Initiatives launched in recent years can never reach their goal unless they are supported by a mobile application or a mobile compatible web application. Developing a mobile application is not easy. Especially preparing the same mobile application compatible with both iOS and Android means a great time and financial loss. This is where the Flutter toolkit comes into play and aims to make it easier for developers.
With the Flutter toolkit developed by Google, you can develop a mobile application compatible with different operating systems and devices by writing a single codebase. Moreover, it is possible to write this application much more easily by using Flutter’s own language instead of relatively difficult programming languages to learn. Let’s take a closer look at what Flutter is, what its advantages are, and what can be done.
What is Flutter?
Developed by Google and published in 2017, Flutter is a free and open source application interface toolkit. It consists of a Software Development Kit where you can localize your applications and a UI Library where you can customize the application.
A programming language called Dart is used, similar to JavaScript, to develop an application over Flutter. Dart, developed by Google in 2011, is defined as an object programming language. With this language, a single code base that you will write on Flutter will be a mobile, web and desktop compatible application.
How does Flutter work?
In Flutter, which you can download and start using right away, things work a little differently. Normally, the interface designed last is the first designed area here. Especially widgets are very effective elements in this interface design. You start application development by choosing what kind of interface the user will encounter.
By selecting the widgets in the special Flutter library one by one, you eventually create a whole interface. This is the basic working principle of Flutter. All this interface you prepared step by step is saved without any Java bridge, compatible for Android and iOS. Besides Dart, you can also use different software packages to develop the application.
Advantages of using Flutter:
- Real-time preview.
- Advanced and consistent performing Widgets.
- Maximum response to minimum code.
The biggest advantage of developing applications over Flutter, which is recorded to have grown by 303% in 2020, is to capture real-time previews. You can instantly see even the slightest change you have made on the application thanks to hot reloading, and you save time in this way.
Widgets, which are the cornerstones of interfacing over Flutter, show a much more advanced and consistent performance than others because they are Google-based. You can customize these widgets, which offer quality use within a certain code framework. You can be sure that the code does not lose quality as you customize it.
Even if you are developing a simple mobile application, you will have to write pages of code in other programming languages. When you create a code base on Flutter with the Dart programming language, you will get the maximum response for the minimum code. Less code makes both applications open and run fast.
Flutter interfaces offer a much more enjoyable user experience:
Google engineer Will Larche, one of the names in Flutter, which is used by important companies such as Google, eBay, BMW, Square, Alibaba, Capital One to develop applications, the most important purpose of this toolkit is for developers to create interfaces that will provide a much more enjoyable user experience for users, says it is.
flutter; Adobe uses Skia, the graphics engine also used by Chrome and Amazon Kindle. Skia is an open source and high performance graphics engine. Since the interfaces developed over this engine are Google-based, they do not cause known problems and offer the same performance on both iOS and Android operating systems.
The fact that applications developed with Flutter offer the same performance in different operating systems increases the confidence in the corporate identity of the developer company. Being able to change and customize everything you see on the screen allows you to get maximum performance with minimum effort.
Disadvantages of using Flutter:
- Lack of third party library.
- High file size.
- A single programming language.
Since Flutter is a relatively new technology, it is possible to say that it still has some shortcomings. The most common complaint from developers is the lack of third-party libraries. No matter how much you customize the widgets offered by Flutter, things get a bit slow as no third-party libraries are offered internally.
Applications prepared with Flutter are mobile-oriented. Therefore, the limited storage space that mobile devices have should be taken into account. However, it was seen that applications prepared with Flutter had high file sizes. A simple 500 KB application created with Java has a file size between 4.7 MB and 6.7 MB when prepared in Flutter.
If you know one of the JavaScript or C programming languages, you can write many different software in these languages. Flutter says you need to learn a new language. Although the Dart programming language is much more useful than other programming languages in many ways, it is not known how much it is worth the time you spend at the end of the learning period, as it is used in a single tool.
Should I use Flutter?
Despite some negative features, you should definitely review the Flutter option while developing an application. When we consider the time and money spent on making a developed mobile application suitable for both iOS and Android, Flutter will be a real life saver.
After learning the Dart programming language, you will see for yourself how easy it is to develop applications with Flutter. The features that make Flutter stand out are that the widgets and the prepared interface are Google-based, the high-performance graphics engine Skia is used, you get a lot of efficiency with less code and you can preview these changes in real time.
We have answered the frequently asked questions such as what is Flutter, how does it work, and what are its advantages, which allows you to develop applications compatible with all operating systems. If you have developed an application using Flutter before, you can share your experience in the comments.
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