish
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store?hl=en_US&gl=US
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https://play.google.com/store
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romannurik.github.io/AndroidAssetStudio/icons-launcher.html#foreground.
type=clipart&foreground.clipart=android&foreground.space.trim=1&foreground.
s p a c e . p a d = 0 . 2 5& fo r e C o l o r = r g b a (9 6%2 C %2 012 5%2 C %2 0139 %2 C %2 0
0)&backColor=rgb(68%2C%20138%2C%20255)&crop=0
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org/wiki/Google_Chrome
Index

A Books Sample JSON Data, 145

BooksApp, 143–149, 151–156, 161, 163–172,
AccessInfo Class, 220 180, 182, 184, 186, 190–191, 193–194, 197,
Accessing All Values, 7 203–204, 215, 223, 229–230, 233, 235, 237,
Accessing API, 191 327–332
ActionsWidget, 242–244, 247–248 BooksApp Anatomy, 143
Adding entitlement, 198 BooksApp Interface, 143
Adding Item, 4 BooksApp Widget, 148, 163–164, 193
Adding Launcher Icon, 315 BooksListing Widget, 144, 148, 194, 235
Adding Multiple Items, 4–5 BookTile, 209–210, 214–216, 221–224, 228–230,
Adding Release Signing Configuration, 318 234, 241
AlertDialog Widget, 78, 80–84 BookTile StatelessWidget, 210
alignment property, 93–94, 124 BoxConstraints.expand(), 99–100
Anatomy of BookDetailsPage Widget, 241 BoxConstraints.loose(), 100
Anatomy of CounterApp, 252, 258, 266–267, Build Configuration, 319
271–272 Building APK, 320
Anatomy of Custom List Entry Widget, 209 Building App Bundle, 320
Android Platform, 15, 25, 40, 143, 170, 181, 184, Building Archive, 324
199, 225, 316 Building Release App, 331
Android Target, 198–199, 225 Building Simple Interface, 193
AndroidManifest.xml, 39, 199, 319 Building WebApp, 328
API, 12–13, 15, 25–27, 44, 46, 61–62, 84–85, 88, Business Logic Component, 271
124–125, 141, 148, 151–152, 168, 174, 187,
189–204, 207, 209, 213, 215–218, 220–221,
223–225, 227–229, 231, 236, 239–241, 247, C
249, 256, 262–263, 266, 270–271, 285–286,
295, 305–306, 314, 319, 330 Card Color, 161
API endpoint, 192 Card Widget, 48, 61, 143, 147–149, 151, 161–162,
API key, 189–192, 200–203, 215, 220, 223 168, 209–211
App Anatomy #1, 53 Cascading Syntax, 12
App Anatomy #2, 53 Center, 44, 47, 53–54, 57, 59, 61–63, 65, 73, 76,
App Content, 321 78–79, 88–89, 93–94, 99–100, 104, 106, 110,
App Releases, 321 118–119, 122, 124, 134, 137, 140, 229–230,
252–255, 257–259, 261, 266, 269, 271,
274–275, 308
B
ChangeNotifier, 257–258, 262–263, 265–272,
Backend, 19–20, 256 286
Basic BLoC Pattern, 273 Checking for Key, 6
Basic BLoC Pattern Implementation, 273 Checking for Value, 7
BLoC Library, 273, 283–286 Choosing Flutter Channel, 35
BLoC Pattern, 271–274, 279, 282, 285 Chrome OS, 23, 315, 332
BookDetailsPage, 229, 231–236, 238, 241–245, Chrome Target, 200
247, 249 Classes, 10–13, 40, 71, 174, 206, 227, 233, 273,
BookListing, 165, 193–195, 197, 229–230, 233, 283, 285, 307
236–237, 243 Closing StreamController, 276, 278, 281,
BookModel, 203, 217–218, 220–224, 228–229, 284
231, 234–236, 238, 243, 245–246, Code Shrinking, 318
248–249 Collections, 2, 7, 12–13
BookModel Class, 217–218 color property, 91, 124

333
334 Index

Column, 69–70, 89, 110–115, 117–118, 123–124, Dart, 1–7, 9–13, 15, 18–20, 24, 36, 39, 44, 46,
126, 128, 132, 134, 137–138, 140, 144, 61–62, 71, 84–85, 124, 126, 141, 152, 158,
150–151, 209–210, 212–214, 222, 228, 164–166, 168, 172–174, 176–179, 187–188,
242–246, 252, 254, 257–259, 261, 266, 269, 190, 196, 201–203, 210, 214–215, 217,
271, 275, 291, 308 222–223, 228–229, 239–240, 249, 253, 260,
Column Widget, 110–115, 117, 126, 134, 137, 144, 263, 268, 270, 273, 282, 285–287, 292–295,
150, 209–210, 212–213, 242–244, 291 297, 302, 305–306, 310–314, 320, 327–328,
Configuring pubspec.yaml, 315 332
ConstrainedBox Widget, 99, 101, 126 Dart 2, 1, 3, 9, 13, 36
constraints property, 95, 101 Dart Language, 1, 3, 12–13, 15, 18–19, 168
Constructing BookModel, 218 Dart programming language, 1
Constructing Data Model, 217 dart:convert, 203, 215, 223, 228
Consuming State, 279, 282, 285 Data Types, 2, 13, 273
Container, 48–49, 61, 63–65, 67, 75–76, 88–104, decoration property, 97–98
106–107, 110, 112–113, 117, 119, 121–126, Decrement ElevatedButton Widget, 301
134, 136, 151, 193, 213–215, 223, 245–249, Decrementing Number, 292–293, 302, 304
289 Default Blue Theme, 153, 169
Container Widget, 48, 61, 63–64, 75, 90–91, Deploying Web App, 328
93–97, 99, 103, 107, 110, 112, 117, 119, DescriptionWidget, 242–244, 249
121–122, 126, 134, 136, 151, 213, 245 Detecting Gesture, 233, 236, 238
Converting API Response to BookModel List, dev_dependencies, 174, 287, 297, 307
220 development environment, 19, 23, 32, 315
Cost-Effectiveness, 20 Direct Navigation, 232–233, 235–236, 240
Counter, 44, 251–252, 254–255, 257–260, Displaying data, 196, 221
265–275, 277–282, 284–285, 287–295, Displaying Data in App, 196
297–303, 308–309, 311–314 Displaying Decrement Button, 291
Counter Class, 268, 288 Displaying Increment Button, 291
Counter’, 254, 257–260, 280, 282, 284, 289, 292, Displaying Label, 291, 297
295, 312–313 Displaying Number, 291
CounterApp, 251–254, 257–258, 261, 265–269, Distributing App, 321, 324, 331
271–275, 287–289, 292–293, 297–305, 307, Distributing App on App Store, 324
310–314 Distributing App on Google Play Store, 321
CounterApp StatelessWidget, 289 Download Stable Flutter SDK, 24
CounterBloc, 274–278, 280–281, 283–285 Dynamic Navigation, 232, 237–239
CounterEvent, 275–281, 283–284
CounterState, 275, 280–285 E
Create Keystore, 316
Creating Application, 321 ElevatedButton, 79–81, 84, 134–135, 141,
Creating Flutter Project, 36 291–292, 295, 300–301, 309
cross-platform, 1, 15–16, 20, 39, 46, 62, 85, 126, Entry Point, 1, 50, 60, 165, 218, 233, 235, 237
152, 168, 174, 178, 228, 240, 249, 263, 286, Event Sink, 276
315, 332 event stream, 274–276, 279–280
Cross-platform Database Implementation(s), Event StreamController, 276
178 event to state, 274, 276–278, 280–281, 284
cross-platform solutions, 15, 20 Expanded Widget, 128–132, 141
Cupertino Style, 82–84 expect(), 298–299
Custom Designs, 20
Custom Text Widget, 290, 297–299 F
Custom Widget: BooksListing, 148
Custom Widget: BookTile, 209 Filtering, 3
Custom Widget: CountWidget, 267 Finder, 297–299, 301–305
Finding Widget using Key, 299
D findsOneWidget, 298–304
Firebase Integration, 19
Dark Theme, 153, 155–157, 163–166, 169–171, FittedBox Widget, 127–128, 141
182, 184–187 Flexible Widget, 132–135, 141, 144, 149–150,
Dark Theme on Multiple Platforms, 182 209, 212, 244
Index 335

FloatingActionButton, 42, 44–46, 53, 56–57, 59, I

61–62, 247–249, 251–252, 254–255, 258–259,
262, 266–267, 269, 271, 275, 278, 281, 285 IDE, 19, 23, 32, 36, 46, 260, 323
Flutter, 1–2, 4–8, 10, 12–13, 15–21, 23–33, Image Widget, 63–66, 75, 127, 151, 209, 213, 245
35–85, 87–90, 92, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102, Implementing BLoC Pattern using Library, 282
104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, 116, 118, 120, Implementing BookDetailsPage Widget, 243
122–128, 130, 132, 134, 136, 138–141, Implementing User Interface, 144
143–144, 146, 148, 150–170, 172, 174, 176, Importing the package, 190
178, 180, 182, 184, 186–190, 192–194, 196, Importing Themes, 158
198, 200–204, 206–210, 212, 214–216, 218, Improvised BLoC Pattern, 273, 279
220, 222–224, 226–230, 232, 234, 236, Improvised BLoC Pattern Implementation, 279
238–240, 242, 244, 246, 248–249, 251–260, Increasing Counter, 267
262–263, 265–266, 268, 270–274, 276, 278, Increment & Decrement Together, 293
280, 282, 284, 286–288, 290–292, 294–295, Increment ElevatedButton Widget, 300
297–298, 300, 302, 304–308, 310, 312, Incrementing Number, 292
314–320, 322–324, 326–332 IndexedStack Widget, 121, 123, 126
Flutter Channels, 24, 36 InformationWidget, 242–247
Flutter Configuration, 190 InheritedWidget, 265, 270
Flutter doctor, 24, 45, 317 Initializing CounterBloc, 278, 281, 284
Flutter Project Structure, 35, 37, 39–41, 43, Instrumentation App, 310
45–47, 62 Integration testing, 307, 309, 311–314
Flutter Widgets, 48, 61, 63, 65, 67–69, 71, Internet (Remote) Image, 64
73–79, 81, 83, 85, 151, 209, 271, 287, 297 Intersection of two Set(s), 5
flutter_test, 174, 287, 295, 297, 302, 305–307 IntrinsicHeight Widget, 105, 109–110, 126
font_awesome_flutter, 287, 295 IntrinsicWidth Widget, 112, 114–115, 126
FractionallySizedBox Widget, 134, 136, 141 iOS Platform, 15, 27, 39–40, 78, 143, 170, 174,
Front-end, 19–20 181, 184, 226, 316
Functions, 8–10, 12–13, 206, 287, 298, 307 iOS Target, 200–201, 225
Future Error Object, 72 Iterating Key/Value pairs, 7
FutureBuilder Async Widget, 71, 74, 85
FutureBuilder Widget, 73, 75 J
JavaScript, 15–18, 29, 31, 145, 189, 203, 328, 332
G JavaScript Object Notation, 145, 189, 203
generateRoute() Function, 237–239 JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), 189
Getting an API key, 191 JSON, 42, 145, 148, 151–152, 189, 192–193, 196,
Global Theme, 153–154, 158, 166–168 200, 202–205, 207, 213, 216–221, 224, 227,
Google, 1, 12–13, 15, 18–19, 21, 29, 31, 33, 51, 62, 231, 328–329
125, 151–152, 159, 168, 187, 189–192, 195, JSON formatted response, 203–204, 216
197, 201–203, 206, 217–218, 228, 239–241,
249, 256, 262, 270–271, 286, 295, 306, K
315–316, 321, 330–332
Google Books API, 189–192, 195, 197, 201–203, key/value, 5–7, 169, 172, 189, 203
217, 241 Key/Value datastore, 169
Google Books API JSON Response, 217
Google Cloud Console, 191–192 L
Google Play, 315–316, 321, 331–332
GridView Widget, 117, 126 Layout Widget, 69, 87–91, 96, 98–99, 101, 105,
111–112, 116–121, 123, 125, 128, 132, 134,
H 137, 139
LayoutBuilder Widget, 137–139, 141
Hello Books, 35–36, 40–43, 46–47, 49–60, Light Pink Theme, 155
62–63, 88–89 Light Theme, 153, 156, 164–165, 169–170, 175,
HelloBooksApp, 47, 49–51, 53–54, 56–58, 177, 180–183
60–62, 87–89, 123, 126, 143 Light Theme (Default), 169
Hot Reload, 18, 20 Light Theme on Multiple Platforms, 180
Human Interface Design, 19 LinkedHashMap, 207, 228
336 Index

List, 2–4, 12–13, 26, 35, 42, 46–47, 58–61, 78, padding property, 92, 97, 125
143–145, 148–151, 161–162, 189, 206–211, 213, Padding Widget, 97–98, 126, 134, 143, 149, 209,
219–221, 223–224, 229, 233–236, 241, 246 211, 242, 247
Listing Sample Code IDs, 42 Parsing JSON, 200, 203
ListView, 89, 115–117, 123, 125–126, 143, 148, Passing BookModel to BookTile Widget, 221
151, 161–163, 203, 207–210, 215–216, 221, Passing Data, 234, 236, 238
223–224, 228–229, 234, 241 Persisting Theme, 170, 172, 180
ListView Widget, 115–116, 126, 143, 207–208, Placeholder, 74–77, 84–85, 134, 151, 191, 229
229, 241 Price & Distribution, 322
Loading Data at App Startup, 195 productivity, 1, 18, 20, 32
Loading Theme, 171, 179 Provider, 257, 262–263, 265–272, 286
Local Database (Moor Library), 173 pubspec.yaml, 40, 63, 151, 159, 170, 174, 190,
Local Image, 63 247, 265, 282, 287, 297, 307, 315, 319–320
Local Theme, 153, 160–161, 163, 167–168 pumpWidget(), 298–300
Pushing UI Events, 278, 281, 284
M
R
MacOS Target, 198
Make HTTP Request, 190, 192 Reactive Native, 17
managing state with StatefulWidget, 58 Rebuilding Widget, 279, 282, 285
managing states, 271 Referencing Keystore, 317
Map, 3, 5–7, 12–13, 176–177, 203, 207, 218–221, Register App, 322
224, 227–228, 232, 235–236, 239, 276–279, Register Identifier (Bundle ID), 322
281–282, 284–285 Releasing Android Apps, 316
Mapping Event to State, 276–278, 281, 284 Releasing Desktop (macOS) Apps, 330
margin property, 93, 125, 211 Releasing iOS Apps, 322
Matcher, 298–305 Releasing Web Apps, 327
Material Style, 81 Removing Item, 4
MaterialApp, 49–51, 53–54, 56–58, 60–63, REST (Representational state transfer) API, 189
88–89, 143, 148, 154–156, 158–159, 164–165, REST API, 148, 152, 189, 191–195, 197, 199–203,
171–173, 179–180, 193, 197, 215, 223, 207, 215, 220–221, 223, 228–229, 236,
232–233, 235–237, 239, 253–254, 261, 268, 240–241, 249
274, 289, 307 RESTful HTTP, 229
Modularizing Themes, 157, 159, 168 Revisiting Books API response structure, 217
Multi-child, 89, 104–105, 110–111, 115–121, 123, Row Widget, 103–105, 107–111, 126–127, 129,
137 132–133, 143, 149, 209, 211–212, 244, 247
MyHomePage, 58–60, 253–254, 258, 261, 269, Running Code, 41, 196
274, 278, 289, 308 Running Code Samples, 41
MyTextWidget, 290–291, 298–299, 302–303, 309 Running default app, 40
Running Unit Tests, 294
N runtimeType, 2, 13

Native SDKs, 15 S
Navigation Implementation, 233, 236, 238
Navigator Widget, 232–233, 235–236 SafeArea, 50–54, 62
NSUserDefaults, 170, 187 SaleInfo Class, 220
self-contained desktop app, 315
O Set, 4–5, 11–13, 27, 33, 36, 69, 101, 105, 108,
113–114, 132–133, 155, 172, 203, 212, 218,
OEM Widget, 17, 19 233, 237, 275, 287, 320, 327
Open Source, 20 Setting Up, 23–25, 27–29, 31–33, 189, 276, 311,
330, 332
P Setting up Editor, 32
Setting up entitlements, 330, 332
Padding, 51, 53, 63, 65, 67, 70, 89, 91–92, 97–99, Setting Up Flutter SDK, 23–24
123, 125–126, 134–135, 143, 149, 151–152, Setting up for Desktop, 29
209–211, 214, 222, 242–244, 247–248 Setting up for Web, 28
Index 337

Shared Preferences Plugin, 169–170, 188 Text Widgets, 53, 144, 210, 213, 244–245, 251,
Signing Configuration, 317–318 257, 290
Single child, 89, 98 textDirection, 290, 295, 310
SingleChildScrollView, 117, 125, 140–141, TextField Widget, 49, 68–70
194–197, 242–243, 249 TextTheme, 57, 59, 61, 88–89, 161–163, 168, 254,
sink, 273, 275–283, 285 259–260, 262, 268, 270, 279, 282, 285, 291,
SizedBox Widget, 101–103, 126 309
Spread Operator, 3, 13 textWidgets(), 298
Stack Widget, 119–122, 126 The AppBar Widget, 56, 148, 153, 164, 229
State Management, 15, 251–253, 255–257, The Scaffold Widget, 54, 56, 88, 127, 143, 148,
262–263, 265 229, 242, 257, 290
State Sink, 277, 280 ToggleButtons Widget, 65–66
State Stream, 272, 274–278, 281, 283 Transform List Items, 3
State StreamController, 277, 280 transform property, 96, 125
StatefulWidget, 49, 58, 60–62, 68–69, 163, Types of Layout Widgets, 89, 123
165, 193–195, 197, 216, 224, 233, 251–253,
256–257, 260–261, 274, 289, 308 U
StatefulWidgets, 297
StatelessWidget, 48, 50–51, 53–54, 56–58, Union of two Set(s), 5
60–62, 144, 148, 165, 193, 197, 210, 214–215, unit tests, 287, 293–294, 297–298, 305
222–223, 229, 233, 235, 237, 243, 245, Update PATH, 24
248–249, 253, 261, 266–270, 274, 289–290, Useful Commands, 45
307, 309 Using Custom Font, 159
Static Navigation, 232, 235–238, 240 Using Custom Fonts, 159–160, 168
Store Listing, 321 Using Dark Theme, 156
stream, 71, 76–78, 80, 84, 176–177, 272–285 Using Pink Theme, 155
Stream Data Object, 76 Using the Default Theme, 154
Stream Error Object, 76
StreamBuilder Async Widget, 76, 78, 85 V
StreamBuilder Widget, 76–77
StreamController-Event, 274 ValueListenable, 257, 259–260, 262–263
streams, 71, 76, 84, 271, 273–274, 276, 278, ValueListenableBuilder, 257–262
283 ValueNotifer, 257–258
Switching Themes, 163–164, 167–168 ValueNotifier, 256–263
System Requirements, 23 Vanilla Pattern, 252
Variables, 2, 12–13, 289
VolumeInfo Class, 219
T
Table Widget, 117–119, 126 W
Tearing Down, 311
test, 25–27, 29, 31–32, 40, 287, 292–295, WebView, 16–17
297–302, 305–307, 310–314, 321 widget, 15–20, 42, 45, 48–54, 56–85, 87–99,
Test Case, 292–293, 297–299, 301–302, 307, 101–141, 143–144, 147–153, 160–165, 168,
310–312 171–173, 189, 193–197, 203, 207–216,
Test File, 292, 294 221–224, 228–230, 232–249, 251–262,
test pair, 307, 310 265–272, 274–275, 277, 279, 281–282, 285,
Test Pair Files, 310 287, 289–291, 295, 297–312, 314, 327, 332
Test Suite, 310–314 Widget Testing, 287, 295, 297, 299–303,
Testing Default Number, 292 305–307, 314
Text, 44, 47–53, 56–63, 65, 68–73, 77–83, 87–100, widget.pumpWidget(), 299
103–104, 106, 110, 118, 120, 122, 132, WidgetTester, 297–306
135, 144, 148, 150–151, 153, 155, 157–159, Wrap Widget, 137, 139, 141
161–163, 165, 168, 175–176, 189, 192–193, Writing Integration Tests, 307, 310
195–197, 203–204, 209–214, 216, 222, 224,
228–230, 243–249, 251–255, 257–262, X
266–272, 279, 282, 285, 290, 297–304,
308–310, 312–313 Xcode Project Settings, 323–326, 332