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I want to create a multiscreen / multipart form wizard, with each screen containing:

  1. a question
  2. several different controls (text, radio-buttons etc.) which allow him to answer the question

enter image description here

I want to save the state of the answers to a remote server. For the radio buttons that's straight-forward (whenever the user changes it's value).

But what about text-fields? I don't want to update the server with every character change, but on the other hand I don'w want to lose data if the user exit the screen or the app closes / goes to background...

What would be the best approach to save data from text-fields? Can Flutter's Form help me with that?

user6097845
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    While using text fields you can use a Debounce Timer so you would only send requests after the user waits for certain seconds rather than typing all the stuff. – Krish Bhanushali Dec 19 '21 at 13:54
  • Good idea. is there a built-in Debounce mechanism in Flutter for that? Also, I guess I should save when onSubmitted is triggered also? – user6097845 Dec 19 '21 at 13:57

1 Answers1

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As the comment suggests you can use a debouncer for that. Creating a debouncer is pretty easy:

import 'package:flutter/foundation.dart';
import 'dart:async';

class Debouncer {
  final int delay;
  late VoidCallback action;
  Timer? _timer;

  Debouncer({required this.delay});

  run(VoidCallback action) {
    if (_timer != null) {
      _timer?.cancel();
    }

    _timer = Timer(Duration(milliseconds: delay), action);
  }

  cancel() {
    _timer?.cancel();
  }
}

And to use it define it somewhere and then do:

yourDebouncer.run(() async {sendData(...)})

I suggest you send your data in the onchange method of your TextField. This way your user data is saved and your server will certainly not be overwhelmed. Don't forget to cancel the Debouncer in your dispose method.

@override
void dispose() {
  _d.cancel();
  yourDebouncer.dispose();
}

You might want to have a look at this if you want more details on how to implement a Debouncer.

Josip Domazet
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