Flutter Developer Weekly

// From Mark

Thank You!

Ever since Issue #1 of this Flutter Newsletter was published, it's been nice to see the subscribers to this humble effort grow over time, and I just wanted to take this moment to thank you for stopping by!

I've noticed that some of the most popular articles in the newsletter seem to be centered around Flutter tutorials, packages, and widgets, so I've decided to make those topics the central theme of this week's offering.

Of course, I'm not always sure if my own taste in this area line up with yours, so if you'd like to see other Flutter-related topics covered, be sure to drop me a line! You can reach me at mark [at] flutterdeveloperweekly.com.

Enjoy!

News

Flutter Compatibility For the New ARM-Powered Macs

Some big news dropped this week in the world of hardware, when Apple officially announced their new lineup of ARM-powered Macs. The new models includes a MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, all powered by the new M1 processor.

The important caveat for Flutter developers is that you won't be able to build your Flutter apps on the new hardware, at least not just yet. Aside from the build process itself, there is still work to be done in areas such as simulator support and native compilation.

The new hardware does look promising though, and if you'd like to keep an eye on the progress for Flutter support (or even contribute yourself), this github issue should help you do just that.

Stay tuned!

Tutorials

Introduction to Dart Isolates

If you have long-running, computation-heavy code in your app which you don't want to block your main UI code, you'll probably want to consider running this code in an Isolate.

Although similar to threads in other programming languages, there are some nuances with Isolates which you'll want to take into account before diving in. This nice video tutorial by Tadas Petra should help get you started on the right track.

I should also mention that the Flutter team itself has published a quick video introducing Isolates and Event Loops, which you can access here.

Tips & Tricks

Turn Your Google Sheets Into a REST API

OK, so I haven't tried this one myself, but the concept seemed clever enough that I thought I'd mention it anyway.

This tool (which offers a free version for smaller projects) just might come in handy if you need a simple database backend for your Flutter app but don't want to jump through all of the hoops to set up something on Firestore or AWS.

Widgets and Packages

Support for Inline Banner and Native Ads in Flutter

Many of you likely rely on advertising to support your apps, and Google has just announced that support is coming to Flutter for inline banner and native ads (in addition to the formats supported by the current firebase_admob plugin).

Although this is still in closed beta, Google describes the features as follows:

...inline banner ads let you integrate an ad unit as a part of the Flutter view, instead of overlaying the banner on top of the UI. Similarly, native ads allow you to design an ad experience that feels like a natural part of your app content.

As this could open up new, more naturally-flowing advertising experiences for app users, I suspect that if you use advertising in your app, you'll want to stay tuned on this one!

InteractiveViewer Widget

Do you have a widget to display in your app which is larger than the device size? If so, you may find the InteractiveViewer widget helpful. It allows you to zoom in and pan around a given widget simply by wrapping that widget inside an InteractiveViewer.

If the YouTube video doesn't give you enough of an introduction, you can also find the class itself documented here.

I have some images in my own Flutter app which don't allow for zooming currently, so I'm thinking this may just be what the doctor ordered!

Shimmer Package

Have you noticed those cool "placeholder" images which display in the Facebook app while the app is initially loading? You know what I'm talking about, right? Those images which look like a set of blank content boxes which sort of shimmer on the screen until the real content is loaded?

If you were wondering how to include such an effect in your Flutter app, wonder no more! It's the shimmer package to the rescue!

Localization Using the easy_localization Package

I know I've covered Flutter localization here in the newsletter previously, but since support of multiple languages in your app has several potential solutions, I figure it won't hurt to point out another package which facilitates this.

The easy_localization package allows you to generate json files which contain key-to-string mappings. This allows you to specify a string's key in your source code, and have the translation for that string pulled in at runtime from the json file which corresponds to the user's preferred language.

Although I haven't tried this one myself, it seems to be a pretty straightforward approach to localization. If you're currently surveying localization packages and trying to decide the best one for your app, I think this one is worth adding to your list for consideration.

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What's Your Password?

An oldie but goodie...