How To Use Flutter SingleChildScrollView

Flutter SingleChildScrollView explanation. In this post, I will be going though all the details on how to use Flutter SingleChildScrollView using an easy Flutter example. I will implement Flutter SingleChildScrollView using step by step explanation so you have a good idea of how to use it in your own Flutter apps. So let’s not keep you waiting anymore and start implementing Flutter SingleChildScrollView.

What is Flutter SingleChildScrollView?

Flutter SingleChildScrollView is as the name suggests, it is used to scroll a single child. Sometimes we have a lot of content in our screen which does not fit the screen. In that case we use the Flutter SingleChildScrollView so we can scroll the content and see the whole content in one screen. Let’s implement it using an easy Flutter example.

Implementing Flutter SingleChildScrollView

To see the benefits of Flutter SingleChildScrollView, we have to first explain what will happen if we don’t use Flutter SingleChildScrollView but still want to see a large amount of content in our screen.

Let’s take a Flutter column widget and pass it some items, just make sure that the number of items are larger so we can see what happen. For demonstration, let’s use Flutter containers in Column widget. See the below code:

Column(children: [
        for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
          Container(
            margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
            height: 50,
            width: double.infinity,
            color: Colors.blue,
          )
      ])

As you can see in the above image that it shows bottom overflow. This means that it is not supporting more content to be shown in that screen. Now let’s wrap this Flutter column widget with Flutter SingleChildScrollView and see what happens then. See the below code:

SingleChildScrollView(
        child: Column(children: [
          for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
            Container(
              margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
              height: 50,
              width: double.infinity,
              color: Colors.blue,
            )
        ]),
      )

As you can see, now we don’t have any overflow of our content after we wrapped our column widget with Flutter SingleChildScrollView, you can scroll it vertically, from top to bottom or vice versa.

Let’s see another example of how to use Flutter SingleChildScrollView. In that example, we will first wrap the column with a container having a specific height and see what will happen to the same list of items mentioned above. See the below code:

 Container(
        margin: EdgeInsets.all(40),
        color: Colors.grey.shade400,
        height: 200,
        width: double.infinity,
        child: Column(children: [
          for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
            Container(
              margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
              height: 20,
              width: double.infinity,
              color: Colors.blue,
            )
        ]),
      )

As you can see in the above image that the content is bigger than the height of container, we have used 10 items but the height is much bigger that content, you can see the bottom overflow in the above image. Now to put all the items in that Flutter container widget and make them scrollable so we can see each item and without any overflow, we have to wrap the column widget with SingleChildScrollView Flutter. See the below code:

Container(
        margin: EdgeInsets.all(40),
        color: Colors.grey.shade400,
        height: 200,
        width: double.infinity,
        child: SingleChildScrollView(
          child: Column(children: [
            for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
              Container(
                margin: EdgeInsets.all(10),
                height: 20,
                width: double.infinity,
                color: Colors.blue,
              )
          ]),
        ),
      )

As you can see in the above image, we now have a clean list of containers, no overflow from the container when using Flutter SingleChildScrollView, you can now scroll it vertically, from top to bottom or vice versa. If you want to scroll it horizontally then you have to use row instead of column and also use the scroll direction constructor of the Flutter SingleChildScrollView and set it to axis horizontal, which by default is set to axis vertical.

I hope you now have a complete idea of how to use Flutter SingleChildScrollView. I have used two examples to show  how we can use Flutter SingleChildScrollView in multiple situations. If you still have any queries in mind regarding Flutter SingleChildScrollView then do let me know in the comment section. I would love to answer them.

As a treat, I have prepared a design for you in which I have used and implemented Flutter SingleChildScrollView multiple times so you can have more knowledge of how to use Flutter SingleChildScrollView.

Conclusion

In conclusion, now you have a practical understanding of how to use Flutter SingleChildScrollView. Your feedback is very important on this post, and I also encourage you to take a look at my other articles on Flutter animations, Flutter app development, Flutter widgets, Flutter templates with examples code, and much more. Thank you for reading this post.