Integrate with Firebase

There are two ways to connect your Flutter app to Firebase: manually through the Firebase Console, or using the FlutterFire CLI. The ELMS app itself is configured using the FlutterFire CLI (it generates firebase.json and lib/firebase_options.dart, which are used in main.dart via Firebase.initializeApp(options: DefaultFirebaseOptions.currentPlatform)), so that approach is recommended.

Option A: FlutterFire CLI (Recommended)

1. Install the Firebase CLI and log in

Prerequisite: Node.js (and npm) must be installed on your machine, since the Firebase CLI is distributed as an npm package. Download it from nodejs.org (LTS version recommended) and verify the installation:

node -v
npm -v

Once Node.js is installed, install the Firebase CLI and log in:

npm install -g firebase-tools
firebase login

2. Install the FlutterFire CLI

dart pub global activate flutterfire_cli

3. Run `flutterfire configure` from your project root

flutterfire configure

This will:

Let you select (or create) a Firebase project
Let you select the platforms to configure (Android, iOS, etc.)
Automatically download and place google-services.json in android/app/ and GoogleService-Info.plist in ios/Runner/
Generate lib/firebase_options.dart and a firebase.json manifest at the project root

4. Initialize Firebase in `main.dart`

import 'package:firebase_core/firebase_core.dart';
import 'package:elms/firebase_options.dart';

await Firebase.initializeApp(options: DefaultFirebaseOptions.currentPlatform);

5. Configure iOS notifications

https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/messaging/apple-integration

Note: If you later add, remove, or rename an app in the Firebase Console, re-run flutterfire configure to regenerate firebase_options.dart and the platform config files instead of editing them by hand.