How to Build Awesome Apps with Flutter’s Tools and Libraries

  • Mobile App Developement
Awesome Apps with Flutter’s Tools and Libraries
John Parker
by John Parker Oct 12, 2023

According to a report by Forrester, if you have invested in a good user interface, you will notice a 200% increase in your conversions. With UX design, you can go with a 400% increase. Interface aesthetics imply good engagement and further your customer’s retention rate.

To build an awesome application, you need an equally incredible framework. Flutter, the UI toolkit developed by Google, provides your developers with the right tools and technologies to build exciting interfaces. 

With this stable and reliable platform, you can boost interactions and make customers stay longer on the application. With the rich ecosystem, widget-based architecture, UI-sharing capabilities and power of Dart programming language, you can leverage the framework for your design needs. 

This guide will introduce you to the different tools and libraries that make the Flutter ecosystem. You will learn how to leverage it to build robust and scalable interfaces for the best interactions. 

An Overview of the Flutter Ecosystem

As a first step towards building wonderful and engaging apps, you must understand the framework. You must learn about the Flutter architecture and the underlying Dart programming language to leverage the Flutter ecosystem and build amazing applications. 

The Flutter Architecture

Flutter owns a widget-based architecture. Everything within the app is designed or developed using widgets. It is not just part of the interface, but also a driving aspect of the structure and layout of the application. 

There are two types of widgets in Flutter architecture- Stateful and Stateless. The Stateless widgets are unchangeable, which means you cannot transfer their properties. On the other hand, stateful widgets are easy and flexible. They can be transformed as per your requirements. 

In the case of flutter UI, the reconciliation concept takes over. As a result, as soon as the code changes, it impacts the interface. your frontend developers may not need to transform the user interface to initiate the necessary changes. 

As the framework adopts a reactive approach, it ensures simple and efficient UI interactions and flexible animations. 

Dart Programming Language

The second most important part of the Flutter ecosystem is the underlying programming language- Dart. Google used this language to build the IfIFlutter framework as it is simple and high-performing. 

The programming language is class-based and object-oriented. Though it provides a syntax similar to that of Java and JavaScript, you will notice that this language also includes several modern features. As a result, it owns a higher learning curve and offers more versatile capabilities to the developer. 

A few benefits of adopting Dart Programming language include:

  • The hot reload feature allows the developers to proceed with changes in the live application. You can update the changes without impacting the functioning of the live application
  • It is statically typed language, as a result, the compilation time is reduced. Moreover, you can catch the errors faster with this language
  • It supports asynchronous programming. As a result, you can complete the tasks that take a longer while faster and with greater efficiency
  • Automatic garbage collection ensures better memory management within Flutter applications. 

The Top Flutter Tools

When you sit down to work with a framework, the tools play a pivotal role in ensuring smooth development. Flutter has set of tools/types of tools that you can use to build awesome apps.

The Top 3 Best Flutter Tools

This is a major part of the Flutter ecosystem and will help developers leverage the framework with greater ease. 

Read More:- Flutter and Go: Perfect Match for Your Next App Development

#1. Flutter SDK

The Software Development Kit can help you build applications as it includes all the tools in a single package. You can build cross-platform and high-performing apps with the tools present therein. Let’s look at what all is included in the SDK that makes it worth adding to your development philosophy.

  • The Flutter framework and Dart’s runtime engine are part of the SDK. You will notice that these parts include the widgets for interface development and tools to execute the code needed by developers
  • There are several development tools including CLI (Command Line Interface) to enable faster development tasks. You can easily write Flutter applications using Dart language with the SDK
  • Widgets: You have a large widget library that you can access to develop incredible user interfaces. You can even customize them to fit your needs
  • Testing: There are several bug fixes available in the SDK. You can use them to test and identify the bugs. Fix these bugs with greater ease
  • You can integrate with platform-specific plugins and packages that can help you integrate with the device features and help with native-like performance.

#2. Flutter DevTools

Flutter DevTools are the most crucial part of the development ecosystem. You can use these tools to improve your development tasks, enhance performance and debug with greater efficiency.. you will get several tools to help with high-performing tasks.

  • The DevTools can offer you real-time insights that can improve your inspection abilities. You can check into the view logs and monitor the changes for better visibility into debugging
  • It will help you analyze and profile the performance of your mobile app. There are DevTools like Timeline that offer complete information regarding the performance and app capabilities to the developer. This can be used to make the right decisions. 
  • You can easily determine and fix issues related to memory usage. You can check for memory leaks and curb them in the starting phase
  • Hot reloading can help developers debug and fix the bugs during the live stage of the application. Your developer can also check how the code will impact the live application with this feature
  • There is a tool named Inspector that can help you inspect the widget tree and diagnose the interface interaction and engagement-related issues in the starting phase. 

DevTools can enhance the overall development process. It adds to the productivity of the developer and enhances their abilities significantly. 

With these tools, the developer can speed up the debugging process. They can identify and fix the bugs with greater speed, thus ensuring faster deployments

  • As they have tools to enable performance profiling, the developers can remove the bottlenecks and optimize the overall app performance
  • With these tools, the developers can easily optimize the memory usage. They can also help build stable and efficient applications
  • Your developers have a large amount of data that can impact their decision to drive the app optimizations or make the necessary improvements. 

#3 Flutter Inspector

This is the third and most important tool of the Flutter ecosystem. To deliver engaging applications, you must ensure that the app is free of bugs and issues. Fixing the issues is an important part so that users can interact with greater ease with the widget tree. 

The Flutter inspector is developer’s favourite for several reasons:

  • Developers can easily visualize the entire widget hierarchy in a single go with this inspector. It offers a complete visual map of the Flutter UI structure. This visibility helps determine the aspects that need intervention and debugging easily
  • The development team can easily inspect the widget properties in real time. you can know the data, styling and layout aspects. It can help developers optimize the layout and enhance the user’s interactions
  • You can interact and select the widgets that you wish to debug within the application. It is useful in determining layout issues or overcoming incorrect widget issues
  • With the inspector, you can integrate your hot reload feature. This would enable better UI development and faster debugging. You can make changes without impacting the live application. 

This tool can particularly help you determine all your layout issues with greater ease. It offers a visual debugger that enhances your visibility into the widget hierarchy and ensures you spot the issues faster. You can also correct the alignments and constraints within the code with this tool.

Types of Flutter Libraries

Flutter libraries can help you boost your app development speed. It enhances the developer’s productivity and offers you the tools to build a well-defined application. 

Here we will discuss the different types of Flutter libraries in detail.

Best Types of Flutter Libraries

#1 UI Libraries

With this library, you get several pre-defined widgets and components that can aid in developing applications for multiple platforms. You will find widgets that have been developed using platform-specific design guidelines. For instance, several widgets follow Material Design guidelines while others have been developed using Cupertino(specifically for iOS). 

As they have pre-defined components, you save a lot of time building applications with this library. You get several components and widgets that can help you build a specific type of solution.

#2 State Management Libraries

You can use these libraries to define and manage the state of the libraries. Moreover, they are also used to ensure the proper structure of the app data. These libraries can help in resolving the complexities associated with state management.

You will be able to handle several aspects related to state management with these libraries. They also ensure minimum bugs while managing the state.

#3 Database Libraries

With these libraries, you can easily get tools that help with data storage and management. They also help with data persistence. You will find suitable tools for key-value storage. With these libraries, you can easily store and retrieve the data. You can also handle complex data management requirements with greater ease

#4 Networking Libraries

When you want to enhance communication over servers or via linked APIs, you need the right tools. The networking libraries can help you create a robust and extensive communication link to ensure smooth communication. 

You can easily integrate the HTTP requests with these libraries. Moreover, you can also integrate the web services using these libraries. The library also includes specific features such as request cancellation and error handling. 

#5 Navigation Libraries

you can use these libraries to incorporate tools and methodologies that support seamless movement within the application. It can be used to drive the users effortlessly within the application. 

You can use the navigation or routing logic from within the application to enhance the routing and deep linking abilities in the application. These libraries offer extensive support for navigation abilities for the user. 

#6 Image and Asset Handling Libraries

when you use these libraries, they assist in managing the deep asset management and images within the application. You can use these libraries to optimize and enhance the image abilities.

With the manipulation features within the application, you can easily enhance the interactions and improve the use of animations within the application. It helps boost the visuals of your application. 

The Top Flutter Libraries

It is important for you to choose the appropriate Flutter libraries to build your application. We will be discussing the top Flutter libraries that can enable better solutions, and boost your app’s effectiveness.

6 Major Types of Flutter Libraries

#1. Provider

This is the State Management library available within the Flutter ecosystem. It helps manage the entire state, simplifies the task, and reduces the need for boilerplate code. Moreover, you get scooped access to the state. 

It is an efficient library, especially if you are considering widget redesigning. Moreover, it offers dependency injection capabilities, which is important for the developer. 

#2. Flutter Material Design

This is specially designed for the design of Android applications. The Flutter material design library has been created in sync with Android’s material design guidelines. You can create a platform-specific user interface that offers greater consistency and value to the users.

The components such as Navigation Bar, Action Button and App Bars have been designed to meet unique goals.

#3. Cupertino

This library follows the iOS design guidelines. You can create a more native-looking and consistent iOS application design with this library. You will notice that the library can fetch the native components from iOS devices to the application. 

The key components of this library include CupertinoButton and CupertinoNavigationBar. Moreover, you also get features like Activity Indicator with this library. 

#4. GetIt

This is majorly used to deliver Dependency Injection for the application. You get to build simple and versatile service locators that can help with dependency injection abilities within the application. The biggest feature that you get with this library is that it offers a lazy loading of all the services. 

#5. FlChart

This library helps with data visualization, which can help customized charts. It improves your visibility into data that you need for developing applications. It can support interactivity and animations as well. 

#6. Rxdart

This is a Reactive programming library that allows you to implement reactive programming tools. With the extensions, you can introduce streams and events with greater proactiveness into your application. It offers the observables and operators to build asynchronous data. 

Advanced Flutter Libraries

There are a few advanced Flutter libraries that you must know about when you decide to use the framework to build an application. 

Best Advanced Flutter Libraries

#1 Bloc Pattern

Bloc (Business Logic Component) is one of the most opted design patterns that can help you manage complex application states. You can actually structure and maintain the application with greater ease. 

It is used to simplify the user interface development and enhances the asynchronous operations as well. 

This pattern is more or less used to separate your business logic from the UI layer. As a result, your codebase is modular and scalable.

Here are a few pointers that will help you build applications with the Bloc pattern:

  • Events are the triggers that help the changes made to the application state. For instance, if you want to request a network connection, you might want to seek events
  • States are important for the success of an application. You might want to design different UI states that can help with error handling and task completion
  • Blocs will help you manage the events and state while meeting the business logic requirements. 

Apart from these core concepts, this library will help you with unidirectional data flow. 

#2 Flutter Animation Libraries

Animations can help you enhance the user’s experience while using the Flutter application. With the animations, you can enhance engagement and build a more intuitive navigation. The animations are meant to enhance the interactions. 

  • You can use these libraries to improve the feedback look for the users and enhance user interactions. 
  • You can use the tools within the libraries for better transitions and enhance the seamlessness through the screens
  • Animations can also help build a widget hierarchy that would help build the elements and components as needed

Deployment and Testing Tools

When it comes to development and testing, you must invest in the right tools. We have identified the tools and libraries that can help you build and test the applications. 

Widget Testing

When it comes to testing Flutter apps, you are working on debugging the widgets that make the application. You must focus on the quality and reliability of the Flutter applications to deliver the right solution.

Here are some of the key features you get with the Flutter widget testing tool:

  • Testing the widgets can help you determine the bugs while you are working on the application. It will ensure that you can release the app without critical issues
  • Your widget testing tool will ensure that the app offers consistency throughout all the devices
  • The application experience will be smooth and seamless to ensure error-free and friendly user interfaces. 

Conclusion

Your mobile application will increase engagement if you can extend good and memorable experiences to your customers. You must leverage the in-built libraries and excellent tools to build functional and beautiful Flutter apps for your business. 

Along with developing or designing brilliant applications, you must also look for testing tools to ensure bug-free solutions. there are several types of libraries that help you with security, networking, designing and deployment. 

As a business, you must partner with a Flutter app development company to build these awesome apps. They will have the required expertise and project understanding. 

New York Mobile Tech is a leading mobile app development company with proficiency in Flutter development. You can connect with our team via Email or phone to discuss the possibilities.