creating-a-new-view.md

Creating a new view

To create a new view, create a Pug file. It is common to put this file in its own directory with the same name, to group the page, styling and optional models together. A single page can contain many flutter-views.

Importing Dart dependencies

Default imports

By default, the following imports are added to **** generated Dart files:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart'
import 'package:flutter/cupertino.dart';

You can add additional default imports using flutter-view.json.

Adding imports

To import additional packages in a Pug or HTML file, use the import tag with the package parameter:

{% tabs %} {% tab title="Pug" %}

import(package='flutter_view_widgets/flutter_view_widgets.dart')

{% endtab %} {% endtabs %}

To import files in a Pug or HTML file, use the import tag with the file parameter. The files are relative to the current file directory:

{% tabs %} {% tab title="Pug" %}

import(file='../directory/test.dart')

{% endtab %} {% endtabs %}

Creating Flutter-views

A flutter-view is transformed into a Dart function. As such, you are just writing Dart functions in an HTML-like format.

Method body

The format of a flutter view in Pug is as follows:

{% tabs %} {% tab title="Pug" %}

method-name(flutter-view [optional parameters])
    ...method body...

{% endtab %} {% endtabs %}

This will render into the following Dart:

MethodName([optional parameters]) {
    return ...method body...
}

The method name in HTML or Pug is dash-cased, and gets transformed into camel-case. The same is true for the parameters.

Note: The generated Dart functions start in uppercase. This is so they can be called from other flutter-views, as will become clear in a moment.

Adding Parameters

Parameters are defined as follows:

:parameter-name[type]?

The [type] and ? are optional:

• The type becomes the type of the parameter in the Dart function. If omitted, it it is considered dynamic
• By default, parameters you specify are required. Adding a ? at the end indicates that they are optional.

Example:

{% tabs %} {% tab title="Pug" %}

task-list-item(flutter-view :task-model[TaskList] :task[Task] :done?)
    ...widgets that show the task...

{% endtab %} {% endtabs %}

This will render into the following Dart:

TaskListItem({ @required TaskList taskModel, @required Task task, done) {
    return ...widgets that show the task..
}