This week in Flutter #31: Black Friday deals and a lot of development links

27 November 2021

It’s Black Friday this week, and there are some nice sales for developers. Check some for macOS/iOS, some for web/software engineers, and some for developers and entrepreneurs.

In particular, raywenderlich.com has some nice Black Friday deals: 50% off on all books, and Pro Subscriptions + Monthly Pro Seminars. Full disclosure: I am a tech editor for raywenderlich.com, but I do not get any percentage from these offers.

- Michele Volpato

Development 🧑‍💻

🔗 Firebase Dynamic Links With Flutter

In this article by Harsh Bhalala, you’ll learn how to set up dynamic links to be able to share content between two users of your Flutter app, regardless of their platform. With a link generated from the app, another user will be able to reach the same content on their device, even if they are on a different platform, and even if they do not have the app installed yet.

🔗 Native Animated Splash Screen with Lottie in Flutter

I always tell myself to have a look at the integration between Flutter and Lottie, but it is always pushed down my prioritised list. In the meanwhile, I can read tutorials like this one, by Türker Gürel.

🔗 Flutter Web vs HTML, CSS & JS: Performance Comparison

I already gave my opinion about using Flutter for a marketing website in this newsletter. Andrea Bizzotto even implemented the home page of his website in Flutter and compared, using numbers, the two. The result is not a surprise, but now you know what link to send to your colleague when they hint to make the company website using Flutter.

🔗 Creating an image carousel in Flutter

In this article by Ishan Fernando, you’ll learn how to implement an image carousel from scratch. They also provide sample code if you want to use carousel_slider instead of implementing everything by yourself.

🔗 Understanding RenderObjects in Flutter

This is an interesting article, by David Adegoke, that explains what happens behind the scenes when Flutter renders. A must-read.

🔗 How to create a Flutter GridView with content-sized items

Sometimes the basic widgets that Flutter gives us are not enough to implement the design we want. For instance, using a GridView in combination with childAspectRatio does not always end up like we would like to. Andrea Bizzotto encountered exactly this problem while working on the Flutter version of his website. How do you solve this problem? Read his article to find out.

🔗 Actions, Intents, and Shortcuts in Flutter

With Flutter for desktop getting closer to being stable, it is important to consider the keyboard as valid input in your Flutter app. How do you link shortcuts from your keyboard to real functionalities in the app? Read more in this article, by Om Londhe.

🔗 Answering The Frequently Asked Questions in Flutter Development #2

Learn some valuable tips and tricks to get your Flutter development easier, by Dhruv Nakum.

Others 🤷‍♂️

You can transform any widget into a button by using GestureDetector. Learn more in this video by Khanh Nguyen, from the Flutter team.

🔗 Another app migrated to Flutter

Read how Kirill Bubochkin managed to lead a team of developers into migrating an existing app from Android to Flutter. We are doing something similar, and this article has been a good read for me. We are taking a different approach. While Kirill wanted to first bring the Flutter app at the same level in Android, and only then concentrate on iOS, we are doing the opposite. First, we want to bring the code for the missing platform at the same level as the existing code, and only then replace the existing app with the Flutter version.

That’s it for this week.

If you want to comment on any of this week’s entries, you can do it in the comment section below.

Have a bug-free week,