onResume() and onPause() for widgets on Flutter

Question

Right now, a widget only has initeState() that gets triggered the very first time a widget is created, and dispose(), which gets triggered when the widget is destroyed. Is there a method to detect when a widget comes back to the foreground? and when a widget is about to go to the background because another widget just was foregrounded? It's the equivalent of onResume and onPause being triggered for Android, and viewWillAppear and viewWillDisappear for ios

Answer 1

There is an abstract class caller WidgetsBindingObserver

https://docs.flutter.io/flutter/widgets/WidgetsBindingObserver-class.html

in

  @override
  void didChangeAppLifecycleState(AppLifecycleState state) {
    setState(() {
            _notification = state;
    });
  }

there is the "state", can be manage as

switch(state) {
  case AppLifecycleState.resumed:
    // Handle this case
    break;
  case AppLifecycleState.inactive:
    // Handle this case
    break;
  case AppLifecycleState.paused:
    // Handle this case
    break;
  case AppLifecycleState.suspending:
    // Handle this case
    break;
}

Answer 2

This is a full example demonstrating how to properly handle things, to test this, press home button and resume the app, you shall see didChangeAppLifecycleState is getting called.

class HomePage extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _HomePageState createState() => _HomePageState();
}

class _HomePageState extends State<HomePage> with WidgetsBindingObserver {
  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();

    // Add the observer. 
    WidgetsBinding.instance!.addObserver(this);
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    // Remove the observer
    WidgetsBinding.instance!.removeObserver(this);

    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  void didChangeAppLifecycleState(AppLifecycleState state) {
    super.didChangeAppLifecycleState(state);

    // These are the callbacks
    switch (state) {
      case AppLifecycleState.resumed:
        // widget is resumed
        break;
      case AppLifecycleState.inactive:
        // widget is inactive
        break;
      case AppLifecycleState.paused:
        // widget is paused
        break;
      case AppLifecycleState.detached:
        // widget is detached
        break;
    }
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => Scaffold();
}

Answer 3

The most common case where you'd want to do this is if you have an animation running and you don't want to consume resources in the background. In that case, you should extend your State with TickerProviderStateMixin and use your State as the vsync argument for the AnimationController. Flutter will take care of only calling the animation controller's listeners when your State is visible.

If you want the States that live in your PageRoute to be disposed when the PageRoute is obscured by other content, you can pass a maintainState argument of false to your PageRoute constructor. If you do this, your State will reset itself (and its children) when it's hidden and will have to re-construct itself in initState using the properties passed in as constructor arguments to its widget. You can use a model or controller class, or PageStorage, to hold the user's progress information if you don't want a complete reset.

Here is a sample app that demonstrates these concepts.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(new MaterialApp(
    onGenerateRoute: (RouteSettings settings) {
      if (settings.name == '/') {
        return new MaterialPageRoute<Null>(
          settings: settings,
          builder: (_) => new MyApp(),
          maintainState: false,
        );
      }
      return null;
    }
  ));
}

class MyApp extends StatefulWidget {
  MyAppState createState() => new MyAppState();
}

class MyAppState extends State<MyApp> with TickerProviderStateMixin {
  AnimationController _controller;

  @override
  void initState() {
    print("initState was called");
    _controller = new AnimationController(vsync: this)
      ..repeat(min: 0.0, max: 1.0, period: const Duration(seconds: 1))
      ..addListener(() {
        print('animation value ${_controller.value}');
      });
    super.initState();
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    print("dispose was called");
    _controller.dispose();
    super.dispose();
  }

  int _counter = 0;

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Scaffold(
      appBar: new AppBar(
        title: new Text('home screen')
      ),
      body: new Center(
        child: new RaisedButton(
          onPressed: () {
            setState(() {
              _counter++;
            });
          },
          child: new Text('Button pressed $_counter times'),
        ),
      ),
      floatingActionButton: new FloatingActionButton(
        child: new Icon(Icons.remove_red_eye),
        onPressed: () {
          Navigator.push(context, new MaterialPageRoute(
            builder: (BuildContext context) {
              return new MySecondPage(counter: _counter);
            },
          ));
        },
      ),
    );
  }
}

class MySecondPage extends StatelessWidget {
  MySecondPage({ this.counter });

  final int counter;

  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Scaffold(
      appBar: new AppBar(
        title: new Text('Certificate of achievement'),
      ),
      body: new Column(
        crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.stretch,
        mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceAround,
        children: [
          new Icon(Icons.developer_mode, size: 200.0),
          new Text(
            'Congrats, you clicked $counter times.',
            style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.title,
            textAlign: TextAlign.center,
          ),
          new Text(
            'All your progress has now been lost.',
            style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.subhead,
            textAlign: TextAlign.center,
          ),
        ],
      ),
    );
  }
}

Answer 4

I am a little late but came with perfect solution for those who may be looking for it in the future. the Navigator.push() is actually a Future. it means it has then() callback function. so the then() will be called after you call Navigator.pop() from the second screen. and even you can send some data from the second screen and access the data in the first screen.

example:

//from Screen A
Navigator.of(context).push(MaterialPageRoute(builder:(context)=>B()))
.then((value)=>{ refresh() });

//in Screen B with data
Navigator.pop(context,[1]);

//or without data
Navigator.pop(context);

so refresh() will be called on resume of Screen A.

Answer 5

I created visibility_aware_state for having something that behaves similar to Android's Activity.onResume(). It also considers pop and push navigation.

class Example extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _ExampleState createState() => _ExampleState();
}

class _ExampleState extends VisibilityAwareState<Example> {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    // return your widget
  }

  @override
  void onVisibilityChanged(WidgetVisibility visibility) {
    switch(visibility) {
      case WidgetVisibility.VISIBLE:
        // Like Android's Activity.onResume()
        break;
      case WidgetVisibility.INVISIBLE:
        // Like Android's Activity.onPause()
        break;
      case WidgetVisibility.GONE:
        // Like Android's Activity.onDestroy()
        break;
    }
    super.onVisibilityChanged(visibility);
  }
}

Answer 6

Mamnarock your answer is correct but not complete, and the link that you are shared isn't available.

Here is the complete code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

class YourClass extends StatefulWidget {

  @override
  _YourClassState createState() => _YourClassState();
}

class _YourClassState extends State<YourClass>
    with WidgetsBindingObserver {
  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    WidgetsBinding.instance.addObserver(this);
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    WidgetsBinding.instance.removeObserver(this);
    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  void didChangeAppLifecycleState(AppLifecycleState state) {
    switch (state) {
      case AppLifecycleState.resumed:
        // Handle this case
        break;
      case AppLifecycleState.inactive:
        // Handle this case
        break;
      case AppLifecycleState.paused:
        // Handle this case
        break;
      case AppLifecycleState.detached:
        // Handle this case
        break;
    }
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Container();
  }
}

And as TeeTracker mentioned in the comment:

This is an app-level lifecycle, which means when the whole is resumed or inactive, or paused, not the single widget.