Getting Started Flutter

Explaining how to setup flutter for Windows and Mac users using VS Code or Android Studio

Some links for more in-depth learning

Setting started/setup

• Getting Started With Flutter - Windows
• Getting Started With Flutter - Mac
• Getting Started With Flutter - Linux

Purely text-based resources

• Documentation Tutorials, samples, guidance on mobile development, and a full API reference.
• Lab: Write your first Flutter app Flutter codelabs.
• Cookbook: Useful Flutter samples Flutter cookbook.

Setting up VS Code purely

Windows

• Java Development Kit - Install JDK here. Take note of the installation directory as we would have to add to path. Adding JDK to path
• Download flutter SDK latest version from the following Url: https://flutter.io/docs/get-started/install/windows extract it and copy the folder with the name “flutter” to C:\ folder, so the full path will be C:\flutter
• Download the Android command line tools - Android Command Line Tools, extract after downloading. Create the folder "Android" in C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local and the folder Sdk in C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Android and copy the tools folder here.
• Set the environment variables - we need to define some environment variable which let the above tools know how to contact each other, form command prompt run these commands, one by one.
  • setx ANDROID_HOME "C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Android"
  • ANDROID_SDK_ROOT "C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk"
  • path "%path%;"C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk;C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\bin;C:\flutter\bin"
• Download Android Sdk - As you may already know Flutter needs Android SDK to work , so we need to download system images, platform tools, build tools, platforms, and emulator, by running the following commands:
  • sdkmanager "system-images;android-29;google_apis;x86_64"
  • sdkmanager "platforms;android-29"
  • sdkamanger "platform-tools"
  • sdkmanager "patcher;v4"
  • sdkmanager "emulator"
  • sdkmanager "build-tools;29.0.2"
• Accept all licenses (press y then enter for every license)
  • sdkmanager --licenses
• Configure flutter to know the directory of the android sdk
  • flutter config --android-sdk C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Android\
• Create the emulator (use any of the below to create the emulator)
  • create an emulator with the name pixel: avdmanager -s create avd -n pixel -k "system-images;android-29;google_apis;x86_64"
  • create an emulator with the name nexus: avdmanager -s create avd -n nexus -k "system-images;android-29;default;x86_64"
  • create an emulator using existing devices features: avdmanager -s create avd -n pixel -k "system-images;android-29;google_apis;x86_64" -d 19
  • to get list of existing devices: avdmanager list
• Launch emulator
  • flutter emulator --launch emulator_name
• Now to the moment of truth
  • Run flutter doctor. This command should give all green and ok. Please ignore the Android Studio complain as this lesson is all about ignoring it.

Mac

• Watch this space