Overview
Today, I’m super excited to announce the 1.0.0 version of the fl_chart package
I made the first commit on 12 May 2019. So it’s been 6 years that I’m developing this package (life is going fast!), and I stayed at 0.x.y version because I wasn’t confident enough to publish the 1.0.0 version
That was because of some fundamental features/bugs that I needed to address.
For example:
- Horizontal Scrollable/Zoomable Feature for axis-based charts, #71
- At least 6 chart types (so we added CandlestickChart), #443
- Horizontal Bar Chart, #113
- And many more
But today, I’m confident I can publish version 1.0.0.
Just to have it recorded here, we had 100 releases to reach this point. And the latest version before 1.0.0 was 0.70.0.
We have 7.1k stars on GitHub and 6.6k thumbs up on pub.dev
Candlestick Chart
In this version, we have the new CandlestickChart type. It’s super useful for visualizing the financial data (such as cryptocurrency or the stock market)
You can take a look at our sample:
Horizontal Bar Chart
There’s a property called rotationQuarterTurns in our axis-based charts. The default value is 0 (which means no rotation). But as you increase the number, it rotates the chart clockwise by 90 degrees for each step.
For example, if you set 2, it shows the chart upside down
And if you set 1, it shows it left to right (one quarter turn)
Take a look at the sample below:
FL Chart app
You can take a look at our samples in our sample app.
At the moment, it is available on the web app.flchart.dev, Google Play (Android), and App Store (iOS)
Sponsors & Contributors
Without our sponsors and contributors, we couldn’t make it happen.
There were multiple companies that sponsored different issues financially. Some of them wanted to stay anonymous, but I can mention Intero – The Sniffers company that sponsored the Horizontal Bar Chart feature. Big shout out to them.
Also, thanks to AlexanderMonneret and NeariX67, who sponsored the scrollable and zoomable chart feature with financial support. Followed by the work that Peetee06 has done here.
If you’re looking to contribute, you can take a look at our contribution guidelines here.
The story behind the FL Chart
Now it’s a good time to talk about the journey that I had to develop the fl_chart.
It was around 2018 that I got familiar with Flutter (I was an Android native developer at that time).
Then, in 2019, I found an in-person hackathon on the beautiful Kish island called Hackahealth. It was about developing a mobile application in the healthcare area.
I managed to build a team to join the hackathon, and I decided to use Flutter to see how we can manage to build our project in just two days. Spoiler alert, it was amazing and we won the hackathon.
There was a design that our designer requested me to implement, which was a curved line chart.
I refused to implement it, because there wasn’t any chart package in that time. And it was time-consuming to implement the widget just for the hackathon. So we decided to ignore that part. So it was the point that the initial idea of fl_chart came to my mind.
Right after the hackathon, I decided to create a package to only draw a curved / smooth line chart. So I created the first commit and named the package flutter_smooth_chart (You can find the initial commit here).
Later, I added more chart types (such as BarChart and PieChart), and at this point, I decided to name it fl_chart.
Looking for maintainers
As you know, fl_chart is like a hobby and a side project for me. But the point is that I have a limited time to work on it. Because I have my full-time job, other side projects, my personal life, and …
That’s why now I’m looking for some developers to join me and maintain the project together. If you’re interested, you can find my contact points here.
Just send me a message and add your LinkedIn or a CV.
Final word
Don’t forget that open-source needs contributions, and your donation is a big contribution/help to the open-source projects. It’s not only about the fl_chart. But it’s about the whole open-source culture.
So I just wanted to remind you to donate to your favorite project. And if fl_chart is your favorite project, here you can donate and let me free more time for it.
Enjoy the 1.0.0 version and let me know if you have any feedback.
Cheers!
Iman Khoshabi