Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash Introduction In the previous article, we overviewed the principles of accessibility and introduced its corresponding Flutter API. Today we’re going to explore different ways of adding a11y (short for accessibility) to our apps. Brainstorming possible implementations There are several approaches to tackle accessibility, such as: some ad-hoc solution, adding the semantics widgets directly into our widget tree creating custom accessible widgets by using extensions any mixture of the previous approaches The following sections deep down into each one of ..read more

Photo by Daniel Ali on Unsplash When we talk about accessibility and accessible apps, we mean building applications that are “responsive” regardless of any user specific needs. In this context, “responsive” means that our app is suitable for all users, regardless they have a visual, a hearing impairment or even a physical handicap. In the end, it’s all about developing inclusive mobile apps. Why should we care about accessibility…? There are several good reasons to build accessible apps, ranging from personal values to financial motivations. Examples would be: ethical aspects laws & regul ..read more

Photo by Todd Mittens on Unsplash Although property-based testing is not one of the most “common” testing techniques, it’s been around for a while. Since it can be applied in almost any programming language, including dart (and Flutter), it’s certainly a tool that may in handy sometimes. Let’s see how it works using a simple example. Initial example Let’s say we’re checking the user legal age in our program and we have the following implementation: class AgeManager { bool checkLegalAge(int year, int month, int day) => DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch >= getLegalAgeTime(Date ..read more

Photo by Charles Forerunner on Unsplash Introduction As we saw on the previous entry, method channels allow us to invoke native code from a Flutter app. From the testing point of view, method channels may look a challenge at first: how do we break the strong dependency on the native platform in order to get our code into test harness? Luckily for us, Flutter includes some built-in features that make testing method channels a no-brainer! Sample feature using a method channel Let’s say we have a helper class in our project that opens the corresponding app stores so the user can up ..read more

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash Introduction Once reviewed the remote configuration and the native setup, we’ll finish this series by checking the CI/CD pipeline configuration required for test automation. So let’s go! Quick recap Automation workflow Create Firebase Project Configure project by adding an account service Enable Cloud Tools Result Update underlying native Android project Configure underlying native Android Test Runner Set up Codemagic pipeline 6. Set up Codemagic pipeline Introduction Codemagic from Nevercode is a CI/CD tool designed initially for Flutter. Nowadays t ..read more

Photo by EttiAmos on iStock Introduction In this article, we will review the configuration required to automate our test suite using a remote test lab and a CI/CD pipeline. Starting project The app… Our application used for automated testing is forked from the fooderlich project, a social recipe app available at raywenderlich site. Lately, Ana Polo has turned it into a mixture of recipes and cats app. Although the recipes are neither for cats nor include them as the main course… Either way, the app uses a bottom navigation bar as primary navigation mechanism and it contains 3 modules: random ..read more

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash Intro In this article, we will describe how we can achieve a fancy type-writer effect: Typewriter effect Author: DEV Community Although there are some packages available on pub.dev, like the one described on this article, the usual question is: “do we really need another package in our beloved pubspeck just for this..?” Let’s explore some features like: Generators StreamBuilders and then we will see! Generators Generator functions in Dart are used to provide a series of values, sequentially, one after the other. The values provided by a generator object ar ..read more

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash Introduction Once reviewed the remote configuration and the native setup, we’ll finish this series by checking the CI/CD pipeline configuration required for test automation. So let’s go! Quick recap Automation workflow Create Firebase Project Configure project by adding an account service Enable Cloud Tools Result Update underlying native Android project Configure underlying native Android Test Runner Set up Codemagic pipeline 6. Set up Codemagic pipeline Introduction Codemagic from Nevercode is a CI/CD tool designed initially for Flutter. Nowadays t ..read more

Photo by Lucas Benjamin on Unsplash Introduction Flutter offers a wide range of possibilities when talking about automatic tests: unit testing, suitable for individual methods and/or classes widget testing, handy when checking the visual components of our app integration testing, useful in order to review end-to-end flows or features golden testing, for pixel-perfect tests Golden tests are available by default in the Flutter framework, but their usage is not as frequent as the other types of testing. What are they exactly? When should we use them? Are they worth it? Let’s find out! What are ..read more

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash Intro In this article, we will describe how we can achieve a fancy type-writer effect: Typewriter effect Author: DEV Community Although there are some packages available on pub.dev, like the one described on this article, the usual question is: “do we really need another package in our beloved pubspeck just for this..?” Let’s explore some features like: Generators StreamBuilders and then we will see! Generators Generators functions in Dart are used to provide a series of values, sequentially, one after the other. The values provided by a generator object a ..read more