Animations are not an "aesthetic extra": they are a fundamental piece to make an app feel alive, fluid, and professional.
In this guide book, I share with you a complete, updated, and practical journey so you can create animations like an advanced developer, even if you currently consider yourself intermediate.
Why learn animations in Flutter today?
The Role of Animations in the Modern User Experience
Modern apps don't just compete on functionality; they compete on experience.
A smooth transition, an icon that responds with micro-interactions, or a widget that visually adapts to a state change can make the difference between a "correct" app and a memorable one.
When I worked on my first animated interfaces, I discovered that users who previously abandoned certain flows now followed them to the end. Animations guide, inform, smooth out, and sell.
What You Can Achieve with Well-Implemented Animations
- Interactive buttons that respond with intention.
- Screens that communicate transition without the user getting "lost."
- Visual effects with CustomPainter.
- Micro-interactions that elevate the perceived quality of your app.
Fundamentals: How Animations Work in Flutter
Implicit Animations vs. Explicit Animations
Flutter offers two major families:
- Implicit (AnimatedContainer, AnimatedOpacity…)
Ideal when you want quick, automatic animations. - Explicit (AnimationController, Tween…)
Perfect when you need total control over motion and time.- Tween defines from where to where.
- AnimationController controls the time.
- CurvedAnimation gives the motion its personality.
In this book, we look at both types based on multiple examples and create components for easy REUSE.
Flutter is a fascinating framework in which we can do everything. This is my fourth book focused on Flutter, which demonstrates the point mentioned before; we can create mobile applications, as were its beginnings, but over time we can go much further, such as creating web applications, desktop applications for MacOS, Linux, Windows, and also games, using technologies like Flame and/or Forge2D.
About the Book
The topic of animations also needs to be current in modern development; therefore, we have a chapter focused on introducing how to use animations in Flutter, of which we have several forms. We will also apply this in the development of our components when necessary.
In this book, we want to take a more practical approach, creating custom components that are widely used in traditional Flutter development but may not be so easy, such as custom headers with complex shapes using Custom Painter, learning how to use and define our custom animations, among other nested components or widgets that you will surely find interesting.
Ultimately, it is a largely practical book, to create custom widgets and delve into parts of Flutter that are no longer so basic and that, as a Flutter developer, you should know.
Who This Book is For
This book is aimed at anyone who wants to continue delving into application development with Flutter; therefore, it is assumed that the reader has at least basic knowledge of how to use this technology, such as knowing what the tool is for, installing Flutter, knowing its basic widgets, and creating a basic application.
- This book is aimed at people who:
- Want to know the framework in more detail by creating custom and animated widgets.
- Want to improve an existing skill and continue escalating their path in application development with Flutter.
- This book is for intermediate Flutter users.
Book Table of Contents
This book has a total of 6 chapters. It is recommended that you read in the order in which they are arranged and, as we explain the components of the framework, go directly to practice, replicate, test, and modify the codes shown in this book.
- Chapter 1: In this chapter we will learn the steps to create a project in Flutter
- Chapter 2: In this chapter we will learn how to create animations in Flutter, which consists of containers that apply smooth transitions when moving from one state to another automatically and manually using the AnimationController.
- Chapter 3: In this chapter we will create several components or sets of nested widgets that are common in modern development, such as buttons with special behaviors, staggered grids, expandable headers, side menus, among others.
- Chapter 4: In this chapter we will learn how to use multi-theming in the application, for example, having an application with the default theme and a dark mode.
- Chapter 5: In this chapter we will learn about CustomPainter, which is the HTML Canvas but in Flutter. With them, we can build a large number of figures with great precision.
- Chapter 6: In this chapter we will learn how we can create an adaptive application, using the same source code on various devices with various screen sizes and ensuring that the content is leveraged by the application so that everything does not appear stretched on large screens.
Practical Focus: Creating Custom Components in Flutter
In this book, we want to give Flutter development a practical focus.
We know that there are many predefined widgets in Flutter that we can use in our development, but the truly interesting thing is the possibility of combining them to work together. In this way, we can obtain a true component that is responsible for performing a specific task, such as:
- Displaying a custom header with various shapes.
- A progress bar.
- Buttons with custom behaviors, etc.
In the book, we will explore several of these developments. The goal is to achieve a deeper understanding of Flutter, focusing on the creation of nested widgets or components (which is the term used in the book).
Advanced and Modern Topics
We will also address other topics that you will surely find interesting:
- Multi-Theme Development: For example, creating applications with a dark theme and a light theme.
- Adaptive Applications (Responsive): Creating applications that can be viewed correctly on multiple devices, depending on the window size, and not simply looking stretched.
- Animations: The topic of animations must be present in modern developments. Therefore, we have a chapter focused on introducing how to use animations in Flutter, of which we have several forms. We will also apply them in the development of our components when necessary.
️ Deepening Knowledge in Flutter
In this book, we want to take a more practical approach, creating custom components that are widely used in traditional Flutter development, but may not be so easy to implement, such as:
- Custom headers with complex shapes, using CustomPainter.
- Learning how to use and define our custom animations.
- Other components or nested widgets that you will surely find interesting.
Ultimately, it is a largely practical book, designed to create custom widgets and delve into parts of Flutter that are no longer so basic, but that as a Flutter developer, you must know.
The book is currently under development…
I agree to receive announcements of interest about this Blog.
In this book, we want to take a more practical approach, creating components that are widely used in traditional development with Flutter, such as custom headers with complex shapes using the Custom Painter, knowing how to use and define our custom animations among other components or nested widgets that You will surely find it of interest.
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