The new Form, FormField auto-validation API

Contents

Summary

The previous auto validation API for the Form and FormField widgets didn’t control when auto validation should occur. So the auto validation for these widgets always happened on first build when the widget was first visible to the user, and you weren’t able to control when the auto validation should happen.

Context

Due to the original API not allowing developers to change the auto validation behavior for validating only when the user interacts with the form field, we added new API that allows developers to configure how they want auto validation to behave for the Form and FormField widgets.

Description of change

The following changes were made:

  • The autovalidate parameter is deprecated.
  • A new parameter called autovalidateMode, an Enum that accepts values from the AutovalidateMode Enum class, is added.

Migration guide

To migrate to the new auto validation API you need to replace the usage of the deprecated autovalidate parameter to the new autovalidateMode parameter. If you want the same behavior as before you can use: autovalidateMode = AutovalidateMode.always. This makes your Form and FormField widgets auto validate on first build and every time it changes.

Code before migration:

class MyWidget extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return FormField(
      autovalidate: true,
      builder: (FormFieldState state) {
        return Container();
      },
    );
  }
}

Code after migration:

class MyWidget extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return FormField(
      autovalidateMode: AutovalidateMode.always,
      builder: (FormFieldState state) {
        return Container();
      },
    );
  }
}

Timeline

Landed in version: 1.21.0-5.0.pre
In stable release: 1.22

References

API documentation:

Relevant issues:

Relevant PRs: