Local Setup

This guide will walk you through setting up and running the Flutter News App Web Dashboard on your local machine.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following software installed on your system:
- Flutter SDK: Version 3.8.0 or higher. Make sure you have configured it for web development by running flutter config --enable-web.

Clone the Repository

Open your terminal, navigate to your desired workspace directory, and clone the web dashboard repository:

git clone https://github.com/flutter-news-app-full-source-code/flutter-news-app-web-dashboard-full-source-code.git
cd flutter-news-app-web-dashboard-full-source-code

Install Dependencies

Fetch all the required Dart and Flutter packages for the project:
Terminal window
```
flutter pub get
```
Configure the Environment

The dashboard can be run in different environments, allowing you to connect it to a live API, a local API, or run it with mock data for UI development.
- Open the file lib/main.dart.
- Locate the appEnvironment constant.
- Set its value to one of the following:
  - AppEnvironment.demo: Runs the dashboard with in-memory mock data. No backend API is required. This is great for testing UI components.
  - AppEnvironment.development: Connects the dashboard to a locally running instance of the API server (typically at http://localhost:8080).
  - AppEnvironment.production: Connects the dashboard to your live, deployed backend API.
lib/main.dart
```
// Use `AppEnvironment.demo` to run with in-memory data (no API needed).
// Use `AppEnvironment.development` to connect to a local backend API.
// Use `AppEnvironment.production` to connect to a live backend API.
const appEnvironment = AppEnvironment.demo;
```
For the development environment, you must have the API Server running locally first.
Run the Development Server

Start the Flutter development server, targeting the Chrome browser:
Terminal window
```
flutter run -d chrome
```
The web dashboard will now be running and accessible in your Chrome browser.