Components and animations in Flutter

Book excerpt: Flutter is a fascinating framework in which we can do everything, this is my fourth book focused on Flutter which proves the point mentioned before; we can create from mobile applications, as were the beginnings, but over time we can go much further, such as creating web and desktop applications for MacOS, Linux, Windows and also games, using technologies such as Flame and/or Forge2D. In this book we want to give a practical approach to development. In Flutter, we know that there are many widgets in Flutter that we can use for our development, but what is truly interesting is the possibility of being able to combine them so that they work together and have a true component that is responsible for perform a task such as displaying a custom header with various shapes, a progress bar, buttons with custom behaviors, etc. In the book we will see several of these developments and with this, we want to achieve a deeper understanding of Flutter, that of creating nested widgets or components which is the term used in the book. We will also address other topics that you will surely consider of interest such as developing applications with multiple themes, for example, a dark theme and a light theme, creating adaptive applications so that they can be viewed correctly on multiple devices depending on the size of the window and not simply stretched. The topic of animations must also be recent in modern developments, therefore, we have a chapter focused on introducing how to use animations in Flutter, of which we have several forms. We will also apply it in the development of our components when necessary. In this book, we want to take a more practical approach, creating components that are widely used in traditional development with Flutter, such as custom headers with complex shapes using the Custom Painter, knowing how to use and define our custom animations among other components or nested widgets that you will surely find it of interest. In short, it is a mostly practical book, to create custom widgets and delve into parts of Flutter that are no longer so basic and as a Flutter developer you should know them. About the Author This book was prepared by Andrés Cruz Yoris, Graduate in Computing, with more than 10 years of experience in the development of web applications in general; I work with PHP, Python and client-side technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Vue among others; and on the server side such as Laravel, Flask, Django and Codeigniter. I am also a developer in Android Studio, xCode and Flutter for creating native applications for Android and IOS. I put at your disposal part of my learning, reflected in each of the words that make up this book, my sixteenth book on software development, but the fourth book on the development of mobile, desktop and web applications with Flutter, in this case, focused on Flutter for the creation of components and animations. Who is this book for? This book is aimed at anyone who wants to start delving deeper into application development with Flutter; Therefore, it is assumed that the reader has at least basic knowledge about how to use this technology, such as knowing what the tool is for, installing Flutter, knowing its basic widgets, and creating a basic application. This book is intended for people who: They want to know the framework in more detail by creating custom widgets and animals. Want to improve an existing skill and continue scaling your path in app development with Flutter. This book is for intermediate users in Flutter. Map This book has a total of 6 chapters, it is recommended that you read in the order in which they are arranged and as we explain the components of the framework, go directly to practice, replicate, test and modify the codes that we show in this book. Chapter 1: In this chapter we are going to learn the steps to create a project in Flutter Chapter 2: In this chapter we are going to learn how to make animations in Flutter, which consists of containers that apply smooth transitions when going from one state to another automatically when doing it manually using the AnimationController. Chapter 3: In this chapter we are going to create several components or sets of nested widgets that are common in modern development, such as buttons with special behaviors, staggered grids, expandable headers, side menus, among others. Chapter 4: In this chapter we are going to learn how to use multi-theming in the application, for example, having an application with the default theme and a dark mode. Chapter 5: In this chapter we are going to learn about CustomPainter, which are the HTML Canvas but in Flutter, with them, we will be able to build a large number of figures with great precision. Chapter 6: In this chapter we are going to learn how we can create an adaptive application, using the same source code on various devices with different screen sizes and that the content can be used from the application so that everything does not appear stretched on large screens. The book is in development and will have more content in the future.