The TextField widget in Flutter offers a practical method of obtaining user input. It accepts single-line input by default.
However, you can use the maxLines property to create a multiline TextField in situations where you need to collect many lines of information.
We will look at several elements of generating and using multiline TextFields in Flutter in this tutorial.
Creating a Multiline TextField
To create a multiline TextField, you need to set the maxLines property to a value greater than 1. This tells Flutter to allow for multiple lines of text input. Here’s an example of how you can create a multiline TextField:
TextField(
maxLines: null, // Set to null or any positive integer
decoration: InputDecoration(
hintText: 'Enter your text',
labelText: 'Multiline TextField',
),
)
In the code snippet above, we set maxLines to null, which allows the TextField to dynamically adjust its height to accommodate multiple lines of text. Alternatively, you can specify a positive integer to limit the number of visible lines.
Controlling the Number of Lines
If you want to limit the number of visible lines in the multiline TextField, you can set a specific value for maxLines. For example, if you want to limit the TextField to three visible lines, you can set maxLines to 3. Here’s an example:
TextField(
maxLines: 4, // Set to a positive integer
decoration: InputDecoration(
hintText: 'Enter your Main Text',
labelText: 'Limited Lines TextField',
),
)
By specifying a value for maxLines, the TextField will display a scrollable text area when the content exceeds the specified number of lines.
Handling Line Breaks and New Lines
By default, the multiline TextField allows users to insert line breaks and create new lines by pressing the Enter or Return key on the keyboard. Flutter treats these line breaks as regular text and includes them in the value of the TextField.
To control the behavior of line breaks and new lines, you can use the textInputAction and keyboardType properties.
For example, you can configure the TextField to dismiss the keyboard instead of inserting a line break:
TextField(
maxLines: null,
textInputAction: TextInputAction.done,
keyboardType: TextInputType.multiline,
decoration: InputDecoration(
hintText: 'Enter your text',
labelText: 'Multiline TextField',
),
)
In the example above, we set textInputAction to TextInputAction.done, which displays a “Done” button on the keyboard. Tapping this button will dismiss the keyboard instead of inserting a line break.
Conclusion
Flutter’s TextField widget has strong user input-capture capabilities, including support for multiline text input. You can construct multiline TextFields to collect longer text entries by setting the maxLines attribute to accommodate multiple lines.
In this post, we looked at how to build multiline TextFields, manage line breaks and new lines, and decide how many lines are visible. By utilising these functionalities, you may create forms and input fields for your Flutter applications that can handle different text input requirements.
When choosing the best configuration for multiline TextFields, keep in mind the context and goal of your application. Test out several options to make sure the experience is simple and easy to use.
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