Summary

This context provides a tutorial on how to create a real-time chat application using Flutter for the frontend and Node.js for the backend, utilizing sockets for device communication.

Abstract

The tutorial begins by creating a new Node.js project named "chat_server" and installing the necessary dependencies, such as "ws" and "express". The basic Websocket server is then set up, which will be used to handle real-time communication between devices.

The tutorial then moves on to creating the Flutter chat application, starting with setting up a new Flutter project and adding the required dependencies, such as "web_socket_channel" and "sqflite". The main.dart file is then populated with code to initialize the chat application and connect to the server.

A new file, messages.dart, is created to handle message storage and retrieval. Functions are defined to retrieve messages from the database, check if they were sent or received, and display them accordingly. Another function is defined to send messages to the server and insert new messages into the database.

Finally, a chat page is created to display the messages. A function is defined to receive messages from the server and display them in real-time. The tutorial concludes by encouraging the reader to test the chat application on multiple devices and seek help if any issues arise.

Bullet points

Create a new Node.js project named "chat_server" and install necessary dependencies.
Set up a basic Websocket server for real-time communication.
Create a new Flutter project and add required dependencies.
Initialize the chat application and connect to the server in main.dart.
Create messages.dart to handle message storage and retrieval.
Define functions to retrieve messages, check if they were sent or received, and display them.
Define a function to send messages to the server and insert new messages into the database.
Create a chat page to display messages.
Define a function to receive messages from the server and display them in real-time.
Test the chat application on multiple devices and seek help if any issues arise.

How to Create a Realtime Chat App With Flutter and Node.js

Flutter frontend meets Node.js backend

In this blog, we will see how to make a real-time chat app using Node.js as the backend and Flutter as the frontend. We will use sockets to communicate between devices.

Node.js (Server-Side)

Let’s create a new project named chat_server and op it in the Terminal. Now run this command to start the project:

touch index.js && npm init && npm install ws && npm install express

This will completely install the project for you. When that has been completed open the project in your favourite IDE and open up your index.js file.

This is our basic Websocket server that doesn’t really do much now. Let’s change that now.

This will completely run your messages! So now that this is done we can now start with our Flutter chat app.

Flutter (Client-Side)

We’ve completed our backend now so we can start with chat app in Flutter. Run this command to start our new Flutter project:

flutter create chat_app && cd chat_app && flutter run

Open this project in your IDE and open up your pubspec.yaml file and we will add web_socket_channel make sure it looks like this:

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  cupertino_icons: ^1.0.2
  web_socket_channel: ^2.1.0 # Add this.
  sqflite: ^2.0.2 # And this.

To start our project delete everything in lib/main.dart and make sure to insert this:

Now let’s also create a new file called messages.dart where we will be storing messages. Because we will be storing our messages locally we will create a function first for that.

That’s a lot of code huh? Well, what this function is doing is retrieving every message in our database. Then it checks if the message has been sent by you or received.

If that has been done then lastly we will display the message. Now we will create another function in messages.dart that will send a message to our server and insert a new message into our database.

This function will store the message that we will be sending. Now that this is done we will now create a page to display these messages.

We will call this page chat_page.dart and it will look like this first.

Now to receive messages we want to create a function for that. We will call our function getMessage() this will link ourselves to the server and listen for any messages. And if there is a message we will display that also.

And that’s all there is now you fully created a chat app. Now run the app with two local devices to see if it works. If it doesn’t work please let me know and I will help you. Thanks for reading.