getx
Open screens/snackbars/dialogs/bottomSheets without context, manage states and inject dependencies easily with Get.
About Get
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GetX is an extra-light and powerful solution for Flutter. It combines high-performance state management, intelligent dependency injection, and route management quickly and practically.
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GetX has 3 basic principles. This means that these are the priority for all resources in the library: PRODUCTIVITY, PERFORMANCE AND ORGANIZATION.
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PERFORMANCE: GetX is focused on performance and minimum consumption of resources. GetX does not use Streams or ChangeNotifier.
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PRODUCTIVITY: GetX uses an easy and pleasant syntax. No matter what you want to do, there is always an easier way with GetX. It will save hours of development and will provide the maximum performance your application can deliver.
Generally, the developer should be concerned with removing controllers from memory. With GetX this is not necessary because resources are removed from memory when they are not used by default. If you want to keep it in memory, you must explicitly declare "permanent: true" in your dependency. That way, in addition to saving time, you are less at risk of having unnecessary dependencies on memory. Dependency loading is also lazy by default.
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ORGANIZATION: GetX allows the total decoupling of the View, presentation logic, business logic, dependency injection, and navigation. You do not need context to navigate between routes, so you are not dependent on the widget tree (visualization) for this. You don't need context to access your controllers/blocs through an inheritedWidget, so you completely decouple your presentation logic and business logic from your visualization layer. You do not need to inject your Controllers/Models/Blocs classes into your widget tree through
MultiProvider
s. For this, GetX uses its own dependency injection feature, decoupling the DI from its view completely.With GetX you know where to find each feature of your application, having clean code by default. In addition to making maintenance easy, this makes the sharing of modules something that until then in Flutter was unthinkable, something totally possible.
BLoC was a starting point for organizing code in Flutter, it separates business logic from visualization. GetX is a natural evolution of this, not only separating the business logic but the presentation logic. Bonus injection of dependencies and routes are also decoupled, and the data layer is out of it all. You know where everything is, and all of this in an easier way than building a hello world.
GetX is the easiest, practical, and scalable way to build high-performance applications with the Flutter SDK. It has a large ecosystem around it that works perfectly together, it's easy for beginners, and it's accurate for experts. It is secure, stable, up-to-date, and offers a huge range of APIs built-in that are not present in the default Flutter SDK.
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GetX is not bloated. It has a multitude of features that allow you to start programming without worrying about anything, but each of these features are in separate containers and are only started after use. If you only use State Management, only State Management will be compiled. If you only use routes, nothing from the state management will be compiled.
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GetX has a huge ecosystem, a large community, a large number of collaborators, and will be maintained as long as the Flutter exists. GetX too is capable of running with the same code on Android, iOS, Web, Mac, Linux, Windows, and on your server.
It is possible to fully reuse your code made on the frontend on your backend with Get Server.
In addition, the entire development process can be completely automated, both on the server and on the front end with Get CLI.
In addition, to further increase your productivity, we have the
extension to VSCode and the extension to Android Studio/Intellij
Installing
Add Get to your pubspec.yaml file:
Import get in files that it will be used:
Counter App with GetX
The "counter" project created by default on new project on Flutter has over 100 lines (with comments). To show the power of Get, I will demonstrate how to make a "counter" changing the state with each click, switching between pages and sharing the state between screens, all in an organized way, separating the business logic from the view, in ONLY 26 LINES CODE INCLUDING COMMENTS.
- Step 1:
Add "Get" before your MaterialApp, turning it into GetMaterialApp
-
Note: this does not modify the MaterialApp of the Flutter, GetMaterialApp is not a modified MaterialApp, it is just a pre-configured Widget, which has the default MaterialApp as a child. You can configure this manually, but it is definitely not necessary. GetMaterialApp will create routes, inject them, inject translations, inject everything you need for route navigation. If you use Get only for state management or dependency management, it is not necessary to use GetMaterialApp. GetMaterialApp is necessary for routes, snackbars, internationalization, bottomSheets, dialogs, and high-level apis related to routes and absence of context.
-
Note²: This step is only necessary if you gonna use route management (
Get.to()
,Get.back()
and so on). If you not gonna use it then it is not necessary to do step 1 -
Step 2:
Create your business logic class and place all variables, methods and controllers inside it.
You can make any variable observable using a simple ".obs".
- Step 3:
Create your View, use StatelessWidget and save some RAM, with Get you may no longer need to use StatefulWidget.
Result:
This is a simple project but it already makes clear how powerful Get is. As your project grows, this difference will become more significant.
Get was designed to work with teams, but it makes the job of an individual developer simple.
Improve your deadlines, deliver everything on time without losing performance. Get is not for everyone, but if you identified with that phrase, Get is for you!
The Three pillars
State management
Get has two different state managers: the simple state manager (we'll call it GetBuilder) and the reactive state manager (GetX/Obx)
Reactive State Manager
Reactive programming can alienate many people because it is said to be complicated. GetX turns reactive programming into something quite simple:
- You won't need to create StreamControllers.
- You won't need to create a StreamBuilder for each variable
- You will not need to create a class for each state.
- You will not need to create a get for an initial value.
- You will not need to use code generators
Reactive programming with Get is as easy as using setState.
Let's imagine that you have a name variable and want that every time you change it, all widgets that use it are automatically changed.
This is your count variable:
To make it observable, you just need to add ".obs" to the end of it:
And in the UI, when you want to show that value and update the screen whenever the values changes, simply do this:
That's all. It's that simple.
More details about state management
See an more in-depth explanation of state management here. There you will see more examples and also the difference between the simple state manager and the reactive state manager
You will get a good idea of GetX power.
Route management
If you are going to use routes/snackbars/dialogs/bottomsheets without context, GetX is excellent for you too, just see it:
Add "Get" before your MaterialApp, turning it into GetMaterialApp
Navigate to a new screen:
Navigate to new screen with name. See more details on named routes here
To close snackbars, dialogs, bottomsheets, or anything you would normally close with Navigator.pop(context);
To go to the next screen and no option to go back to the previous screen (for use in SplashScreens, login screens, etc.)
To go to the next screen and cancel all previous routes (useful in shopping carts, polls, and tests)
Noticed that you didn't have to use context to do any of these things? That's one of the biggest advantages of using Get route management. With this, you can execute all these methods from within your controller class, without worries.
More details about route management
Get works with named routes and also offers lower-level control over your routes! There is in-depth documentation here
Dependency management
Get has a simple and powerful dependency manager that allows you to retrieve the same class as your Bloc or Controller with just 1 lines of code, no Provider context, no inheritedWidget:
- Note: If you are using Get's State Manager, pay more attention to the bindings API, which will make it easier to connect your view to your controller.
Instead of instantiating your class within the class you are using, you are instantiating it within the Get instance, which will make it available throughout your App.
So you can use your controller (or class Bloc) normally
Tip: Get dependency management is decoupled from other parts of the package, so if for example, your app is already using a state manager (any one, it doesn't matter), you don't need to rewrite it all, you can use this dependency injection with no problems at all
Imagine that you have navigated through numerous routes, and you need data that was left behind in your controller, you would need a state manager combined with the Provider or Get_it, correct? Not with Get. You just need to ask Get to "find" for your controller, you don't need any additional dependencies:
And then you will be able to recover your controller data that was obtained back there:
More details about dependency management
See a more in-depth explanation of dependency management here
Utils
Internationalization
Translations
Translations are kept as a simple key-value dictionary map.
To add custom translations, create a class and extend Translations
.
Using translations
Just append .tr
to the specified key and it will be translated, using the current value of Get.locale
and Get.fallbackLocale
.
Using translation with singular and plural
Using translation with parameters
Locales
Pass parameters to GetMaterialApp
to define the locale and translations.
Change locale
Call Get.updateLocale(locale)
to update the locale. Translations then automatically use the new locale.
System locale
To read the system locale, you could use Get.deviceLocale
.
Change Theme
Please do not use any higher level widget than GetMaterialApp
in order to update it. This can trigger duplicate keys. A lot of people are used to the prehistoric approach of creating a "ThemeProvider" widget just to change the theme of your app, and this is definitely NOT necessary with GetX™.
You can create your custom theme and simply add it within Get.changeTheme
without any boilerplate for that:
If you want to create something like a button that changes the Theme in onTap
, you can combine two GetX™ APIs for that:
- The api that checks if the dark
Theme
is being used. - And the
Theme
Change API, you can just put this within anonPressed
:
When .darkmode
is activated, it will switch to the light theme, and when the light theme becomes active, it will change to dark theme.
GetConnect
GetConnect is an easy way to communicate from your back to your front with http or websockets
Default configuration
You can simply extend GetConnect and use the GET/POST/PUT/DELETE/SOCKET methods to communicate with your Rest API or websockets.
Custom configuration
GetConnect is highly customizable You can define base Url, as answer modifiers, as Requests modifiers, define an authenticator, and even the number of attempts in which it will try to authenticate itself, in addition to giving the possibility to define a standard decoder that will transform all your requests into your Models without any additional configuration.
GetPage Middleware
The GetPage has now new property that takes a list of GetMiddleWare and run them in the specific order.
Note: When GetPage has a Middlewares, all the children of this page will have the same middlewares automatically.
Priority
The Order of the Middlewares to run can be set by the priority in the GetMiddleware.
those middlewares will be run in this order -8 => 2 => 4 => 5
Redirect
This function will be called when the page of the called route is being searched for. It takes RouteSettings as a result to redirect to. Or give it null and there will be no redirecting.
onPageCalled
This function will be called when this Page is called before anything created
you can use it to change something about the page or give it new page
OnBindingsStart
This function will be called right before the Bindings are initialize.
Here you can change Bindings for this page.
OnPageBuildStart
This function will be called right after the Bindings are initialize.
Here you can do something after that you created the bindings and before creating the page widget.
OnPageBuilt
This function will be called right after the GetPage.page function is called and will give you the result of the function. and take the widget that will be showed.
OnPageDispose
This function will be called right after disposing all the related objects (Controllers, views, ...) of the page.
Other Advanced APIs
Optional Global Settings and Manual configurations
GetMaterialApp configures everything for you, but if you want to configure Get manually.
You will also be able to use your own Middleware within GetObserver
, this will not influence anything.
You can create Global Settings for Get
. Just add Get.config
to your code before pushing any route.
Or do it directly in your GetMaterialApp
You can optionally redirect all the logging messages from Get
.
If you want to use your own, favourite logging package,
and want to capture the logs there:
Local State Widgets
These Widgets allows you to manage a single value, and keep the state ephemeral and locally.
We have flavours for Reactive and Simple.
For instance, you might use them to toggle obscureText in a TextField
, maybe create a custom
Expandable Panel, or maybe modify the current index in BottomNavigationBar
while changing the content
of the body in a Scaffold
.
ValueBuilder
A simplification of StatefulWidget
that works with a .setState
callback that takes the updated value.
ObxValue
Similar to ValueBuilder
, but this is the Reactive version, you pass a Rx instance (remember the magical .obs?) and
updates automatically... isn't it awesome?
Useful tips
.obs
ervables (also known as Rx Types) have a wide variety of internal methods and operators.
Is very common to believe that a property with
.obs
IS the actual value... but make no mistake!
We avoid the Type declaration of the variable, because Dart's compiler is smart enough, and the code
looks cleaner, but:
Even if message
prints the actual String value, the Type is RxString!
So, you can't do message.substring( 0, 4 )
.
You have to access the real value
inside the observable:
The most "used way" is .value
, but, did you know that you can also use...
StateMixin
Another way to handle your UI
state is use the StateMixin<T>
.
To implement it, use the with
to add the StateMixin<T>
to your controller which allows a T model.
The change()
method change the State whenever we want.
Just pass the data and the status in this way:
RxStatus allow these status:
To represent it in the UI, use:
GetView
I love this Widget, is so simple, yet, so useful!
Is a const Stateless
Widget that has a getter controller
for a registered Controller
, that's all.
GetResponsiveView
Extend this widget to build responsive view.
this widget contains the screen
property that have all
information about the screen size and type.
How to use it
You have two options to build it.
- with
builder
method you return the widget to build. - with methods
desktop
,tablet
,phone
,watch
. the specific
method will be built when the screen type matches the method
when the screen is [ScreenType.Tablet] thetablet
method
will be exuded and so on.
Note: If you use this method please set the propertyalwaysUseBuilder
tofalse
With settings
property you can set the width limit for the screen types.
Code to this screen
code
GetWidget
Most people have no idea about this Widget, or totally confuse the usage of it.
The use case is very rare, but very specific: It caches
a Controller.
Because of the cache, can't be a const Stateless
.
So, when do you need to "cache" a Controller?
If you use, another "not so common" feature of GetX: Get.create()
.
Get.create(()=>Controller())
will generate a new Controller
each time you call
Get.find<Controller>()
,
That's where GetWidget
shines... as you can use it, for example,
to keep a list of Todo items. So, if the widget gets "rebuilt", it will keep the same controller instance.
GetxService
This class is like a GetxController
, it shares the same lifecycle ( onInit()
, onReady()
, onClose()
).
But has no "logic" inside of it. It just notifies GetX Dependency Injection system, that this subclass
can not be removed from memory.
So is super useful to keep your "Services" always reachable and active with Get.find()
. Like:
ApiService
, StorageService
, CacheService
.
The only way to actually delete a GetxService
, is with Get.reset()
which is like a
"Hot Reboot" of your app. So remember, if you need absolute persistence of a class instance during the
lifetime of your app, use GetxService
.
Tests
You can test your controllers like any other class, including their lifecycles:
Tips
Mockito or mocktail
If you need to mock your GetxController/GetxService, you should extend GetxController, and mixin it with Mock, that way
Using Get.reset()
If you are testing widgets, or test groups, use Get.reset at the end of your test or in tearDown to reset all settings from your previous test.
Get.testMode
if you are using your navigation in your controllers, use Get.testMode = true
at the beginning of your main.
Breaking changes from 2.0
1- Rx types:
Before | After |
---|---|
StringX | RxString |
IntX | RxInt |
MapX | RxMap |
ListX | RxList |
NumX | RxNum |
DoubleX | RxDouble |
RxController and GetBuilder now have merged, you no longer need to memorize which controller you want to use, just use GetxController, it will work for simple state management and for reactive as well.
2- NamedRoutes
Before:
Now:
Why this change?
Often, it may be necessary to decide which page will be displayed from a parameter, or a login token, the previous approach was inflexible, as it did not allow this.
Inserting the page into a function has significantly reduced the RAM consumption, since the routes will not be allocated in memory since the app was started, and it also allowed to do this type of approach:
Why Getx?
1- Many times after a Flutter update, many of your packages will break. Sometimes compilation errors happen, errors often appear that there are still no answers about, and the developer needs to know where the error came from, track the error, only then try to open an issue in the corresponding repository, and see its problem solved. Get centralizes the main resources for development (State, dependency and route management), allowing you to add a single package to your pubspec, and start working. After a Flutter update, the only thing you need to do is update the Get dependency, and get to work. Get also resolves compatibility issues. How many times a version of a package is not compatible with the version of another, because one uses a dependency in one version, and the other in another version? This is also not a concern using Get, as everything is in the same package and is fully compatible.
2- Flutter is easy, Flutter is incredible, but Flutter still has some boilerplate that may be unwanted for most developers, such as Navigator.of(context).push (context, builder [...]
. Get simplifies development. Instead of writing 8 lines of code to just call a route, you can just do it: Get.to(Home())
and you're done, you'll go to the next page. Dynamic web urls are a really painful thing to do with Flutter currently, and that with GetX is stupidly simple. Managing states in Flutter, and managing dependencies is also something that generates a lot of discussion, as there are hundreds of patterns in the pub. But there is nothing as easy as adding a ".obs" at the end of your variable, and place your widget inside an Obx, and that's it, all updates to that variable will be automatically updated on the screen.
3- Ease without worrying about performance. Flutter's performance is already amazing, but imagine that you use a state manager, and a locator to distribute your blocs/stores/controllers/ etc. classes. You will have to manually call the exclusion of that dependency when you don't need it. But have you ever thought of simply using your controller, and when it was no longer being used by anyone, it would simply be deleted from memory? That's what GetX does. With SmartManagement, everything that is not being used is deleted from memory, and you shouldn't have to worry about anything but programming. You will be assured that you are consuming the minimum necessary resources, without even having created a logic for this.
4- Actual decoupling. You may have heard the concept "separate the view from the business logic". This is not a peculiarity of BLoC, MVC, MVVM, and any other standard on the market has this concept. However, this concept can often be mitigated in Flutter due to the use of context.
If you need context to find an InheritedWidget, you need it in the view, or pass the context by parameter. I particularly find this solution very ugly, and to work in teams we will always have a dependence on View's business logic. Getx is unorthodox with the standard approach, and while it does not completely ban the use of StatefulWidgets, InitState, etc., it always has a similar approach that can be cleaner. Controllers have life cycles, and when you need to make an APIREST request for example, you don't depend on anything in the view. You can use onInit to initiate the http call, and when the data arrives, the variables will be populated. As GetX is fully reactive (really, and works under streams), once the items are filled, all widgets that use that variable will be automatically updated in the view. This allows people with UI expertise to work only with widgets, and not have to send anything to business logic other than user events (like clicking a button), while people working with business logic will be free to create and test the business logic separately.
This library will always be updated and implementing new features. Feel free to offer PRs and contribute to them.