Create a Netflix Clone With Flutter
In this project, a Netflix clone is created using Flutter. When developing a mobile application to be compatible with both Android and iOS, there are many factors that consumes time and money. Flutter prevents casualties. Flutter uses a programming language called Dart to develop applications. This programming language ensures that you get maximum efficiency with minimum code.
You can view the GitHub source code that contains the entire application.
Create a Flutter Project
The first thing we’ll do is create the project we’ll be working on. If you do not have Flutter installed yet, please go to Install Flutter.
You can choose the project name as you wish. The next step is to install the emulator. For this, your SDK setup must be ready. Choose the emulator you want to work with and proceed.
After clicking “Finish”, you will see your newly created emulator Android device in the list.
Now that our project and emulator are ready, we can start preparing our clone. Do not forget to open your emulator and link it to the project.
Create an Image File
Prepare the image file that you will use in your project. It makes our work easier if all images have the same extension (.png, .jpeg, etc.). If you want, you can give names or numbers to your images. This is one of the factors that will make your work easier. You can find the Netflix logo we will use in the image below.
Copy this file you created under your project.
Create dart files
To increase work efficiency, we will split our codes into parts. This way, we will write codes that are easier to understand, and when a problem occurs, we will find the problem more easily. The dart files we will create in this study look like this.
Pubspec File Supplements
Every Flutter project contains a pubspec. A basic pubspec is created when you create a new Flutter project. It is located at the top of the project tree and contains metadata about the project that Dart and the Flutter tools need to know. If you want to add data other than what is already there, you need to add it to the yaml file. In this project, we need to add the images to the yaml file. If you want to make other additions, such as different fonts, you should add them to the yaml file. If you want to add one or two photos, you can do so by entering the names of your photos. However, if there are too many photos, you can add the files directly as follows.
Note: Pay attention to indentation, assets should be properly indented to avoid errors.
After this process is complete, do not forget to start “pub get” so that the files you added can run smoothly.
Now that everything is ready, we can start writing code.
Coding
→main.dart
Let us start with our main.dart file. Dart programs have an entry point called main. When you start Flutter, the main function is executed first. In this case, the main function calls the Flutter-specific function runApp, which takes any widget as an argument and creates a full-screen layout.
The main file always comes with a finished skeleton to the project. We will design this skeleton according to our own ideas.
As you can see, in this dart file we set the colors for the features like the background and the bottom navigation bar that we will create soon. It is very important to pay attention to the libraries we add. The project and file names you create may differ. Before you can use Material BottomNavigation, you must import the Material Components package for Flutter.
Navigations
We will use StatefulWidget to create the bottom navigation bar. This element is an arbitrary widget that does not change based on user input. Icons, texts, stateful widgets respond to user input.
StatefulWidgets:
• It changes dynamically.
• Depends on user input.
• It changes when there is user interaction.
→bottom_navigation.dart
The bottom navigation bar in Flutter can contain multiple elements such as text labels, icons, or both. It allows the user to quickly navigate between parent views of an application. In the Netflix application, we add the icons for Home, Games, Coming Soon, Downloads, and more as follows. We choose the icons from the library in Flutter. However, if you want to customize them, you can also download the icon and add it to your project.
After you select the icons that are closest to the original, the bottom navigation bar emulator will look like this.
Widgets
When creating widgets, we will use the stateless widget class. Stateless widgets are widgets whose state cannot be changed after they are created. These widgets are fixed after they are created, which means that no changes to variables, icons, buttons, or retrieving data can change the state of the app.
When creating a mobile app, it is important to understand that there are situations when the state of the mobile app should change and situations when it should not.
A simple example of a Stetless widget is working in a calculator application. The structure of UI does not change, i.e. the columns and rows remain the same. However, when a user enters a number/shape in the text field, the original state must be changed. Thus, it is the opposite of a stateful widget and a stateless widget.
→movie_card.dart
With this dart file, we make a coding to avoid performing the same operations every time to get a general arrangement for the series and movies to be added. We add decoration properties such as height, width and frame radius. This way, the same process is applied to all the images we add when we import them into the main page.
→top_bar.dart
This file is used to add TV shows, movies, categories, the Netflix logo and other toolbars to the Netflix application.
The picture we will see at the end of these supplements will be as follows:
→special_movie.dart
With this file we add the dimension and decoration properties of the main directory that will be seen on the main screen. As we know, on the series or movies displayed in the Netflix application there are Play, Add to my list and Get information icons. At the same time, we will add these icons to the special_movie.dart file. We specify the name of the series or movie image that we will add here in the home_page file. In this way we will get an image like the following:
View
→home_page.dart
With this file, we will now begin to create the image of our Netflix clone. We will do this using a StatefulWidget. One of the most important details here is that we import the other widgets files we created.
The main purpose of this file is to add rows to this column that can be scrolled horizontally after adding a column on a scrollable page. We add our series that will appear on the login screen by importing the special_movie.dart file that we created earlier.
We will divide the series and movies that we will add into 3 different categories. These:
• Popular on Netflix
• Trending now
• New releases
It will be in shape. You can add as many sections as you like.
The most important thing at this point is that you can scroll down the page. For this reason, we use the SingleChildScrollView method. This method allows you to move the widget inside on the wave if there is not enough space.
By creating rows under each category we created, we add the sequences by importing the moviecard.dart file we created earlier.
As we can see here, by adding row() to the main column(), we add the desired horizontal scrolling functions and series/movies.
As you can see from the code, in addition to a main scroll view, we provide a horizontal listing of the movies we added with the scroll function we added here. Therefore, we choose the function as “scrollDirection : Axis.horizontal”. In addition, the BouncingScrollPhysics function provides a bouncing effect when a user reaches the end of the list. This physics is a little smoother to slide compared to other types of physics.
Conclusion
After all this work we have done, when we launch our project, we can see our Netflix clone on our emulator. Not only can we scroll vertically on the page, but we also provide a horizontal transition between categories. You can develop this clone as you like or even design your own pink Netflix interface.
You can find the Github link of the project here:
Hande Aygenli