Flutter: Setup for application development

Getting Started with Flutter: Building and Running a Simple Application

Flutter is Google’s open-source mobile application development SDK, designed for creating cross-platform apps. It’s extremely beginner-friendly, enabling even novice programmers to build high-quality, responsive native mobile applications without prior experience. This guide will show you how to build a simple “Hello Flutter” app and run it on your Android device.

Why Choose Flutter Over Native Java Development?

Flutter offers several unique features compared to native Java and other SDKs:

• Fast Development: Flutter uses customizable widgets that can be nested to create app interfaces, similar to HTML structure.
• Hot Reload: Instantly see changes in code without recompiling.
• Native Performance: Compiled into Java for performance parity with native apps.
• Resource Efficiency: Runs smoothly on lower-resource systems.

Setting Up Flutter

Step 1: Set Up the Flutter SDK

1. Download the latest SDK from the Flutter SDK Archive.
2. Extract the zip file and place the ‘flutter’ folder in your desired directory (e.g., C:\flutter).

Note: Avoid installing Flutter in a directory requiring admin privileges, like ‘C:\Program Files\’.

Step 2: Add Flutter to PATH

1. Go to “Edit environment variables for your account” in Control Panel.
2. Under User variables, check if there is an entry called PATH:
   • If it exists, add a new path to ‘flutter\bin’.
   • If not, create a new entry named PATH and add the full location to ‘flutter\bin’.
3. Reboot Windows for the changes to take effect.

Step 3: Set Up Android Studio

1. Download and install Android Studio.
2. Start Android Studio and follow the SDK Manager wizard to download all required build tools.

Step 4: Set Up Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

1. Download and install VS Code.
2. Install the Flutter and Dart plugins from VS Code’s Extension Tab.
3. Optionally, install Git Bash for a Unix-like command prompt.

Step 5: Run Flutter Doctor

1. Open the Command Prompt and execute:flutter doctor
2. This will check your Flutter installation and report any errors.

Creating an Empty Template Project

1. Navigate to your project directory.
2. Open a command prompt and type:flutter create project_name For example, for a project named ‘helloflutter’:flutter create helloflutter
3. Open this folder in VS Code.

Building and Running Your First App

1. Locate the main.dart file in the ‘lib’ folder. This is the entry point for the app.
2. Replace the MyHomePage widget with a new StatelessWidget named HelloFlutter:

class HelloFlutter extends StatelessWidget {
  const HelloFlutter({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      body: Container(
        alignment: Alignment.center,
        child: const Text('Hello Flutter!'),
      ),
    );
  }
}

1. In the home property of the main MyApp class, change it to HelloFlutter().
2. Run the app using the `flutter run