An Overview on App Development with Flutter
App developers continue to produce powerful tools and programs that help improve application development. One of the latest app development tools today is called Flutter, a toolkit that you can use to build cross-platform applications. As such, this article lets us explore what Flutter is, its core principles, and the many advantages that you can get if you perform app development with Flutter.
A Briefer on Flutter
Flutter is a software development kit (SDK) maintained by Google that developers use to build attractive and natively compiled mobile, web, and desktop applications using a single codebase. The Flutter SDK is an open-source toolkit built to design applications for several types of devices. Note that platform app development with Flutter uses a programming language called Dart (also created by Google), which has a similar syntax to that of JavaScript.
The Flutter toolkit is equipped with an extensive collection of pre-built widgets, including rows, columns, padding, and the like, making it convenient for developers to design and layout their apps. As such, it is also great for cross-platform development. So, you no longer have to create a separate codebase for your Android, iOS, Windows, and MacOS applications. Instead, platform app development with Flutter requires you to use only one codebase for the various platforms you wish your application to support.
The two major parts of Flutter include a Software Development Kit (SDK), a collection of tools that help app developers build their applications, and a Framework, which is a collection of widgets that app developers can incorporate into their applications.
The Flutter Framework
Fundamentally, we can organize the Flutter framework into various layers. Then, each layer is built upon itself. Thus, the Flutter framework allows for easy implementation of buttons, sliders, dialogue boxes, switches, tab bars, and loading spinners.
Its framework also provides CLI and VI editors and is compatible with Google operating system Fuchsia. Then, equipped with the hot reload feature, the Flutter framework lets you assemble multiple widgets to build your application’s UI.
Flutter Widgets
Flutter only has one object model, which comes in the form of a widget. Using specific widgets, you can manage UI elements, themes, styles, themes, and the like. Thus, app developers consider widgets as the fundamental building blocks of the Flutter UI.
You can design and build beautiful applications faster using Flutter’s collection of structural, visual, interactive, and platform widgets. Flutter also offers a widget index containing an alphabetical list of almost all of the widgets included in their collection. Also, you can choose to browse through Flutter’s widgets by category, which includes the following:
- Accessibility
- Animation and Motion
- Assets, Images, and Icons
- Async
- Basics
- Cupertino (iOS-style widgets)
- Input
- Interaction Models
- Layout
- Material Components
- Painting and Effects
- Scrolling
- Styling
- Text
Moreover, because widgets form a hierarchy, they can be nested within each other. Subsequently, they inherit the properties of their parents.
The Advantages of App Development with Flutter
Below, you will find some of the advantages that you can get when you perform platform app development with Flutter:
- Quicker Development
First of all, Flutter has Hot Reload, a feature that allows for a quick compilation. Hot reload takes only a few milliseconds, which helps you see the results of the changes you have made to your code in real-time. Thus, with this feature, you can create quick UI changes, promoting an efficient and effective app development process.
- Cross-Platform
As mentioned above, Flutter works excellent for cross-platform app development. Because of this, app developers no longer have to use several codebases in creating their applications for iOS, Android, desktop, and the web. Instead, this app development tool only needs to compile and convert widgets and UI designs into platform-supported code, which helps developers cut down their time spent on coding.
- Cost-Efficient
If you develop an app using Flutter, you no longer have to create and maintain a platform-specific application. Thus, app development with Flutter is much cheaper. Also, Flutter already offers attractive UIs with the use of its widgets. So, you can quickly prototype MVPs without having to spend more.
- Community Support
With its capability and performance over the years, Flutter has attracted a large community of app developers using its resources. Therefore, if you perform app development with Flutter, you are assured of getting help from various professional developers all over the globe. You can even find samples for beginners and access tutorials on creating your first app using Flutter.
Develop Cross-Platform Apps with Flutter
We hope that this simple overview of Flutter provided insight into how this innovative app development tool can help create beautiful and functional applications.
So, if you need to know more or if you need help performing app development with Flutter, feel free to send a dedicated web developer an email or let us know in the comments section below!
