Creating simple games with Flutter.
December 23, 2023Flutter State Restoration: Preserving app state across restarts.
December 25, 2023In the world of mobile application development, it is important to make sure that an app can perform tasks in the background to maintain a smooth user experience. For Flutter developers, running selective background tasks allows their apps to have more functions and still be responsive on the UI. This piece examines how to work with Flutter background tasks and handling state during these processes.
Flutter allows developers to conduct back-end operations seamlessly through its comprehensive library and tools. With this understanding, developers can develop better performing applications that are easy for users.
Implementing Flutter Background Tasks
This means knowing how to execute code when your app is not being actively used. The most commonly used package by Flutter developers for scheduling and running background tasks is workmanager
. To start with, you need to add the package to your pubspec.yaml
file before running flutter pub get
command line in order for it to be installed as a dependency. Afterward, configure background jobs for both Android and iOS.
For Android, configuring the project to use background tasks means updating your build.gradle
file and ensuring that Kotlin is 1.5.0
or higher. Update the AndroidManifest.xml
. You can use the following entry:
Also, you should bear in mind that to get some backend work done, additional measures are needed for iOS. We advise you to check our setup guide.
Next, after setting up the workmanager
package, identify which tasks should run in background mode. This often entails a callback function with task logic. Use a top-level or static function because Dart VM runs it separately from your app’s UI. This might involve using information from APIs (App Programming Interfaces). You could also handle data and manipulate local storage. Also, this will ensure proper control of execution time and resources. By doing so, all possibilities of draining your battery will be prevented, as well as huge data consumption.
Proper Error Handling
Managing State in Background Operations
The state management process in an application’s background is always difficult to manage. Flutter’s UI does not take care of reflecting changes made to the state of operations running in the background. Hence, synchronization between one app’s status and what is happening in the background is necessary for developers using the Provider
package alongside StreamBuilder
or FutureBuilder
widgets are good options for developers looking at work with Flutter as this enables them to change how their applications look while certain jobs run behind them rather than having it hard coded into UI
Updating UI and Preventing Background Tasks
Persisting State
Some processes require a persisting state across background tasks, especially if data retrieval or manipulation is involved. Task progress or results can be stored by employing local storage solutions like SQLite or shared preferences. This becomes critically important when tasks are interrupted or ought to continue after the app has been restarted again. Having good state management for background operations guarantees more than just data consistency; it offers timely and relevant information.