Build a News App with Flutter: A Step-by-Step Guide

Building a News App with Flutter

Are you tired of browsing through multiple news websites to stay updated? Why not build a news app that curates the latest news from around the world? In this article, we’ll show you how to create a news app using Flutter.

Demo Application Overview

Our demo application will have a simple and intuitive interface. The app will display top headlines from around the world, along with a search bar to find specific news articles. The user can also select their preferred country, category, or channel to get customized news feeds.

Setting Up Dependencies

To start building our app, we need to add the following dependencies to our pubspec.yaml file:

• http: for making HTTP requests to fetch news data
• webview_flutter: for displaying news articles in a web view
• carousel_slider: for displaying top headlines in a carousel
• get: for state management

Configuring WebView for Android and iOS

To use the WebView package, we need to make some changes to our Android and iOS configurations. For Android, we need to update the minSdkVersion to at least 19 and add multiDex support. For iOS, we need to add a line to support embedded views.

Acquiring the News API Key

To fetch news data, we need to sign up for a News API key on NewsAPI.org. Once we have our API key, we can use it to make requests to the News API endpoints.

Understanding Endpoints

Endpoints are URLs that allow us to communicate with the News API. The News API has several endpoints, including:

• https://newsapi.org/v2/everything: searches for every article published by over 80,000 different sources
• https://newsapi.org/v2/top-headlines: returns breaking news headlines according to country and category

Writing Model Classes

We need to write model classes to parse the JSON responses from the News API. Our model classes include ArticleModel, NewsModel, and SourceModel.

Fetching Data with GetX Controller Class

We use the GetX controller class to fetch data from the News API. We define variables, methods, and functions to retrieve top headlines, news according to country, category, and channel, and searched news.

Creating a Custom NewsCard Widget

We create a custom NewsCard widget to display the image, title, description, and URL of each news article.

Adding a Search Bar Widget

We add a search bar widget to allow users to search for specific news articles.

Adding a Carousel Widget

We add a carousel widget to display top headlines from around the world.

Adding a Side Drawer Widget

We add a side drawer widget to allow users to select their preferred country, category, or channel.

Completing Our Home Screen

We complete our home screen by adding the NewsCard widget, search bar widget, carousel widget, and side drawer widget.

Adding a WebView Screen

We add a WebView screen to display the full article when a user clicks on a news item.

Making a Splash Screen

We create a splash screen to display a logo and intro text before the user is directed to the home screen.

That’s it! We’ve completed our news app using Flutter. With this app, users can easily find and read the latest news from around the world.