Flutter UI tools are easy to use as well as to implement! Hence even a beginner can start using it efficiently. Without wasting a bit of time, let’s jump into the topic.
Before we begin the steps for implementing UI, let’s understand how widgets can implement it! And what’s needed to implement any UI in Flutter?
What Are Widgets in Flutter?
Widgets are the tools that are being used in the development of any mobile application. Widgets are inbuilt app feature libraries that let developers use them to develop any app.
There are two types of widgets:
- Stateless Widget
- Stateful Widget
Your local Flutter installation comes with several in-built widgets. You can check it in the packages folder in your preferred editor!
Looking at the latest Flutter 2.10, you will get 408 Stateful widgets and 271 Stateless widgets. Six hundred eighty devices are available for you to use and implement UIs.
You can use one out of 23000 packages available at .pub.dev. Each package includes at least one widget, straightforward addition to the current 680 widgets.
Also, according to many widgets, you can create your widget for your UI.
5 Easy Steps to Implement UI in Flutter?
Do you know today, most companies provide Flutter development services? Or why are most businesses going for Flutter development? Because it makes the developers’ job easy. And also, it takes less time in development, which fastens the time to market.
Now let’s see the steps to implement UI in Flutter:
1. Write your code starting at the top left and moving down to the bottom right
First, when designing the UI, you must begin by executing widgets.
Wondering how?
So, when you implement the UI widget, you have to do it according to the position of each component.
First, you must write code for the things that will appear at the top of the UI. After doing that, you can resume writing the rest of the bottom UI.
2. Choose a widget
The next step is to choose an authentic widget for the added design of any UI. You can select from available devices and create an entirely new, customized one for your different UI.
Next, you'll need to logically determine the widget you want to use for a given UI element. At a bare minimum, for a given UI element, you will use simple widgets you're familiar with based on what their names say they do.
There are some circumstances where the name of the UI component looks like the name of the widget!
If you find it hard to make a choice, a fast online search will give you all the answers. If you don't know, let me tell you, Flutter has a great online community!
3. Use widget groups
Use a Column group if a set of UI items is positioned vertically.
If they are arranged horizontally, one after another, use a 'Row' group. If they are placed on top of each other, use a 'Stack,' with the floating widgets swathed in Positioned widgets.
A. Column/Row
Inside a Column or Row, you can change or adjust how the widgets will align on the primary or cross axis. Use their CrossAxisAlignment and MainAxisAlignment properties for such adjustments.
You can align to the centre, end, start, and stretch for the cross-axis. For the central axis, you can align to centre, rear, space around, space between, space evenly, and back.
In a Column, the vertical axis is the central axis while the horizontal axis is the cross axis. Similarly, the horizontal axis is the central axis, while the vertical axis is the cross axis in a Row.
B. Stack widget
With Stack, the last widget(s) in the children's list appears on top of the earlier children.
You might have to edit the Stack's alignment to indicate the relative positions of the widgets. Like top centre, centre, bottom, and so on.
The Stack's size is calculated based on non-positioned widgets (widgets in the children list not wrapped in a Positioned parent).
When you are coding, remember that your Stack should either have at least one non-positioned widget or Stack should be covered in a parent widget that explicitly sets the Stack's size.
Positioned takes any or all of the bottom, the top left, and the right. They set the child's position relative to the Stack. Negative values move the child in the opposite direction. However, negative values clip parts of the child out. Use clipBehavior: Clip. None on the Stack to show all the features of the positioned widget.
4. Create custom widgets
As you build the widget tree, you will notice two things:
Either a chunk of the tree grows too big, and it is a logical unit on its own.
Or some chunks or sets of widgets might repeat themselves with slight changes.
These are two indications that you should refactor your code. You should extract those widgets and define them in another Dart file.
Your code editor will help you with refactoring. With or without the editor, all you need to do is
- Create a new Dart file. The file name should reflect the new widget's name.
- Create a new class. That extends StatefulWidget or StatelessWidget, depending on whether the new widget has State.
- Return the widget chunk from a build method
If need be, your new Dart class can take positional or named parameters to its constructor to customize the widget's look.
5. Add more customization
Adding more customization is not always for creating new widgets, but sometimes they are not meeting our expectations; therefore, we have to use multiple widgets to reach the expectations of a specific UI.
Final Note
For a given UI piece, choose a widget, write its code, build the widget with other widgets, and see what great UI you are implementing with Flutter.
Implementing UIs is a significant part of mobile, web, and desktop app development. Flutter is a UI toolkit that builds cross-platform for those platforms. Flutter's declarative nature and its widget abundance make UI implementation simple.
Keep implementing UIs in Flutter. As you do it more and more, it will evolve into second nature to you. And you will be able to implement any UI in Flutter.
Here, in this article, we have listed the steps to implement UI in Flutter. But if you want to get your app developed by any mobile app design services provider, you can. But make sure that you choose your development partner wisely!
