Flutter Project

Out-of-the-box features/tools

• Router integration and simple page setup boilerplate
• Login/Register/Profile pages with Firebase Authentication
• Check for app updates to force update (using Firebase Remote Config)
• Logger that make logging easier and sends error logs to Firebase Crashlytics
• Firestore configuration and model/services structuring with helper methods
• FCM notifications with Firebase Messaging and Local Notifications integration that enables foreground and background notifications
• Sync FCM token with Firestore for the logged in users

Running Project

It is recommended to use fvm to run the project. You can install fvm by following the instructions here. If you have fvm installed, you can run the following command,

fvm use
fvm flutter run

Configuration

Enabled Services

1. Authentication https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/auth/start
2. Firestore https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/firestore/usage
3. Crashlytics https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/crashlytics/usage
4. Cloud Messaging https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/messaging/usage
5. Remote Config https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/remote-config/overview
6. Analytics https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/analytics/overview

Project setup

1. Create a firebase project. No need to add any apps yet.
2. Install flutterfire. (Tested with version 0.2.4)
3. Use flutterfire configure to configure the project and add android/iOS apps. (Run this again if you change the application id/add new services)
4. Run configure.py script using python configure.py. You may need to install python. Delete the configure.py file after running the script. If something goes wrong while running the script, reset the project using git reset --hard and try again.
5. Run fvm flutter pub get to install all the dependencies.
6. Run the app.
7. Crash app using top right button and use dashboard to make sure crashlytics integration works.
8. Send a self notification to make sure local notifications integration works.
9. Send a test notification via the dashboard (The FCM registration token will be logged in to the console) and check if it arrives (Both when app is in foreground/background). Tapping it should show a success message.
10. Set and publish minimumAppVersion in Remote Config to 2.0.0 (higher than current), now when you open the app, there should be a message saying that you need to update the app.

Note: To rename the intellij project properly, use intellij refactoring.

Firebase Local Setup/Use Emulators

1. Run firebase init in firebase project directory and enable services and emulators.
2. You can deploy firebase project via firebase deploy. Use firebase deploy --only firestore to deploy firestore rules only.
3. Start emulators by firebase emulators:start.
4. In the app, set DebugConstants.enableEmulators to true.
5. Run the app in a android emulator in the same device as firebase emulators.
6. Now app should connect to firebase emulator.

Design Choices

State Management

The project uses Riverpod to manage the state of the application. The relevant provider code is in lib/providers directory. Additionally, Flutter Hooks are used for manage life cycle of the widgets.

Models

The json models are in lib/models directory. These will be generated using build_runner. The models should not have any dependencies on other packages or any associated logic.

Code generator can be run by following command,

fvm flutter pub run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs

Services

The services are in lib/services directory. Each firebase service will extend FirebaseService class. All query/write/delete methods will be implemented in the associated service class. Each service will also accompany a abstract class (which defines the interface) and a implementation class.

Providers

The providers are in lib/providers directory.

Routing

This project uses Auto Route to handle routing. The relevant code is in lib/router directory. Since this routing package is using code generation, you will have to run build_runner everytime routing code is changed.

Common Widgets

All common widgets live inside lib/widgets directory.

Flutterfire UI is integrated. This includes several auth and firestore widgets. See Flutterfire UI Widget Catalogue for more details.

Pages

All pages live inside lib/pages directory. Each page should be inside directories that represent their feature/use-case.

Logging

The project uses Logger to log the events. Logging can be done simply as Log.d("message") (for debug) or Log.i("message") (for info) or Log.w("message") (for warning) or Log.e("message") (for error). You may also pass an Exception and a StackTrace to log the error as Log.e("message", e, stackTrace).

Note: If the logs are crowded with unnecessary logs, apply following filter (VS Code): I/flutter

Future Work

• Local Notifications Release Config (https://pub.dev/packages/flutter_local_notifications#release-build-configuration)
• iOS Configurations