In this episode, we're diving into the basics of state management in Flutter apps using the Provider package. If you've never touched Provider before, don't worry—this is designed for total beginners!
We'll kick things off by creating a new Flutter project and spin up the classic counter app. Normally, this app uses setState
inside a stateful widget to update the counter when you tap the button. But here, we're going to refactor it to use Provider instead, which is a more scalable solution and super useful for larger apps.
First, you'll see how to add Provider as a dependency in your pubspec.yaml and why that's necessary. Then, we'll walk through creating a simple Counter
model (a class) that extends ChangeNotifier
. This class stores the counter value and includes a method for incrementing it. By calling notifyListeners()
inside that method, we let any listening widgets know that something has changed and it's time to rebuild.
Next, we jump into modifying the app's main function to wrap everything in a ChangeNotifierProvider
so the whole app has access to our counter state. We'll also update the UI: instead of updating the counter with setState
, we use a Consumer
widget that only rebuilds the part of the UI that displays the counter when it changes.
We'll walk through some potential hiccups, like why calling increment directly doesn’t work as expected, and you’ll see the Provider pattern in action: pressing the button triggers the increment in the model, notifies listeners, and the consumer updates the UI.
By the end, you'll have a solid handle on the absolute essentials of state management with Provider, setting you up for more advanced state management in your future Flutter projects!