Equivalent of onSubmitted callback in Flutter's SearchAnchor/SearchBar

GiantSquid
June 6, 2023
116 views
0 votes
2 Answers

When entering a search term in Flutter’s SearchAnchor/SearchBar widget, it’s natural to press the enter key to submit the search. There isn’t an obvious way to listen for this event though. There isn’t a "onSubmitted" callback like TextField has.

So, how can I detect when the enter key was pressed so I can close the SearchAnchor/SearchBar and show the search results?

Note: This question refers to the SearchBar / SearchAnchor widgets first released in Flutter 3.10.0

I’ve examined the SearchAnchor/SearchBar API and experimented with various approaches for discovering when the user taps the enter key, as noted in this code snippet:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

class SearchView extends StatefulWidget {
  const SearchView({super.key});

  @override
  State<SearchView> createState() => _SearchViewState();
}

class _SearchViewState extends State<SearchView> {
  final searchController = SearchController();

  @override
  void initState() {
    searchController.addListener(() {
      // Not called when enter key pressed.
    });
    super.initState();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return SearchAnchor(
      // No onSubmitted callback parameter.
      searchController: searchController,
      builder: (context, controller) {
        return SearchBar(
          // No onSubmitted callback parameter
          onTap: () => controller.openView(),
          controller: controller,
          onChanged: (text) {
            // Not called when enter key pressed.
          },
        );
      },
      suggestionsBuilder: (context, controller) {
        // Enter character not found in controller.text
        return [];
      },
    );
  }
}

Tags: flutter

Answers

- MatthewTrent
- May 28, 2023 at 10:53 pm
- 0 votes
0
Wrap your textfield/searchbar/anything-with-text in a RawKeyboardListener widget. Docs here.

In short, your code will look like this:
```
RawKeyboardListener(
  focusNode: SAME FOCUS NODE YOUR TEXTFIELD-TYPE THING HAS,
  onKey: (key) {
     if (key.isKeyPressed(LogicalKeyboardKey.enter)) enterPressed(); // <-- do something here on enter key being pressed while in textfield
  },
  child: YOUR CHILD TEXTFIELD-TYPE WIDGET
);
```
If you want to close the textfield-type thing on the enter key being pressed and clear the text, do something like this:
```
FocusScope.of(context).unfocus(); // closes the keyboard/unfocuses textfield-type widget
textEditingController.clear(); // clears the text
```
Hopefully this helps!
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