How to Develop and Launch the Progressive Web Application with Flutter?
Mobile Applications and websites are all prevalent in present times. But, the buzz for Progressive web applications is in no way affected. Speed, accuracy, and reliability are key factors for PWAs success. These not only add value to the business as a brand but also provide them a way to reach a wider ratio of customers.
But, What are Progressive Web Apps?
PWA or Progressive Web Apps are applications delivered through a web platform. These can be developed using basic to advanced web technologies like HTML, CSS, WebAssembly, JavaScript, and more! These are said to be beneficial for businesses and have also provided them with desired growth, and progress for a range of businesses.
“Kubota launched its e-commerce PWA. This provided them 192% growth in the number of daily visitors, and almost 26% growth in average monthly visitors”
This is how PWA can take your business to another level. But, getting a PWA for your business is not children’s play. Further, the availability of a range of technologies increases confusion and complexity.
If you want your PWA development process to be optimal, and convenient, leveraging Flutter is advised! But, first, let’s comprehend what Flutter is!
What is Flutter?
Developed by Google, Flutter is a UI software development kit. It is available as an open-source product, and can be used to develop PWA, android apps, iOS apps, and many more! It can significantly make PWA development easy, and rapid.
Before discussing how one can develop, and launch progressive web apps with Flutter, let’s quickly discuss why one should use Flutter!
Why development of Progressive Web Application with Flutter?
Using flutter can make your PWA development process easy, convenient, and reliable. But, how?
It is said that flutter assists developers in programming optimally functional, superior, and interactive UI-based applications.
Further, it does not propose any stringent limitations and allows development for all major platforms. This also saves lots and lots of money and time! But, the advantages of using flutter for PWAs don’t end here. Here are some more advantages-
- It supports the PWA development process securely, and smoothly.
- It allows offline access to the pages of applications for the users!
- Flutter optimizes the page loading time of PWA significantly!
- It can significantly increase the performance of PWA up to 3X times!
- If you use Flutter, you can eliminate the need for different codes. A single code can be used on different platforms via flutter!
Apart from these, Flutter has other advantages like ease of development, reliability, and a secure platform. All these reasons make Flutter one of the best available platforms to develop and launch PWAs. Let’s discuss this process in detail now!
How to Develop a Progressive Web Application with Flutter!
Before digging into the detailed process for developing PWA with Flutter, let’s comprehend what you will need in your system!
System Requirements: To leverage Flutter for PWAs development, you’ll first need to install Flutter SDK on your system. Along with this, also make sure you install Google chrome browser beforehand. This will be required to debug a web app.
Once you have all these in your system, the next step is to build PWA with Flutter, here are the steps!
01. Set up Flutter for the web
Before anything, you need to run it on the master channel. For this, run a command-
flutter channel master
This command might take some time. Once it is executed, run the following command-
flutter doctor -v
This might take a long time as this command will initiate the latest dart SDK download. The expected output after this command is-
[√] Flutter (Channel master, v1.13.1-pre.59, on Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.535], locale en-IN)
Flutter version 1.13.1-pre.59 at C:flutter
Framework revision e58dc16d7b (11 days ago), 2019–12–06 18:21:52 -0800
Engine revision e7b69ced2e
Dart version 2.7.0 (build 2.7.0-dev.2.1 a9c77229c2)
Once this is done, set up the web support for the application. For this, the following command needs to be put in-
flutter config –enable-web
The output of this command should be-
Chrome • chrome • web-javascript • Google Chrome 79.0.3945.79
Web Server • web-server • web-javascript • Flutter Tools
02. Create a New Project
Once you have completed the setup process, it’s time to create a new project! Commands for this are-
flutter create PWA
cd PWA
This will create a new project named PWA. You can keep the name of the project as you want.
flutter create .
Don’t forget to add “.” at the end. Otherwise, the command will not be executed!
03. Run-on Web
The setup is complete, Project is created. The next step is to run-on the web.
flutter run -d chrome
This command will run your app on Chrome localhost. Further, if you want to check apps for mobile compatibility; which stands obsolete if you are developing PWAs, run-on IP!
