Stage 2 · Lesson 2 of 10
Hot reload, hot restart and the widget inspector
pushes your changed code into the running app and rebuilds the in about a second. It keeps the current state, so you can adjust padding while staying on the screen you are working on. Hot restart runs the app again from main and loses state.
You need it after changing main, initState code or global variables. Adding a new plugin with needs a full rebuild. The widget inspector in DevTools shows the live tree.
Its layout explorer shows each widget's constraints and size, which is the fastest way to understand why something overflows.
Common trapexpecting hot reload to rerun initState and wondering why nothing changed.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come with the full roadmap. Unlock
Resources for this stage
Start with
- GuideFreeFlutter Documentation
Google
Do the first Flutter app codelab, then the layout, constraints and lists pages