Flutter resizeToAvoidBottomInset true not working with Expanded ListView

In short: use reversed: true.

What you see is the expected behavior for the following reason:

ListView preserves its scroll offset when something on your screen resizes. This offset is how many pixels the list is scrolled to from the beginning. By default the beginning counts from the top and the list grows to bottom.

If you use reversed: true, the scroll position counts from the bottom, so the bottommost position is 0, and the list grows from bottom to the top. It has many benefits:

1. The bottommost position of 0 is preserved when the keyboard opens. So does any other position. At any position it just appears that the list shifts to the top, and the last visible element remains the last visible element.

2. Its easier to sort and paginate messages when you get them from the DB. You just sort by datetime descending and append to the list, no need to reverse the object list before feeding it to the ListView.

3. It just works with no listeners and the controller manipulations. Declarative solutions are more reliable in general.

The rule of thumb is to reverse the lists that paginate with more items loading at the top.

Here is the example:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() async {
  runApp(MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const MyApp({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      home: MyHomePage(),
    );
  }
}

class MyHomePage extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      body: Center(
        child: Column(
          mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
          children: <Widget>[
            Expanded(
              child: ListView.builder(
                itemCount: 30,
                reverse: true,
                itemBuilder: (context, i) => ListTile(title: Text('Item $i')),
              ),
            ),
            const TextField(),
          ],
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

As for resizeToAvoidBottomInset, it does its job. The Scaffold is indeed shortened with the keyboard on. So is ListView. So it shows you less items. For non-reversed list, gone are the bottommost.

It looks like you want the GroupedListView to be visible from the last line. The WriteMessageBox is pushed up by the keyboard and obscures the last messages. The most direct solution is to scroll the list to the bottom when the keyboard is visible. That is, when the WriteMessageBox gains focus.

Add a FocusScope to the WriteMessageBox in the build() method. It becomes

FocusScope(
  child: Focus(
   child: WriteMessageBox(),
   onFocusChange: (focused) {
    if (focused) {
      _scrollController.jumpTo(_scrollController.position.maxScrollExtent);
    }
  )
)

Screenshot:

Code:

You can use MediaQueryData to get the height of keyboard, and then scroll the ListView up by that number.

Create this class:

class HandleScrollWidget extends StatefulWidget {
  final BuildContext context;
  final Widget child;
  final ScrollController controller;
  
  HandleScrollWidget(this.context, {required this.controller, required this.child});

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

class _HandleScrollWidgetState extends State<HandleScrollWidget> {
  double? _offset;

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    final bottom = MediaQuery.of(widget.context).viewInsets.bottom;
    if (bottom == 0) {
      _offset = null;
    } else if (bottom != 0 && _offset == null) {
      _offset = widget.controller.offset;
    }
    if (bottom > 0) widget.controller.jumpTo(_offset! + bottom);
    return widget.child;
  }
}

Usage:

final ScrollController _controller = ScrollController();

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
  return Scaffold(
    appBar: AppBar(title: Text('ListView')),
    body: HandleScrollWidget(
      context,
      controller: _controller,
      child: Column(
        children: [
          Expanded(
            child: ListView.builder(
              controller: _controller,
              itemCount: 100,
              itemBuilder: (_, i) => ListTile(title: Text('Messages #$i')),
            ),
          ),
          TextField(decoration: InputDecoration(hintText: 'Write a message')),
        ],
      ),
    ),
  );
}

It appears that you are using text fields so it hides data or sometimes it may overflow borders by black and yellow stripes

better to use SingleChildScrollView and for scrolling direction use scrollDirection with parameters Axis.vertical or Axis.horizontal

return SingleChildScrollView(
      scrollDirection: Axis.vertical,
      child :Column(
        children: [
          Expanded(
            child: Padding(
              padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
              child: GroupedListView<dynamic, String>(
              controller: _scrollController,
              keyboardDismissBehavior:
                    ScrollViewKeyboardDismissBehavior.onDrag,
              physics: const BouncingScrollPhysics(
                    parent: AlwaysScrollableScrollPhysics()),
              itemBuilder: (context, message) {
                  return ListTile(
                      title: ChatBubble(message),
                  );
                },
              elements: messages,
              groupBy: (message) => DateFormat('MMMM dd,yyyy')
                    .format(message.timestamp.toDate()),
              groupSeparatorBuilder: (String groupByValue) =>
                    getMiddleChatBubble(context, groupByValue),
              itemComparator: (item1, item2) =>
                    item1.timestamp.compareTo(item2.timestamp),
              useStickyGroupSeparators: false,
              floatingHeader: false,
              order: GroupedListOrder.ASC,
              ),
            ),
          ),
          WriteMessageBox(
              group: group,
              groupId: docs[0].id,
              tokens: [widget.friendToken])
        ],
      );


);

Please try this solution. Hope it will work for you. Thanks.

 Expanded(
          child: Padding(
            padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0),
            child: GroupedListView<dynamic, String>(
              scrollDirection: Axis.vertical,
              shrinkWrap: true,
              controller: _scrollController,
              keyboardDismissBehavior: ScrollViewKeyboardDismissBehavior.onDrag,
              physics: const BouncingScrollPhysics(
                  parent: AlwaysScrollableScrollPhysics()),
              itemBuilder: (context, message) {
                return ListTile(
                  title: ChatBubble(message),
                );
              },
              elements: messages,
              groupBy: (message) =>
                  DateFormat('MMMM dd,yyyy').format(message.timestamp.toDate()),
              groupSeparatorBuilder: (String groupByValue) =>
                  getMiddleChatBubble(context, groupByValue),
              itemComparator: (item1, item2) =>
                  item1.timestamp.compareTo(item2.timestamp),
              useStickyGroupSeparators: false,
              floatingHeader: false,
              order: GroupedListOrder.ASC,
            ),
          ),
        ),
        WriteMessageBox(
            group: group, groupId: docs[0].id, tokens: [widget.friendToken])
     

In short: use reversed: true, jump the scrolling position to 0.

  final scrollController = ScrollController();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    WidgetsBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((timeStamp) {
      if (scrollController.hasClients) {
        scrollController.jumpTo(scrollController.position.maxScrollExtent);
    }
   });
  }
  

  Widget _buildScrollView(){
    return SingleChildScrollView(
      reverse: true,
      controller: scrollController,
      child: [....],
    );
  }