In recent years, one of the most notable frameworks in mobile application development is Flutter, an open-source UI toolkit developed by Google. With Flutter, you can create applications that run on both iOS and Android platforms with a single codebase. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Visual Studio Code on macOS and set up the Flutter development environment.
1. Check System Requirements
Before installing Visual Studio Code, you need to ensure that your macOS meets the following system requirements.
- macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) or later
- At least 2GB of RAM
- Wireless or wired internet connection (required for downloads and updates)
- Disk space to download the Flutter SDK
2. Download Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is available for free, and you can easily download it following these steps.
- Open a web browser and go to the official Visual Studio Code website.
- On the main page of the website, click the Download for macOS button.
- Once the download is complete, click the downloaded
.dmg
file to open it. - Drag the Visual Studio Code icon to the Applications folder to install it.
3. Run Visual Studio Code
After installing Visual Studio Code, let’s learn how to run the application in the following steps.
- Open Finder and select the Applications folder to find the Visual Studio Code icon.
- Double-click the Visual Studio Code icon to run the application.
- You may see a warning message on first launch. In this case, click the Open button to proceed.
4. Install Flutter SDK
After installing Visual Studio Code, you need to install the Flutter SDK, which is a collection of tools for developing Flutter applications.
- Open your web browser again and go to the Flutter installation page.
- In the “Get Started” section, select “macOS” to view the installation instructions.
- Download the Flutter SDK file.
- Extract the downloaded file into the ~/development folder.
mkdir ~/development
cd ~/development
unzip ~/Downloads/flutter_macos_*.zip
5. Set Environment Variables
To use Flutter-related commands in the terminal, you need to set the PATH
environment variable. This will allow you to easily use Flutter commands in the terminal. Please follow these steps:
- Open the terminal.
- Type the following command to edit the configuration file:
- When the file opens, add the following line at the end of the file:
- Replace [USERNAME] with your username.
- Press
Control + X
to exit and then pressY
to save the changes. - To apply the changes, enter the following command:
- To verify that the installation is complete, enter the following command:
- If there are no issues, Flutter is successfully installed.
nano ~/.zshrc
export PATH="$PATH:/Users/[USERNAME]/development/flutter/bin"
source ~/.zshrc
flutter doctor
6. Install Flutter Plugins
To develop with Flutter in Visual Studio Code, you need to install the Flutter and Dart plugins. Please follow these steps to install the plugins:
- Click the Extensions icon in the left sidebar of Visual Studio Code.
- Type “Flutter” in the search bar and locate the Flutter plugin.
- Click the Install button next to the plugin to install it.
- Install the “Dart” plugin in the same way.
7. Create a New Flutter Project
Once all settings related to Flutter are complete, you can create a new Flutter project and start developing. Follow these steps to create a project:
- Open the terminal in Visual Studio Code and enter the following command to create a new Flutter project:
- Navigate to the newly created project folder:
- To open the project in Visual Studio Code, enter the following command:
flutter create my_first_app
cd my_first_app
code .
8. Run the Application in the Simulator
Once the new project is set up, you can run the application in the simulator. Please follow these steps:
- Run the iOS simulator, which can be installed through Xcode.
- In the terminal of Visual Studio Code, enter the following command to run the application:
flutter run
9. Conclusion
In this tutorial, you learned how to install Visual Studio Code on macOS and set up the Flutter development environment. After completing these steps, you are now ready to use Flutter to develop mobile applications. Future tutorials will cover basic widget composition and layouts in Flutter. See you in the next tutorial!