Building a Flutter Web App from Scratch: Ultimate Guide

Published in

TechGeekBuzz

4 min readJan 26, 2023

Developers are inclined towards the flutter framework to develop mobile and web applications because of its benefits. Around 500,000 are opting for flutter to develop the applications. In this blog, we discuss building a Flutter Web app from scratch. If you are still new to the flutter framework and want to develop an application with this platform, then this blog is for you. Let us start this blog with a quick overview of Flutter.

A Brief Overview of Flutter

Flutter is an open-source user interface application framework developed by Google. It has been written in C++, C, and Dart programming languages. This framework works well for Android, iOS, Google Fuchsia, Web platform, Linux, macOS, and Windows. It was first released in the year 2017.

How does the Flutter framework work?

Image Source:https://nix-united.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-flutter-in-mobile-application-development/

Flutter helps in creating interactive applications with the use of a browser-based model. It renders web applications and mobile applications in the same way. Let us help you understand the crucial terms of the flutter framework.

Platform: This framework uses DART VM. This VM is hosted by a shell.

Engine: This application framework offers Dart Runtime, Skia, Platform, Channels, etc.

Framework: This is best for app development.

Theme and widgets: It has ready-made themes and widgets written in the DART programming language.

Rendering Pipeline: The user interface is smooth as it updates the interface at 60fps.

What are the benefits of the Flutter Application?

Flutter For Web App Development comes with a list of benefits. Let us help you to

understand why you should give Flutter framework a try to build an application.

Highly Productive:

The flutter development kit is highly productive as it can be used to build cross-platform applications. The same code can be used to create iOS and Android applications.

Quick and Simple:

This framework is quick and straightforward. Developers can fix any bug in significantly less time. This framework is responsive to changes, whether these changes are related to hardware and simulators.

Easy to handle:

There is no specific technique for programming documents in a flutter. Even this framework is best for non-programmers. This shows that flutter is easy to handle and learn.

Creating a simple web application with Flutter:

You do not need to have any DART programming to build a Flutter web application. However, we recommend you go through the flutter documentation to understand the basics of the flutter application before building an application with flutter.

Now let us start with building your first app with flutter from scratch.

Prerequisites:

You need to install Flutter version 1.5.4 or more and Dart 2.3 version.

To set up your first web application in Flutter, write the following command lines.

$ flutter channel stable

$ flutter upgrade

$ flutter config — enable-web

Now, to update the current version. Type the following in your command lines.

$ flutter doctor

Now, run the command given below to get the flutter web development tools.

$ flutter packages pub global activate webdev

Here comes the crucial step. Make sure that directory $HOME/.pub-cache/bin is in the path. This directory helps you to use the webdev straight from the terminal. For macOS, type the command lines given below:

$HOME/flutter/.pub-cache/bin

Restart your system.

Now you can choose from the gives IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) IntelliJ, Android Studio, and Visual Studio Code to start building your flutter web application.

Now, open VS Code and type ctrl + shift + p to open the command palette. Type:

Flutter: New Web Project

Then your IDE (Integrated Development Environment) needs permission for Stagehand installation. To install Stagehand. Type the command below:

pub global activate stagehand

Now, you can start developing the basic project by providing and location and name of the project.

Pubget command will help you to run to load essential packages for your project.

Now type the command below to install webdev

pub global activate webdev

To run your project, type the webdev serve command in the command line. Then your first demo project using flutter is supported and visible on the supported browser window.

When Is Flutter for Web Development Beneficial to Businesses?

When companies are looking to build a cross-platform application that would run on iOS and Android operating systems in significantly less time. Secondly, the Flutter framework is affordable. So, it is beneficial for startups. If you have any budget constraints, you can use this framework to build your applications.

Businesses can use the flutter framework to develop mobile and web applications simultaneously. With a flutter, the application user interface does not change with a platform (iOS and Android) change. It has several user interface customizations and a separate rendering engine. Flutter framework minimizes the risk and losses for your business.

Features of Flutter Framework

Now, it is time to discuss a few of the features of the flutter framework.

Flutter framework offers progressive web application support and offers several types of libraries.
The flutter framework works well while rendering the animations and transitions and manages massive amounts of data.
It reduced the development cost since it comes with a code reusability option.
It provides you with a similar environment for development as you have in react native framework.

Conclusion

In this blog, we discussed the steps that you need to follow to develop a web application with the flutter application. We hope this guide gives you all the questions about flutter app development.