How to Fix the Flutter Horizontal ListView Scroll Issue Inside a Column

How to Fix the Flutter Horizontal ListView Scroll Issue Inside a Column

Discover how to resolve the common `horizontal scrolling` issue in Flutter when using a `ListView` inside a `Column`. Learn with a practical example! --- This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/77614978/ asked by the user 'Ahmed Javed' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/10986107/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/77615592/ provided by the user 'Sayid' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/22379581/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions. Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Flutter Horizontal listview scroll issue inside Column Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l... The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license. If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com. --- Fixing the Flutter Horizontal ListView Scroll Issue Inside a Column When developing applications in Flutter, you might encounter various challenges, one of which is a common scroll issue with a Horizontal ListView placed inside a Column. Many developers face the problem where their horizontal list simply won't scroll, while a vertical list works as expected. If you're in a similar situation, you are not alone, and today, we'll explore how to effectively solve this issue. The Problem In a typical Flutter layout, you might create a Row with fixed-width widgets on both sides and a center widget that is expanded to fill the remaining space. Inside this center widget, a Column might contain several child elements, including a TextFormField, a horizontal ListView, and a vertical ListView. While the vertical list scrolls just fine, the horizontal scrolling may be unresponsive. This behavior originates from Flutter's gesture detection system, which can get confused when multiple scrollable widgets are nested in different axes. Example Code Structure To illustrate, let's take a look at the code structure that might lead to the problem: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] As you can see, the horizontal ListView is enclosed in a Container, which gives it a fixed height, while the vertical ListView can expand. The issue arises because both lists are grouped with gesture detection that doesn't prioritize the horizontal scroll if the vertical scroll is also present. The Solution To allow the horizontal ListView to scroll correctly, you need to modify the MaterialApp widget to include specific scroll settings. By adding dragDevices, we inform Flutter which devices (like touch screens, mouse, or trackpads) are allowed to initiate scroll behaviors. Here's How to Implement the Fix Update the MaterialApp widget to include scrollBehavior with defined dragDevices. [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Ensure you replace the current MaterialApp in your code with this version that incorporates the scrollBehavior configuration. This will allow the Horizontal ListView to respond to gesture inputs correctly, enabling smooth scrolling. Conclusion By adding the dragDevices configuration to your MaterialApp, you can successfully avoid the scrolling issues with horizontal lists nested within a vertical layout. This simple adjustment will enhance the user experience in your Flutter applications, allowing for greater interactivity and fluidity in navigating lists. Keep experimenting and happy coding!