HERE SDK Reference Application for Flutter

by Flutter Awesome

HERE SDK Reference Application for Flutter

The reference application for the HERE SDK for Flutter (Navigate Edition) shows how a complex and release-ready project targeting iOS and Android devices may look like. You can use it as a source of inspiration for your own HERE SDK based projects - in parts or as a whole.

Overview

With this blueprint reference application you can see how UX flows can be built for the HERE SDK - covering the main use cases from searching for POIs, planning and picking a route and finally starting the trip to your destination.

  • Learn how the HERE SDK 4.x can be complemented with rich UI for your own application development.
  • Discover how to avoid common pitfalls, master edge cases and benefit from optimized end user flows.
  • All code using the HERE SDK is implemented in pure Dart following well-established clean code standards.
  • On top, the reference application is enriched with tailored graphical assets - adapted for various screen sizes and ready to be used in your own projects.

If you are looking for smaller bits & pieces or just want to get started with the integration of the HERE SDK into a simpler project, you may want to start looking into our example apps selection including a stripped down hello_map_app that accompanies the Developer's Guide for the HERE SDK.

The reference application hosted in this repo focuses on how specific features can be implemented and used within the context of a full blown Flutter application - not only to show the usage of our APIs and the HERE SDK functionality as clear and understandable as possible, but also to show how complex Flutter projects in general can be organized and developed with production quality.

Supported features (so far):

  • Search: Including suggestions, text search and search along a route corridor.
  • Routing: As of now, the reference application supports the following transport modes: car, truck, scooter and pedestrian.
  • Turn-By-Turn Navigation: Including maneuver instructions with visual feedback and voice guidance.

Get Started

The reference application for the HERE SDK for Flutter (Navigate Edition) requires the following prerequisites:

On top you need an IDE of your choice. This could be a text editor or IDEs such as Visual Studio Code with the Flutter extension or Android Studio. We use Android Studio 4.1.3 for development.

Note: If you want to compile, build & run for iOS devices, you also need to have Xcode and CocoaPods (version 1.10.0 or higher) installed. We use Xcode 12.4 for development. If you only target Android devices, Xcode is not required.

Add the HERE SDK Plugin

Make sure you have cloned this repository and you have downloaded the HERE SDK for Flutter (Navigate Edition), see above.

  1. Unzip the downloaded HERE SDK for Flutter package. This folder contains various files including various documentation assets.
  2. Inside the unzipped package you will find a TAR file that contains the HERE SDK plugin.
  3. Unzip the TAR file and rename the folder to 'here_sdk'. Move it inside the plugins folder.

Build the Reference Application

  1. Set your HERE SDK credentials: The reference application does not require hardcoded credentials for the AndroidManifest or Plist file. Instead the credentials are read from your local environment. Therefore, you need to add two system environment variables, HERESDK_ACCESS_KEY_ID and HERESDK_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET. For example, from a MacOS terminal execute:

    • export HERESDK_ACCESS_KEY_ID="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID"
    • export HERESDK_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET"

    You may need to restart the terminal application to take effect.

    Note that for iOS builds an extra step is needed: Execute the bash script setup_ios_here_sdk_keys.sh with setup_ios_here_sdk_keys.sh from within the iOS folder of this repository. As a result, a new file should be created under ios/Flutter/GeneratedKeys.xcconfig which will contain your credentials.

  2. Go to the repository root folder which contains the pubspec.yaml and run the terminal command flutter pub get to fetch the required dependencies.

  3. Open the project in your IDE of choice and execute the Flutter project for your target platform.

How to build Flutter apps for Android and iOS

If you are new to Flutter, here are more detailed steps for you. You may also want to consult the official Flutter site in general and the Flutter SDK documentation in particular first.

  • Build for Android:
    • Build an Android APK by executing flutter build apk or use the command flutter run to build and run on an attached device.
  • Build for iOS:
    • Run pod install in the ios folder.
    • Then go back to the repository root folder and type flutter build ios to build a Runner.app. Type flutter run to build and run on an attached device.
    • You can open the /repository root/ios/Runner.xcworkspace project in Xcode and execute and debug from there.
    • Note: You need to have valid development certificates available to sign the app for device deployment.

GitHub

https://github.com/heremaps/here-sdk-ref-app-flutter