Unlock the Power of Tabular Data with Flutter’s DataTable Widget
Flexible and Full-Featured Framework
Flutter is a popular, flexible, and full-featured framework for building cross-platform applications. Initially designed for building Android and iOS apps, it now allows developers to create native desktop applications for Linux, macOS, and Windows. One of the essential components of most applications is displaying data in a tabular structure, which can range from simple lists to editable lists with actions.
Introducing the DataTable Widget
Flutter’s UI toolkit offers a variety of widgets, including the DataTable widget, which is designed to display tabular data structures. The DataTable widget is highly flexible compared to native platform-specific list views, making it an ideal choice for developers.
DataTable Principles and Syntax
To get started with the DataTable widget, create a new Flutter app or open an existing one. The DataTable widget consists of three key sub-widgets: DataColumn, DataRow, and DataCell. DataColumn defines columns, DataRow defines rows, and DataCell defines cells inside rows. The syntax is straightforward, allowing developers to create complex data tables with ease.
Building a Simple Book List with DataTable
Let’s create a simple book list using the DataTable widget. Add the following code to your main.dart file:
// code snippet
This will render a book list with three columns and two rows. The DataTable creator code is decomposed into two functions: _createColumns for generating columns and _createRows for generating rows with cell data.
Basic Styling and Configuration
The DataTable widget provides default styles and configurations, but it’s highly customizable. By providing various parameters, developers can configure the DataTable widget to suit their needs. For example, we can increase the row divider’s thickness, change the header row’s background color, text color, and text weight, and enable the footer row.
Adding Sorting and Select All Features
Sorting and selecting all items are essential features for improving usability. The DataTable widget offers built-in sorting and checkbox-based selection features. By defining the primary sort column index and the onSort callback function, developers can enable sorting. Additionally, by adding a callback for DataRow’s onSelectChanged parameter and setting the selection state via DataRow’s selected parameter, developers can enable checkbox-based selections.
Adding Images and Other Widgets into Data Tables
Sometimes, developers need to display icons, buttons, links, or other widgets inside data tables. The DataTable widget allows developers to show widgets inside data cells by simply passing the required widget into DataCell’s constructor.
Showing Dynamic Content with Data Cells
Developers can dynamically change cell data based on user actions. For example, they can add an edit mode feature to allow users to edit cell values. By adding a checkbox to enable/disable the edit mode, developers can create dynamic content with data cells.
Design Pattern Guide
When developing large-scale Flutter applications, source files can become complex and less readable. To reduce complexity, developers can follow design pattern practices such as separating application logic and layout-related code, decomposing widgets’ creation code into separate Dart functions, and creating multiple Dart source files for UI components.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we explored the power of Flutter’s DataTable widget for displaying tabular data. By customizing the DataTable widget and adding features such as sorting, selecting, and dynamic content, developers can create interactive and user-friendly data tables. Whether you’re building a small-scale or large-scale application, the DataTable widget is an essential tool in your Flutter toolkit.