Hello from InspireUI, this is our regular update for the detailed changelog guide and roadmap for our product update.

At this first July, we continue releasing a new version of the amazing e-commerce Flutter app — Fluxstore v1.3. This version is full of new features compatible with the new Flutter 1.7, including new Smart Chat, Auto Address Fill-in via Map View, Discount, Dynamic product variant, Opencart full compatibility with Free Rest API included in the download package, many minor UX/UI upgrades, bug fixing, and performance improvements.

Overview:

1. Opencart integration.
2. SmartChat
3. Address Filling via Google Map.
4. Dynamic Product Variant
5. Onboarding screens and strict Login mode.
6. How to migrate to Flutter 1.7
7. Performance Tips.
8. Road map for the next version 1.4.

1. Opencart integration

If we search google with keyword “Rest API Opencart”, then we can realize the Opencart does not support fully Rest API and we should purchase the extra expensive API. It’s lucky that Fluxstore comes in with free Opencart API included from the download package.

1. For installing the extension, opening the admin panel, then click Extensions->Installerand upload mstore.ocmod.zip

For more reference about this API document function, please go to https://opencart-api.now.sh/

2. Open the lib/common/config and change the config to map to your Opencart website:

"server": {
    "type": "opencart",
    "url": "http://opencart-demo.mstore.io",
    ...
},

You can also try with the example config file to map to our site from the example folder,`config_opencart.json` and config_opencart.dart. For more information about the Opencart settings, please refer to this document guide — https://docs.inspireui.com/fluxstore/opencart-setup/

2. SmartChat

(released on v1.3.5)

Nothing is worse than customers cannot get help from your business at the right time when they are getting trouble. Worry no more, SmartChat comes to save the day. There are a variety of choices customers can reach your business including using Chat Feature that we have already built or using external apps if your business has already had a support system. When using the Chat Feature, it is easy and convenient for Admin to manage all messages from customers thanks to Chat List feature (only Admin can access to). Besides, attached images are also supported and stored in Firebase Storage. When coming to store the data in the conversation, you may think about the security and efficiency, right? Just relax, Firebase flatform is made by Google, that means, all of your data is totally safe and high-speed accessed.

As mentioned above, the default option for Chat Feature is using the Firebase. Please follow these steps for the config:

1. For adding an Android app to your project: Open the Firebase Console, follow the assistant from Google Docs, download the generated google-services.json file and place it inside the android app.
2. For adding an iOS app to your project: Open the Firebase Console, follow the assistant from Google Docs, download the generated GoogleService-Info.plist file, open ios/Runner.xcworkspace with Xcode, and place the file inside ios/Runner within Xcode.
3. Update the Shop Owner admin email address so that the end-users can reach your business.

/// file: common/config.dart
const String adminEmail = "[email protected]";

To control the visibility of the SmartChat feature, you can either remove the unnecessary communication apps or adjust the ‘account’ and ‘phone’ property in URL to meet your business need. Let’s take a look at the SmartChat below for instance:

/// file: common/config.dartconst smartChat = [
{'app': 'whatsapp://send?phone=8499999999', 'iconData': FontAwesomeIcons.whatsapp},
{'app': 'https://m.me/csasonic2', 'iconData': FontAwesomeIcons.facebookMessenger},
{'app': 'tel:8499999999', 'iconData': FontAwesomeIcons.phone},
{'app': 'sms://8499999999', 'iconData': FontAwesomeIcons.sms}
];

List of available supported chat apps: Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, ….The smart chat is also flexible to change the app scheme to open as an external app.

3. Address Filling via Google Map.

Get an API key at https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/ if you haven’t got one.

Open the lib/common/config.dart and replace your own key:

const kGoogleAPIKey = {
  "android": "your-google-api-key",
  "ios": "your-google-api-key"
};

Open ios/Runner/AppDelegate.m and replace your own key:

[GMSServices provideAPIKey:@"your-google-api-key"];

Open android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml: and replace your own key:

<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.geo.API_KEY"
    android:value="your-google-api-key"/>

To protect your key, log in to https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials/key and manage the restrictions per-app bundle id:

4. Dynamic Product Variant

Open common/config.dart to custom the products variant values or order the display position.

const ProductVariantLayout = {
  "color": "color",
  "size": "box",
  "height": "option",
};

• key: should be matched with the variant key name, example: color, size, height, weight…
• value: support 3 types of layout color (circle with multi color), box(the rectangle box)and option (the dropdown selection)

There is feedback from one of our customers to adjust the product detail design screen. He reported that the default detail screen just matched with the Fashion UI so the team has made some upgrade to make the product detail more flexible by below config

const kProductDetail = {
  "height": 1.2,
  "marginTop": 0,
  "isHero": false,
};

• height the percent height of the featured product images.
• marginTop the top margin with the top edge. This setting to prevent the product detail screen from being cropped without using SafeArea widget.
• isHero option to enable the hero animate.

5. Onboarding screens and strict Login mode.

To customize the onboarding content (the welcome screen), edit the file common/config.dart

List onBoardingData = [
  {
    "title": "Welcome to FluxStore",
    "image": "assets/images/fogg-delivery-1.png",
    "desc": "Fluxstore is on the way to serve you. "
  },
  {
    "title": "Connect Surrounding World",
    "image": "assets/images/fogg-uploading-1.png",
    "desc": "See all things happening around you just by a click in your phone. Fast, convenient and clean."
  },
  {
    "title": "Let's Get Started",
    "image": "fogg-order-completed.png",
    "desc": "Waiting no more, let's see what we get!"
  },
];

There is also a new feature to strict user login before using the app by enabling `IsRequiredLogin`

const bool IsRequiredLogin = false;

6. How to migrate to Flutter 1.7

New FluxStore 1.3 is fully compatible with the latest 1.7 version Fluter. To upgrade new Flutter version try to run

flutter upgrade

Please read this post for more detail about this upgrade https://medium.com/flutter/announcing-flutter-1-7-9cab4f34eacf

Make sure to change the XCode project File, Workspace Settings, New Build System

If you have some error with new flutter

• Try to run this script from the ios folder:

pod deintegrate
pod update

• Go to the project folder and restart the flutter project by Android Studio, or run

flutter run/// you can also check this script to find out issue
flutter doctor

7. Performance Tips

Below tips have been checked and verified by the Flutter Performance tools from the Android Studio, so now just try on your own. We highly recommend:

• Replace ListView by SingleChildScrollView and Column for some persistence list widget, for example, the horizontal list from the Fluxstore homepage.
• Replace Card widget by Container
• Remove all child Material widget, just keep one for the parent widget as it will hugely impact your app, some open-source library from https://pub.dev/flutter still have this performance issue.
• didChangeDependencies function will cause multi render and unuse resource, we suggest to use the after_layout library instead.
• AutomaticKeepAliveClientMixin prevents the render from switching to other tabs.
• Use AsyncMemoizer and StateFull widget when usingFutureBuilder

8. Road map for the next version 1.4.

Here is our road map for next version release:

• Upgrade the payment solution for Magento and Opencart.
• Support add new rating and comments.
• Add more blog layouts & support comments
• Work on UX improvements.
• Support Guest checkout.
• Upgrade the Product detail with Video or 360 views.

Thank you so much for your time spending on our blog