Ekhlass/Flutter_Documentation · Datasets at Hugging Face

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important that build methods should return quickly, and heavy computational work
should be done in some asynchronous manner and then stored as part of the state
to be used by a build method.While relatively naïve in approach, this automated comparison is quite
effective, enabling high-performance, interactive apps. And, the design of the
build function simplifies your code by focusing on declaring what a widget is
made of, rather than the complexities of updating the user interface from one
state to another.<topic_end>
<topic_start>
Widget state
The framework introduces two major classes of widget: stateful and stateless
widgets.Many widgets have no mutable state: they don’t have any properties that change
over time (for example, an icon or a label). These widgets subclass
StatelessWidget.However, if the unique characteristics of a widget need to change based on user
interaction or other factors, that widget is stateful. For example, if a
widget has a counter that increments whenever the user taps a button, then the
value of the counter is the state for that widget. When that value changes, the
widget needs to be rebuilt to update its part of the UI. These widgets subclass
StatefulWidget, and
(because the widget itself is immutable) they store mutable state in a separate
class that subclasses State.
StatefulWidgets don’t have a build method; instead, their user interface is
built through their State object.Whenever you mutate a State object (for example, by incrementing the counter),
you must call setState()
to signal the framework to update the user interface by calling the State’s
build method again.Having separate state and widget objects lets other widgets treat both stateless
and stateful widgets in exactly the same way, without being concerned about
losing state. Instead of needing to hold on to a child to preserve its state,
the parent can create a new instance of the child at any time without losing the
child’s persistent state. The framework does all the work of finding and reusing
existing state objects when appropriate.<topic_end>
<topic_start>
State management
So, if many widgets can contain state, how is state managed and passed around
the system?As with any other class, you can use a constructor in a widget to initialize its
data, so a build() method can ensure that any child widget is instantiated
with the data it needs:As widget trees get deeper, however, passing state information up and down the
tree hierarchy becomes cumbersome. So, a third widget type,
InheritedWidget,
provides an easy way to grab data from a shared ancestor. You can use
InheritedWidget to create a state widget that wraps a common ancestor in the
widget tree, as shown in this example:Whenever one of the ExamWidget or GradeWidget objects needs data from
StudentState, it can now access it with a command such as:The of(context) call takes the build context (a handle to the current widget
location), and returns the nearest ancestor in the
tree
that matches the StudentState type. InheritedWidgets also offer an
updateShouldNotify() method, which Flutter calls to determine whether a state
change should trigger a rebuild of child widgets that use it.Flutter itself uses InheritedWidget extensively as part of the framework for
shared state, such as the application’s visual theme, which includes
properties like color and type
styles that are
pervasive throughout an application. The MaterialApp build() method inserts
a theme in the tree when it builds, and then deeper in the hierarchy a widget
can use the .of() method to look up the relevant theme data, for example:
<code_start>Container(
color: Theme.of(context).secondaryHeaderColor,
child: Text(
'Text with a background color',
style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.titleLarge,
),
);<code_end>
As applications grow, more advanced state management approaches that reduce the
ceremony of creating and using stateful widgets become more attractive. Many
Flutter apps use utility packages like
provider, which provides a wrapper around
InheritedWidget. Flutter’s layered architecture also enables alternative
approaches to implement the transformation of state into UI, such as the
flutter_hooks package.<topic_end>
<topic_start>
Rendering and layout
This section describes the rendering pipeline, which is the series of steps that
Flutter takes to convert a hierarchy of widgets into the actual pixels painted
onto a screen.<topic_end>
<topic_start>
Flutter’s rendering model
You may be wondering: if Flutter is a cross-platform framework, then how can it
offer comparable performance to single-platform frameworks?It’s useful to start by thinking about how traditional
Android apps work. When drawing,
you first call the Java code of the Android framework.
The Android system libraries provide the components
responsible for drawing themselves to a Canvas object,
which Android can then render with Skia,
a graphics engine written in C/C++ that calls the
CPU or GPU to complete the drawing on the device.Cross-platform frameworks typically work by creating
an abstraction layer over the underlying native
Android and iOS UI libraries, attempting to smooth out the
inconsistencies of each platform representation.
App code is often written in an interpreted language like JavaScript,
which must in turn interact with the Java-based
Android or Objective-C-based iOS system libraries to display UI.
All this adds overhead that can be significant,
particularly where there is a lot of
interaction between the UI and the app logic.By contrast, Flutter minimizes those abstractions,
bypassing the system UI widget libraries in favor
of its own widget set. The Dart code that paints
Flutter’s visuals is compiled into native code,
which uses Skia (or, in the future, Impeller) for rendering.
Flutter also embeds its own copy of Skia as part of the engine,
allowing the developer to upgrade their app to stay
updated with the latest performance improvements
even if the phone hasn’t been updated with a new Android version.

important that build methods should return quickly, and heavy computational work

should be done in some asynchronous manner and then stored as part of the state

to be used by a build method.While relatively naïve in approach, this automated comparison is quite

effective, enabling high-performance, interactive apps. And, the design of the

build function simplifies your code by focusing on declaring what a widget is

made of, rather than the complexities of updating the user interface from one

state to another.<topic_end>

<topic_start>

Widget state

The framework introduces two major classes of widget: stateful and stateless

widgets.Many widgets have no mutable state: they don’t have any properties that change

over time (for example, an icon or a label). These widgets subclass

StatelessWidget.However, if the unique characteristics of a widget need to change based on user

interaction or other factors, that widget is stateful. For example, if a

widget has a counter that increments whenever the user taps a button, then the

value of the counter is the state for that widget. When that value changes, the

widget needs to be rebuilt to update its part of the UI. These widgets subclass

StatefulWidget, and

(because the widget itself is immutable) they store mutable state in a separate

class that subclasses State.

StatefulWidgets don’t have a build method; instead, their user interface is

built through their State object.Whenever you mutate a State object (for example, by incrementing the counter),

you must call setState()

to signal the framework to update the user interface by calling the State’s

build method again.Having separate state and widget objects lets other widgets treat both stateless

and stateful widgets in exactly the same way, without being concerned about

losing state. Instead of needing to hold on to a child to preserve its state,

the parent can create a new instance of the child at any time without losing the

child’s persistent state. The framework does all the work of finding and reusing

existing state objects when appropriate.<topic_end>

<topic_start>

State management

So, if many widgets can contain state, how is state managed and passed around

the system?As with any other class, you can use a constructor in a widget to initialize its

data, so a build() method can ensure that any child widget is instantiated

with the data it needs:As widget trees get deeper, however, passing state information up and down the

tree hierarchy becomes cumbersome. So, a third widget type,

InheritedWidget,

provides an easy way to grab data from a shared ancestor. You can use

InheritedWidget to create a state widget that wraps a common ancestor in the

widget tree, as shown in this example:Whenever one of the ExamWidget or GradeWidget objects needs data from

StudentState, it can now access it with a command such as:The of(context) call takes the build context (a handle to the current widget

location), and returns the nearest ancestor in the

tree

that matches the StudentState type. InheritedWidgets also offer an

updateShouldNotify() method, which Flutter calls to determine whether a state

change should trigger a rebuild of child widgets that use it.Flutter itself uses InheritedWidget extensively as part of the framework for

shared state, such as the application’s visual theme, which includes

properties like color and type

styles that are

pervasive throughout an application. The MaterialApp build() method inserts

a theme in the tree when it builds, and then deeper in the hierarchy a widget

can use the .of() method to look up the relevant theme data, for example:

<code_start>Container(

color: Theme.of(context).secondaryHeaderColor,

child: Text(

'Text with a background color',

style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.titleLarge,

),

);<code_end>

As applications grow, more advanced state management approaches that reduce the

ceremony of creating and using stateful widgets become more attractive. Many

Flutter apps use utility packages like

provider, which provides a wrapper around

InheritedWidget. Flutter’s layered architecture also enables alternative

approaches to implement the transformation of state into UI, such as the

flutter_hooks package.<topic_end>

<topic_start>

Rendering and layout

This section describes the rendering pipeline, which is the series of steps that

Flutter takes to convert a hierarchy of widgets into the actual pixels painted

onto a screen.<topic_end>

<topic_start>

Flutter’s rendering model

You may be wondering: if Flutter is a cross-platform framework, then how can it

offer comparable performance to single-platform frameworks?It’s useful to start by thinking about how traditional

Android apps work. When drawing,

you first call the Java code of the Android framework.

The Android system libraries provide the components

responsible for drawing themselves to a Canvas object,

which Android can then render with Skia,

a graphics engine written in C/C++ that calls the

CPU or GPU to complete the drawing on the device.Cross-platform frameworks typically work by creating

an abstraction layer over the underlying native

Android and iOS UI libraries, attempting to smooth out the

inconsistencies of each platform representation.

App code is often written in an interpreted language like JavaScript,

which must in turn interact with the Java-based

Android or Objective-C-based iOS system libraries to display UI.

All this adds overhead that can be significant,

particularly where there is a lot of

interaction between the UI and the app logic.By contrast, Flutter minimizes those abstractions,

bypassing the system UI widget libraries in favor

of its own widget set. The Dart code that paints

Flutter’s visuals is compiled into native code,

which uses Skia (or, in the future, Impeller) for rendering.

Flutter also embeds its own copy of Skia as part of the engine,

allowing the developer to upgrade their app to stay

updated with the latest performance improvements

even if the phone hasn’t been updated with a new Android version.