How to use flutter documentation

Some simple but powerful tips

Today I will share some very simple yet powerful tips and tricks to get the most out of Flutter’s documentation.

YES, you have documentation offline negating the need to visit the website most of the time. That said, the docs site is more organized and contains more information and tools.

So you want to start with Flutter but this is not your first time working with a mobile development platform. Flutter makes it easy for developers to use their prior experience as a starting point. On Flutter’s website, there are full getting started guides for Android, IOS, ReactNative, Xamrin.Forms and web.

Let’s say you are trying to explore the framework or you are in the situation where a widget requires a specific type of data but when you look at the source, it’s an abstract class. This leaves you in a situation where you can’t instantiate the class but find/use a concrete implantation instead.

This can be done with the tools provided by the IDE(for example use find usages in IntelliJ idea ) but it will take time. Another approach would be to check Flutter’s website. If you search the abstract class, the result would include a section on all classes which implements the queried class.

For example, the Shape property in the class ShapeDecoration is a type of ShapeBorder. This class is abstract so searching on would list all the implementers of ShapeBorder.

Another useful example would be finding all available tween. Just search for the Tween class and you would be presented with various implementations of tween which you can use in your app.

If you are on master and need to find something that is specific to that branch, the Flutter team has got you back. There is a version of the Flutter docs website which generates it’s docs from the found code in master.

then try to find the file in the test directory

you will find more than just one example so enjoy it!

I hope you enjoyed this short article. If you have something in mind or you have a tip on how to use the flutter docs feel free to share it in the comments below.

Don’t forget to follow Flutter Community and myself on Twitter for more articles.

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