Introduction to Flutter: Getting Started with Cross-Platform Development
Tags: flutter, crossplatform, mobile, dart
Published: 2023-03-19 21:24:26

## Introduction
A strong open-source framework for building powerful, platform-independent mobile apps. This is Flutter. This indicates that it enables programmers to quickly and easily construct mobile apps that are visually appealing for both the Android and iOS platforms using a single codebase. In this article, we'll offer you a quick overview of what Flutter is, its background and development, as well as some of its key features. At the end of this article, you will know the basics of Flutter and its active communities and forums.


## What is Flutter?
Developed by Google, Flutter is an open-source UI toolkit to help developers create stunning and quick mobile, web, and desktop applications. With Flutter, programmers can produce high-performance apps that operate natively on Android and iOS devices, the web, and desktop computers, all from a single codebase.

By design, the Dart programming language is used by Flutter, which also comes with a wealth of customizable widgets and features that make it simple to design aesthetically pleasing and responsive user interfaces.


## History and Evolution
Google made its initial Flutter announcement in 2017 during the Dart Development Conference. The framework was initially created as an experimental project within Google, but because of its performance, cross-platform compatibility, and ease of use, it quickly became well-liked among developers.

Flutter's initial stable release was made in December 2018, and since then, it has received several upgrades and enhancements. With the introduction of Flutter 1.2 in 2019, new features and improvements were made, including support for web development and enhanced tooling.

Flutter 1.17, which was launched in 2020, aimed to increase the framework's performance and stability. Also, it added additional capabilities including the ability to run Flutter apps on macOS and enhanced the hot reload capability.

A new design language dubbed Flutter "Hummingbird" that enables developers to create online applications with the same codebase as mobile apps were introduced with the release of Flutter 2.0 in March 2021, along with support for desktop and web applications, improved performance, and other changes.

Today, Flutter has a large and active community of developers and contributors who continue to work on improving the framework and creating new plugins and packages to extend its capabilities. With its rapid evolution and growing popularity, Flutter is quickly becoming a preferred choice for building cross-platform applications.


## Key Features and Functionalities
Some key Flutter features and functionalities include:

- Cross-platform development: Flutter lets developers design a single codebase that can operate natively on several platforms such as Android, iOS, web, and desktop,

- Quick development and hot reload: Flutter's hot reload functionality allows developers to view the changes they make to the code in real-time, without having to restart the app. This expedites and improves the development process,

- Beautiful UIs: Flutter comes with a wealth of customizable widgets and tools that make it simple to design user interfaces that are both aesthetically pleasing and responsive,

- Access to native features: Flutter provides access to native features such as camera, geolocation, and sensors, making it easy to create apps with rich functionality,

- Fast performance: Flutter's architecture is designed for high performance, resulting in smooth animations and fast rendering,

- Built-in testing and debugging tools: Flutter comes with built-in tools for testing and debugging, making it easy to catch and fix issues during the development process, and

- Open-source and growing community: Flutter is an open-source framework with a growing community of developers who contribute to the development of the framework and create third-party plugins and packages that make it easier to integrate with other technologies.

In the end, Flutter is a popular go-to option for developers who are looking to easily build and design cross-platform apps since it offers a flexible and powerful framework for creating cutting-edge and entertaining applications that work flawlessly on numerous platforms.


## Where To Get Flutter Packages & Libraries
At the moment, [Packages for Dart & Flutter](https://pub.dev/) is the go-to solution for packages to integrate into your app when developing with Dart (Flutter)

## Forums & Community Support
A thriving developer community supports the growth of the Flutter framework and produces third-party plugins and packages that facilitate its integration with other technologies. Due to its extensive developer and user base, Flutter has a wide range of communities and forums where you can always go to get help, and I use the platforms when I get stuck. Some of these include:

- [The Official Flutter Developer Community](https://flutter.dev/community),

- [Flutter Community on DEV](https://dev.to/t/flutter), and

- [Flutter Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/FlutterDev/).

Whether you are a novice or a seasoned developer, Flutter offers a flexible and potent framework for creating cutting-edge and captivating applications that work flawlessly across several platforms.



## Conclusion
For developers looking to create stunning and powerful mobile apps with a single codebase for both the Android and iOS platforms, Flutter is a great option. In this article, I gave you an overview of Flutter, talked about Flutter's history and rapid evolutionary pace, key features of Flutter, as well as forums and online communities where you can always get help. We hope that this introduction to Flutter motivates you to learn more and create incredible mobile applications.



## Up Next
In my next post, I will take you through setting up a development environment on your local machine (I'm on Windows and it has a similar process for Mac users) as well as creating your first Flutter application, so keep an eye out for that post.



## P.S.
This is a series for everything Flutter, so keep an eye on this space (it costs $0.00 to follow me) for future post as I'm going to be building apps from scratch using Flutter😉🙃