Flutter Hotel Booking App

Objective

This project is a simple hotel booking app built using Flutter, designed as part of a coding assignment. The app features a bottom navigation bar with four tabs: Overview, Search, Favorites, and Account. Each tab implements the necessary functionality, with a focus on state management, error handling, and navigation.

Features

1. Bottom Navigation Bar

• Four tabs: Overview, Search, Favorites, Account.

2. Hotels Tab

• Displays hotel cards fetched from an API.
• Shows a loading spinner while fetching hotel data.
• Displays an error screen if the API call fails.
• API used for hotel data.

3. Favorites Tab

• Allows users to favorite/unfavorite hotels by tapping the heart icon.
• Displays the list of favorite hotels.
• Favorites are stored locally (using Hive).

4. Error Handling

• A simple error state is displayed if fetching hotels fails.

5. App Design

• Follows the design provided via Figma.
• Simple placeholders are used for loading and error states.

App Architecture

The app is built following Clean Architecture, with clear separation of concerns into the following layers:

• Data Layer: Handles API calls, local data storage, and repositories.
• Domain Layer: Contains business logic and interacts with the data layer via use cases.
• Presentation Layer: Consists of UI components and state management using BLoC to handle different app states such as loading, success, and error.

State Management

The BLoC pattern is used to manage app states efficiently. It handles API calls, updates UI states (loading, error, success), and manages the state of favorited hotels locally.

Navigation

Implemented using the Auto Route package to handle tab-based navigation as well as deep linking.

Local Storage

• Hive is used for local storage to store favorited hotels.

Running the App

Prerequisites

• Flutter SDK.
• A suitable editor like VS Code or Android Studio.

Setup Instructions

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/flutter-hotel-booking.git

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd flutter-hotel-booking

3. Install dependencies:

   flutter pub get

4. Run the app:

   flutter run

Testing

To run the unit and widget tests, use the following command:

flutter test

The app includes:

• Unit tests for the business logic.
• Widget tests to verify UI behavior.

Note: I have written different types of tests to showcase my skills in testing Flutter applications. However, I acknowledge that this project would benefit from more comprehensive test coverage, especially in areas such as edge cases and error handling.

Screenshots

Hotels Tab	Favorites Tab	Error State

Key Design Decisions

1. BLoC for State Management: Chosen for its robustness and clear separation of UI and business logic.
2. Hive for Local Storage: Hive offers a lightweight and easy-to-use database solution to store and retrieve favorited hotels.
3. Auto Route for Navigation: Simplifies navigation, especially for managing deep links and tab-based routing.
4. Clean Architecture: Ensures maintainability, testability, and scalability, following the separation of concerns principle.

Areas for Improvement

1. More Tests: While I have included various tests, the project could benefit from more comprehensive unit and widget tests.
2. Performance Optimization: Adding caching for API responses would help optimize data loading performance.
3. Localization: The app currently lacks multi-language support but can be extended to include localization in the future.