Flutter App Development Masterclass

Topics Covered

• What is Flutter? History, features, and why it’s popular
• Single codebase for Android, iOS, Web, Desktop
• Flutter architecture overview: Engine, Framework, Widgets
• Dart language introduction and why Flutter uses Dart
• Installing Flutter SDK on Windows/Mac/Linux
• Setting up Android Studio, VS Code, and Xcode (for macOS)
• Configuring device emulators and real devices
• Understanding Flutter project structure: lib, pubspec.yaml, android, ios, web
• Your first Flutter app: counter & Hello World
• main() function, runApp(), MaterialApp, Scaffold, AppBar, Body

• Hot reload vs hot restart vs full restart
• Understanding widget tree and composition
• StatelessWidget vs StatefulWidget basics
• DartPad and Flutter web previews
• Code style, formatting (dartfmt), and basic conventions

Topics Covered

• Dart program structure: main(), imports, packages
• Variables: var, final, const, late
• Primitive-like types in Dart: int, double, String, bool
• num type and type inference
• Dynamic vs static typing, dynamic keyword use-cases
• Type conversion and parsing: int.parse, double.parse, toString
• Collections overview: List, Set, Map (intro only)
• Operators: arithmetic, relational, logical, assignment
• Null safety in Dart: non-nullable & nullable types (int vs int?)
• Null-aware operators: ?, ??, ??=, !
• String interpolation and multi-line strings
• String methods: length, substring, contains, split
• Basic console apps in Dart (for logic practice)
• Using dartpad.dev to practice Dart snippets

Topics Covered

• Control flow: if, else if, else
• Switch-case in Dart, enums introduction
• Loops: for, while, do-while, for-in
• break and continue, labeled statements
• Functions: definition, parameters (positional, named, optional), return types
• Arrow functions (fat arrow syntax)=>
• Scope rules and variable lifetime
• Intro to collections: List, Set, Map basics
• Iterating collections with for, for-in, forEach
• Basic algorithm building: searching & counting
• Introduction to error handling: try, catch, finally

Topics Covered

• Flutter widget philosophy: everything is a widget
• Understanding build() method and widget lifecycle (overview)
• Basic display widgets: Text, Icon, Image, Container
• Layout widgets: Row, Column, Expanded, SizedBox
• Alignment & positioning: MainAxisAlignment, CrossAxisAlignment, Center, Align
• Styling text with TextStyle, GoogleFonts (package intro)
• Colors, ThemeData, Material 3 basics
• Buttons: ElevatedButton, TextButton, OutlinedButton, IconButton
• Input widgets: TextField basics
• Using Scaffold: appBar, body, floatingActionButton, bottomNavigationBar (intro)
• SingleChildScrollView and ListView (intro)
• Working with pubspec.yaml: adding assets (images, fonts)
• Asset management & responsive basics (MediaQuery)
• Debugging layout issues with Flutter DevTools & debugPrint

Topics Covered

• OOP paradigm in Dart
• Defining classes & creating objects
• Fields, constructors (default, named, optional)
• Named constructors and factory constructors (intro)
• this keyword, initializer lists
• Encapsulation: private members with _ prefix
• Getters & setters (explicit, shorthand syntax)
• Static variables and methods
• Basic toString() overrides
• Intro to enums for modeling states
• Model classes for Flutter apps (e.g., User, Product, Task)

Topics Covered

• Inheritance in Dart: extends keyword
• Abstract classes and methods (intro)
• Method overriding & polymorphism
• Mixins: with keyword, when and how to use
• Interfaces via abstract classes & implicit interfaces
• Intro to composition vs inheritance
• StatefulWidget and State classes in Flutter
• setState(), rebuilding the UI, performance considerations
• Managing widget state vs app state (conceptual intro)
• TextField controllers and input handling
• Forms: Form, GlobalKey, basic validation
• GestureDetector and InkWell for taps & gestures
• Basic animations with AnimatedContainer and AnimatedOpacity (preview)

Topics Covered

• Deeper look at abstract classes & interfaces in Dart
• Strategy-like patterns using abstract classes
• Separation of concerns: UI vs business logic vs data models
• Organizing Flutter code: folders (models, widgets, screens, services)
• Intro to simple service classes for data handling
• Preparing for larger apps: reusability & modular widgets

Topics Covered

• Deep dive into Lists, Sets, Maps
• Higher-order functions: map, where, reduce, fold
• Collection if and collection for in Dart
• Spread operator (...) and null-aware spread (...?)
• Immutable vs mutable collections
• Error handling in Dart: try-catch, on, finally, rethrow
• Custom exceptions
• Asynchronous programming: Future, async/await
• Streams: single subscription vs broadcast (intro)
• Stream transformations and listeners
• Using async code in Flutter (FutureBuilder, StreamBuilder basics)
• Using packages: http, intl and others
• Organizing business logic into service classes

Topics Covered

• Navigator 1.0: push, pop, named routes
• Route arguments and passing data between screens
• Navigator 2.0 and Router (high-level intro, for advanced later)
• BottomNavigationBar and tab-based navigation
• Drawer navigation and custom side menus
• Nested navigation and navigation stacks
• App lifecycle basics: WidgetsBindingObserver, handling app states
• Splash screens and onboarding flows
• Handling back button and system navigation
• Routing best practices and route generators

Topics Covered

• Advanced TextField usage: controllers, focus nodes
• Form widget, FormState, and GlobalKey
• Synchronous and asynchronous validation
• Custom form field widgets
• Handling keyboard, focus traversal, and input submission
• DropdownButton, Checkbox, Radio, Switch, Slider widgets
• Date & time pickers
• Input formatting and masking
• Accessibility considerations for forms

Topics Covered

• Advanced layout widgets: Stack, Positioned, Wrap, LayoutBuilder
• ListView.builder, ListView.separated
• GridView builder and dynamic grids
• Slivers overview: CustomScrollView, SliverAppBar, SliverList (intro)
• Responsive design principles in Flutter
• MediaQuery, LayoutBuilder and OrientationBuilder
• Creating adaptive UIs for phone/tablet/web
• Handling different screen densities and sizes
• Using Flutter’s Flex and Expanded effectively

Topics Covered

• What is state management? Local vs global state
• Limitations of setState() for larger apps
• Lifting state up and prop drilling problems
• InheritedWidget and InheritedModel concept
• Provider package introduction
• ChangeNotifier and ChangeNotifierProvider
• Listening to changes with Consumer and context.watch/select
• Basic architecture: separating UI and logic using providers
• Simple global app state (theme, locale, auth status)

Topics Covered

• Why persistence? Saving user data locally
• Key-value storage with shared_preferences
• Simple settings & flags persistence
• SQLite basics and sqflite package
• Database schema design for small apps
• CRUD operations (create, read, update, delete)
• Using path_provider for file paths
• Storing JSON data locally
• Intro to Hive / Isar (NoSQL local DB) and when to use them
• Data serialization with jsonEncode/jsonDecode
• Basic repository pattern for data layer

Topics Covered

• Revisiting Provider for larger apps
• Multiple providers and provider scopes
• Introduction to Riverpod: why & how it improves over Provider
• Provider types in Riverpod: Provider, StateProvider, StateNotifierProvider (intro)
• Using Riverpod for business logic & UI separation
• Immutability and state objects
• Error handling in async providers
• Refactoring existing apps to Riverpod

Topics Covered

• StateNotifier & StateNotifierProvider with Riverpod
• Modeling complex state (loading, loaded, error) patterns
• BLoC pattern introduction (Cubit/BLoC) and when to use it
• Comparing Riverpod, Provider, and BLoC (pros/cons)
• Events, states, and BLoC logic (if using flutter_bloc)
• Using Freezed for immutable data classes & unions (intro)
• Folder structure for scalable apps (feature-first, layer-first)
• Practical guidelines for choosing a pattern per project size

Topics Covered

• Implicit animations: AnimatedContainer, AnimatedOpacity, AnimatedAlign
• AnimatedCrossFade, AnimatedSwitcher
• Explicit animations: AnimationController, Tween, CurvedAnimation
• Using AnimatedBuilder and AnimatedWidget
• Hero animations between screens
• Page transitions and custom route animations
• Lottie animations integration
• Micro-interactions and motion design principles
• Performance considerations with animations

Topics Covered

• Creating reusable, composable widgets
• Building a design system: spacing, typography, colors
• Material 3 (Material You) theming in Flutter
• ThemeData and ColorScheme customization
• Dark theme and dynamic theme switching
• Global styles and app-wide configuration
• Localization basics: using flutter_localizations and intl
• Supporting multiple languages and locales
• Accessibility: font scaling, contrast, semantics

Topics Covered

• HTTP basics: methods, status codes, headers, JSON
• Using http / dio packages for API calls
• GET, POST, PUT, DELETE requests
• Parsing JSON manually and with json_serializable (intro)
• Error handling for network failures & timeouts
• Showing loading, success, and error states in UI
• API pagination and infinite scroll
• Securing API keys and environment variables (conceptual)
• Handling connectivity changes (connectivity_plus intro)

Topics Covered

• Why testing matters for Flutter apps
• Types of tests: unit, widget, integration
• Dart test package basics
• Unit tests for Dart logic (services, utils)
• Widget tests: testing UI components and layouts
• Mocking services and repositories
• Introduction to golden tests (visual regression), concept
• Basic test-driven development (TDD) workflow
• Measuring coverage in Flutter projects

Topics Covered

• pubspec.yaml deep dive: dependencies, dev_dependencies
• Managing versions and package upgrades
• Creating and publishing your own Dart/Flutter package (concept)
• Build flavors (dev, staging, prod), overview
• Flutter build commands for Android, iOS, Web
• Introduction to Git with Flutter projects
• Git branching strategies (feature, develop, main)
• GitHub integration, PRs, code reviews
• CI basics using GitHub Actions for Flutter test/build

Topics Covered

• What is Firebase? Overview of its products
• Setting up a Firebase project
• Integrating Firebase with Flutter (firebase_core)
• Crashlytics and Analytics setup (overview)
• Realtime Database vs Firestore overview
• Cloud Firestore basics: collections, documents, queries
• Adding, reading, updating, deleting documents
• Realtime listeners and streams from Firestore
• Security rules overview and best practices
• Offline support and caching behavior

Topics Covered

• Firebase Authentication overview
• Email/password sign up and login
• Password reset flow
• Social login (Google, Apple, Facebook, platform dependent)
• Persisting login state and auto-login
• Linking auth user to Firestore profile documents
• Protecting routes based on auth state
• Handling auth errors and edge cases
• Profile management and avatar uploads (intro to Storage)

Topics Covered

• Firebase Storage integration
• Uploading images/files from Flutter apps
• Picking images from gallery/camera (image_picker, file_picker)
• Displaying uploaded media in apps
• Managing download URLs and access controls
• Basic image caching for performance
• Handling upload progress and cancellation
• File size limits and optimization concepts

Topics Covered

• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) integration
• Obtaining device tokens and sending test notifications
• Handling foreground, background, terminated notifications
• Notification customization (sound, icon, click actions)
• Topic-based and user-segment notifications
• In-app messaging basics (e.g., using Firebase In-App Messaging or custom implementation)
• Local notifications (flutter_local_notifications package)
• Scheduling notifications and reminders

Topics Covered

• Advanced Firestore queries (compound, range, ordering)
• Indexes in Firestore for performance
• Optimizing read/write costs
• Security rules patterns and testing
• Multi-tenant data design (user-specific data separation)
• Cloud Functions for backend logic (overview, callable functions)
• Basic Cloud Functions triggered by Firestore events (concept)
• Monitoring Firebase usage and costs

Topics Covered

• Refining data layer with repositories & DTOs
• Handling complex JSON responses (nested, lists, maps)
• Code generation with json_serializable & build_runner
• Error modeling and mapping HTTP errors to UI states
• Retry policies and exponential backoff (concept + simple implementation)
• Network connectivity handling & offline-first strategies
• Logging and monitoring HTTP traffic (e.g., dio interceptors)

Topics Covered

• In-app purchases on Android & iOS (overview, in_app_purchase package)
• Using 3rd-party gateways like Razorpay, Stripe (concept + Flutter packages)
• Handling payment flows and callbacks
• Server verification of purchases (conceptual, minimal implementation)
• Unlocking premium content and features
• Compliance and security best practices (conceptual)
• Sandbox/test environment usage

Topics Covered

• Revisiting Clean Architecture & MVVM in the context of bigger apps
• Domain layer: entities, use cases, business rules
• Data layer: models, DTOs, repositories, remote & local sources
• Presentation layer: views, controllers, state management (Riverpod/BLoC)
• Dependency injection basics (get_it, Riverpod providers)
• Feature modularization for scalable apps
• Working with multiple backends (REST + Firebase together)
• Documentation of architecture and data flow

Topics Covered

• Unit testing repositories with mocked network/Firebase
• Widget tests for screens relying on async data
• Using fake clients, mocktail or Mockito for mocking
• Integration tests for sign-up/login flows
• Golden tests for critical UI screens
• Continuous testing with CI integration
• Measuring and improving test coverage for large apps

Topics Covered

• Performance profiling with Flutter DevTools
• Identifying and fixing jank (frame drops)
• Optimizing build methods and widget trees
• Using const constructors and keys effectively
• Image optimization and caching strategies
• Lazy loading lists, pagination, and placeholders
• Reducing app size: tree-shaking, splitting per ABI
• Minimizing unnecessary rebuilds and re-renders
• Monitoring performance in release builds

Topics Covered

• Structured logging in Flutter (logger packages, print vs log)
• Crashlytics deep dive: capturing and analyzing crashes
• Custom error handling and error boundaries (via widget tree)
• In-app error reporting (send logs, feedback)
• Using Firebase Analytics or other analytics tools
• Key metrics: MAU, retention, funnels (conceptual)
• Privacy and consent for analytics tracking

Topics Covered

• Storing secrets securely (env files, platform secure storage)
• Encrypted local storage (flutter_secure_storage, cryptography basics)
• Protecting API keys and sensitive data
• Secure communication: HTTPS/TLS verification (concept)
• Obfuscation and code hardening (dart compile, proguard/R8 for Android)
• Auth token management and refresh strategies
• Basic OWASP considerations for mobile apps

Topics Covered

• Choosing the capstone: a complete Flutter app with Firebase auth and data, running on Android and iOS
• A one-page spec: scope, milestones, stack
• Repository and skeleton ready on day one
• Instructor sign-off before the build begins

Topics Covered

• Two focused weeks in vertical slices
• Instructor checkpoints and honest scope cuts
• Using the whole course: Dart depth, widget craft, chosen state management, Firebase and tests
• Daily commits and an always-working build

Topics Covered

• The finishing pass: edge cases, errors, documentation
• Both-platform pass: the app verified on Android and iOS with release checklists
• A README worth reading and a demo worth watching
• A full-course spiral review before the exam

Topics Covered

• Presenting the capstone: live demo plus the hardest bug story
• The honest map of next roads: mobile development roles, product building, or native specializations
• Where our other courses continue the journey