Flutter is an open-source UI toolkit created by Google. It facilitates building visually attractive and highly interactive user interfaces for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. The principal advantage that Flutter extends to developers is the opportunity to design alluring applications with high productivity rates. Baked with a modern reactive framework and a rich set of prepackaged widgets, it allows creating smooth, fluid, and skeuomorph interfaces across platforms.
‍

Understanding Flutter's Framework

Flutter operates based on a reactive development architecture. This principle ensures that whenever the application's state changes, the UI reflects these changes instantly. Flutter's framework consists of widgets. These are essentially the building blocks in a Flutter application. From the structural elements like buttons or menus to stylistic elements like fonts or color schemes, every element in a Flutter application is a widget. These widgets facilitate seamless and quick application development.

‍

Setting Up Flutter Environment

The initial step to start with Flutter development is setting up the Flutter environment. Flutter runs on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. To get Flutter on your development machine, first download the stable Flutter SDK (Software Development Kit) from Flutter's official website. Unzip the downloaded file and add the Flutter tool to your path. Flutter depends on Dart programming language, which needs a Dart SDK (already included in the Flutter SDK). Dart is not just a programming language but an ecosystem with its runtime and libraries, making it perfect for full-stack development.
‍

Flutter Installation Check and Updates

Flutter offers a command 'flutter doctor' that guides developers through the setup. Flutter Doctor checks your system and displays a report of the status of your Flutter setup. It tells whether there are any dependencies you need to install to complete the setup. Further, Flutter provides regular updates to its SDK. The commands 'flutter upgrade' and 'flutter clean' help you keep your Flutter SDK updated and free from unnecessary files.
‍

Flutter's IDE Setup

Flutter supports several IDEs (Integrated Development Environment). Some of the most popular ones are Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, and Visual Studio Code. Each of these IDEs requires a Flutter and Dart plugin for enabling language support and tools for refactoring, running, debugging, and reloading apps within the editor.
‍

Writing Your First Flutter App

Once the environment setup is complete, you can start writing applications in Flutter. You begin this by creating a new project through the command 'flutter create my_app' in your terminal or command line, replacing 'my_app' with your project's name. After the application is created, navigate to your project directory, and you can use the 'flutter run' command to see your app in action.
‍

Structure of a Flutter App

A new Flutter app includes several files and directories, but the core of your application resides in 'lib/main.dart'. This file holds the main() function, which is the entry point to your app. The main() function calls runApp(), which inflates the given widget and attaches it to the screen.
‍

Learning Dart for Flutter

While hopping into Flutter development, a developer must have a basic understanding of Dart, the language in which Flutter is written. Dart has various essential features and syntax that a Flutter developer must be familiar with. Dart includes variables, data types, operators, loops, functions, collections, and exception handling. Having a strong grasp of these concepts will enable you to master Flutter quickly.
‍

Deep Diving into Widgets

As explained earlier, Widgets are a part of the Flutter's app basic structure. Widget terms refer to a description of the UI. Flutter includes two sets of widgets: Cupertino for iOS and Material Design for Android. These widgets help in making your Flutter applications look native to the platform you are developing for.
‍

Testing and Debugging Flutter Apps

Like any development environment, Flutter offers robust tools for testing and debugging your applications. There are different types of testing available in Flutter like unit, widget and integration testing. Debugging in Flutter allows you to step through your code, set breakpoints, and investigate the call stack.
‍

Conclusion: Why Flutter?

Flutter has gained significant momentum in the last few years due to its unique features such as hot reload and easy-to-learn libraries. Additionally, the capability to use a single codebase to develop applications across multiple platforms without compromising the performance is a considerable USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Despite being relatively young, Flutter is promising, and learning it will prove beneficial for developers seeking to excel in the competitive app development landscape.

‍

For custom software development, visit us at Zee Palm

To buy premium front-end flutter kits, visit Flutter Coded Templates

Check out free Flutter Components, visit Flutter Components Library