FloatingActionButton and ThemeData's accent properties

Summary
Context
Description of change
Migration guide
Timeline
References

Summary

Removed Flutter’s FloatingActionButton (FAB) dependency on ThemeData accent properties.

Context

This was a small part of the Material Theme System Updates project.

Previously, the ThemeData accentIconTheme property was only used by FloatingActionButton to determine the default color of the text or icons that appeared within the button.

FloatingActionButton also used the ThemeData accentTextTheme property, however this dependency was undocumented and unnecessary.

Both of these dependencies were confusing. For example if one configured the Theme’s accentIconTheme to change the appearance of all floating action buttons, it was difficult to know what other components would be affected, or might be affected in the future.

The Material Design spec no longer includes an “accent” color. The ColorScheme’s secondary color is now used instead.

Previously, applications could configure the color of text and icons within FloatingActionButtons with the widget’s foregroundColor property, or with the FloatingActionButtonTheme’s foregroundColor. If neither foregroundColor property was specified, the foreground color defaulted to the accentIconTheme’s color.

With this change, the default behavior uses the color scheme’s onSecondary color instead.

Description of change

Previously, the accentIconTheme provided a default for the FloatingActionButton’s foregroundColor property:

    final Color foregroundColor = this.foregroundColor
      ?? floatingActionButtonTheme.foregroundColor
      ?? theme.accentIconTheme.color // To be removed.
      ?? theme.colorScheme.onSecondary;

Apps that configure their theme’s accentIconTheme to effectively configure the foregroundColor of all floating action buttons, can get the same effect by configuring the foregroundColor of their theme’s floatingActionButtonTheme.

The FloatingActionButton’s foregroundColor is now used to configure the textStyle of the RawMaterialButton created by FloatingActionButton. Previously, this text style was based on the button style of ThemeData.accentTextTheme:

// theme.accentTextTheme becomes theme.textTheme
final TextStyle textStyle = theme.accentTextTheme.button.copyWith(
  color: foregroundColor,
  letterSpacing: 1.2,
);

Except in a case where an app has explicitly configured the accentTextTheme to take advantage of this undocumented dependency, this use of accentTextTheme is unnecessary. This change replaces this use of accentTextTheme with textTheme.

Migration guide

This change occurred in two steps:

If the foreground of a FloatingActionButton is set to a non-default color, a warning is now printed.
The accentIconTheme dependency was removed. If you haven’t already done so, migrate your apps per the pattern below.

To configure the FloatingActionButton’s foregroundColor for all FABs, you can configure the theme’s floatingActionButtonTheme instead of its accentIconTheme.

Code before migration:

MaterialApp(
  theme: ThemeData(
    accentIconTheme: IconThemeData(color: Colors.red),
  ),
)

Code after migration:

MaterialApp(
  theme: ThemeData(
    floatingActionButtonTheme: FloatingActionButtonThemeData(
      foregroundColor: Colors.red,
    ),
  ),
)

Timeline

Landed in version: 1.16.3
In stable release: 1.17

References

Design doc:

Remove FAB Accent Theme Dependency

API documentation:

Relevant PRs:

Step 1 of 2 Warn about Flutter’s FloatingActionButton dependency on ThemeData accent properties
Step 2 of 2 Remove Flutter’s FloatingActionButton dependency on ThemeData accent properties

Other:

Material Theme System Updates