How to create a custom camera for your FlutterFlow app?

Adding camera functionality to your apps can really elevate the user experience. If you’re working with Flutter, you're in luck! It’s a powerful framework that makes it easy to create custom camera features for both iOS and Android. If you want to learn more about different mobile app development approaches, check out our guide on Mobile App Development Explained: Comparing PWA, Hybrid, Cross-Platform, and Native Apps. Now, let’s dive into how to set up a custom camera for your FlutterFlow app!

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Step 1: Set Up Flutter on Your Machine

Before we start creating a custom camera, ensure first that you have Flutter installed on your machine. Flutter is an open-source UI development kit developed by Google. It is used to develop applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web from a single codebase.

First, download the latest stable Flutter SDK from this link: https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install. Choose the installation package based on your operating system.

Extract the downloaded zipped file, and add flutter/bin to your PATH. This allows you to run the flutter command in your terminal.

To verify your installation, you can run the flutter doctor command. This command checks your environment and displays a report of the status of your Flutter installation.

flutter doctor



Step 2: Creating the Flutter Project

To create a new Flutter project open a terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to create your new project, then run this command:

flutter create custom_camera



And navigate inside the project.

cd custom_camera



Step 3: Open the Project in Your Preferred IDE

Next, open the project you just created in your preferred IDE. This tutorial will assume you are using Visual Studio Code.

In Visual Studio Code, go to File > Open Folder then locate and select your Flutter project.

Step 4: Integrating FlutterFlow to Your App

Since FlutterFlow doesn't provide a custom in-app camera feature, you have to add it manually to your project. You can use a Flutter package like camera to provide this functionality.

Open your pubspec.yaml file and under dependencies, add the following:

camera: ^0.8.1



Then press Ctrl+S to save the file and automatically fetch the package.

Step 5: Import the Camera Package

Next, We're going to need to import the dependencies we've just added. In the main.dart file, add these lines at the beginning:

import 'package:camera/camera.dart';



Step 6: Request User Permissions

On Android, you need to add the necessary permissions to your Android Manifest file. In your android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml file, add the following permissions:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />



For iOS, Open ios/Runner/Info.plist and add the following:

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>Can I use the camera please?</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>Can I use the mic please?</string>



Step 7: Initialize the Camera Plugin

Before using the 'camera' package, you need to initialize it. You do this by calling the availableCameras() function which returns a list of available cameras.

Step 8: Access the Camera

To access the camera, you will need to create a CameraController. This controller will allow you to control the camera's flash mode, exposure, focus, etc. You can access the camera from the index returned by the availableCameras() function.

Step 9: Display the Camera Preview

To display the live camera view in your Flutter app, you can use the CameraPreview widget.

Step 10: Capture Images and Videos

To capture an image while the camera is open, you can do so by calling the takePicture() function provided by the CameraController. This function returns a XFile which you can then use to display the image or store it in the user's camera roll.

Similarly, to capture a video, you need to call the startVideoRecording() function and then stopVideoRecording() to stop recording.