10 Flutter tips — part 9/10
The penultimate part of this great series is now here and today we’re going to take a look at different packages, just like we did at the beginning of the series. We will look at how we can create our own game with a game engine, but also crop videos or prompt the user to install a new version of the app.
With that being said, let’s get right into it!
Happy reading!
Upgrader
upgrader is a super package to alert the user that an update of the app is available.
It’s a bit cumbersome to create, but definitely something that even a beginner with some knowledge of Flutter can do. The package has several advantages. Once it can display the alert in MaterialDesign as well as in Cupertionostyle, but also set different languages.
In App review
While we’re on the subject of small popups, we might as well get on with it. App reviews are very important for an app, as they reflect what users think about it and what you can improve as an app developer.
That’s why there is a wonderful plugin called in_app_review. With this package, users can give a rating at a certain point of the app, which will also be published to the App & Google Play Store without leaving the app.
Flutter Funding Choices
Okay, this is the last popup for today, I promise :)
In Europe, it is mandatory to ask in an app if it is allowed to collect data to improve services etc. For this there is the package flutter_funding_choices. This is an unofficial flutter implementation of funding choices, a google service that allows to request user consent for personalized ads in AdMob.
In app notification
Notifications like WhatsApp, Signal and co. are very handy and I have already shown in another 10 Flutter tips post with which package this works. If you want to have small notifications inside the app that are OS independent, then you can use the package in_app_notification. It’s super easy to use and you can show these little cards for example if something failed during login. Speaking of login, isn’t there a good solution for using a strong password on users?
Flutter Password Validator
To answer the question from the last tip: Yes, it exists. flutter_pw_validator is a very nice package to ensure that the user meets the requirements of a good password. This is also very easy to use and should definitely be looked at.
Webview Flutter
See a website in the app without using a browser or something? Well, you can do that very easily, with webview_flutter. It is, like every package presented here super easy to use and requires only one line of code:
Yes, that’s it, now your webview is already working. Of course you can link the whole thing to a variable if you plan to create a browser:
Flag
Flags can be used in many different areas. For example, if you want the user to select his origin or you want to make the country code more descriptive with a flag. The package flag provides you with all flags of the world to use them in your app:
Lan scanner
Everyone knows this popup asking in an app if the app is allowed to discover network devices in local networks. You need this in your app too? Then the package lan_scanner is exactly what you need. This time it may not be written in one line of code, but I’ll show you how:
But it may be that you don’t know what your subnet is. Then you should still use the package network_info_plus and then call the ipToSubnet() function:
Video trimmer
Everyone knows it. when you want to trim a video in an app. If you want this to work in your app, you should use the package video_trimmer. It can trim the video, then watch this and also save it in the files. Another very cool feature of this package is that it even supports .gif files.
Since it needs some permissions to load videos etc., I won’t explain here how to set this up, but the README of the package is very detailed and easy to understand.
Flame
As promised at the beginning, I’ll show you a game engine for Flutter. And this one is called flame. This engine is still in beta, but is constantly being developed and is already being made by many people. A very simple game was made by Robert Brunhage in a video, but this is really just a simple example and I’m sure you can make real hitgames with it ;)
Conclusion
That’s it for this article. The last part of this series will be something very special! If you don’t want to miss this, I highly recommend you to follow me to keep learning Flutter tips and other things about Flutter!
If you have any feedback and criticism, please let me know, as I always want to improve myself to bring you the best content possible!
Thanks for reading, have a great day!
