Flutter: What's the usage of the textEditingController provided to fieldViewBuilder in the Autocomplete widget?

Question

What's the usage of the textEditingController provided to fieldViewBuilder in the Autocomplete widget? What can it be used for? Can it be used to modify or clear the content of the TextField?

Autocomplete<String>(
        fieldViewBuilder: (
          BuildContext context,
          TextEditingController textEditingController,
          FocusNode focusNode,
          VoidCallback onFieldSubmitted,
        ) {
          return TextField(
            controller: textEditingController,
            focusNode: focusNode,
            onChanged: (String value) {
              print('The text has changed to: $value');
            },
          );
        },

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 26 '23 at 19:46

0

The textEditingController property provided to the fieldViewBuilder in the Autocomplete widget is used to control the text field. It can be used to modify or clear the content of the text field.

answered Jun 26 '23 at 19:46

kenresoft

11
1
4

How? That's the question. – B Faley Jun 26 '23 at 21:05
# Edited answer – kenresoft Jun 27 '23 at 09:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '23 at 11:04

Here, fieldViewBuilder used to Builds the field whose input is used to get the options for auto completions.

you can Pass the TextEditingController in fieldViewBuilder, to built here so that RawAutocomplete can listen for changes.

and TextEditingController is the controller for an editable text field. Whenever the user modifies a text field with an associated TextEditingController, the text field updates value and the controller notifies its listeners. Listeners can then read the text and selection properties to learn what the user has typed or how the selection has been updated.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 17 '23 at 12:39

TextEditingController _textEditingController = TextEditingController();

Now use this veriable

 controller: _textEditingController,

Now suppose on tap of a specific button or something you want to clear the textField, so what you can simply do is

onPressed: () {
         setState(() {
   _textEditingController.clear(); 
  });
 },

This will clean the text from the textField, Hope that helps.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 18 '23 at 12:14

0

Yes The TextEditingController is used for managing and controlling text input fields in Flutter apps. It allows you to read and set the text content of a TextField, listen to changes in the text, clear the text, and manipulate text selections.

answered Jul 18 '23 at 12:14

Arjun Singh

57
4

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 19 '23 at 22:27

The textEditingController for the fieldViewBuilder callback is used inside of the Autocomplete widget to be able to build the options of the other optionsBuilder callback.

Because in the options builder callback you receive the TextEditingValue with the current text of your TextField which you provided the controller as a param.

Without this auto complete could not listen for changes to your text and would be unable to build options based on your text input.

And yes, you can change the value of the text editing controller and the change would also call the options builder again.

You can also see the behaviour in the following example:

  return Autocomplete<String>(
    fieldViewBuilder: (
      BuildContext context,
      TextEditingController textEditingController,
      FocusNode focusNode,
      VoidCallback onFieldSubmitted,
    ) {
      return TextField(
        controller: textEditingController,
        focusNode: focusNode,
        onChanged: (String value) {
          if (value.length == 5) {
            print("changed");
            textEditingController.text = "12345";
          }
        },
      );
    },
    optionsBuilder: (TextEditingValue textEditingValue) {
      print("current text: ${textEditingValue.text}");
      return ["one", "two", "three"];
    },
  );

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 22 '23 at 06:04

The textEditingController provided to the fieldViewBuilder in the Autocomplete widget is used to control and manage the content of the TextField. It allows you to retrieve, set or modify the current text entered in the TextField.

Few operations can be done using textEditingController:

You can access the current value of the TextField using textEditingController.text.
You can set the content of the TextField using textEditingController.text = "New Value".
You can clear the content of the TextField using textEditingController.clear().
You can handle real-time updates and validations by listening to the changes made to the TextField's content by registering an onChanged callback.

I believe this answers your question.

Flutter: What's the usage of the textEditingController provided to fieldViewBuilder in the Autocomplete widget?

6 Answers6