New Flutter inspector "select widget mode" no longer highlights when navigating in they widget teee

[joachimbulow]

After upgrading from 3.25 to 3.35 we got a new widget insepctor.

My most common workflow when using the debug tools is tapping a nearby widget to the one i want to analyze, and then navigating the widget tree to get the exact right information, aided by the highlights on my device.

In the latest release you have removed this i believe - or you have a very severe bug - this is terrible for dev ex

For now users can enable the legacy inspector - but since you are removing that from a future release, please let us enable the functionality again

In any case i believe this is a real issue which will severely hurt usability if not fixed

[TB-StarcMed]

Well, with "Select Widget Mode" active, you can select widgets in the app's window and it then navigates to the widget in the Widget Tree of the Widget Inspector for me. What does no longer work, is that it shows where the widget is defined in the source code files.
@joachimbulow, are you missing the latter feature, or do you have a bug that the "Select Widget Mode" does not work as intended on your end?

BTW, I am still using Flutter SDK 3.32.8, because due to bug flutter/flutter#174133, my app does crashes with the latest SDK due to having sliders in a table. Additionally, my Flutter Inspector settings look differently then yours even so I have the Dart and Flutter extension at version v3.120.0 on Windows 11:

I am not a developer of these extensions, but I am missing the feature to navigate to the code location of a widget, clicked on in the Widget Tree in the Widget Inspector. Maybe a button that when clicked navigates to the code location would be enough for me, but maybe others may like to have a toggle button instead that when active navigates to the code location everytime a widget is clicked in the widget tree view. The latter somewhat requires that the Widget Inspector's tab is in a different subview than the code files view, which is no longer always the case with the reworked DevTools. Therefore, the button may only be available when the Widget Inspector is located in a different subview that the code files view, including when the Widget Inspector is shown besides the code files view (this is my usual view).

[joachimbulow]

What does no longer work, is that it shows where the widget is defined in the source code files.

Yes this does not work

But also i do not seem to be able to navigate the widget tree using my keyboard arrows.
Are you able to do this ?

[TB-StarcMed]

Yes, I am able. Down moves to the next item, Up to previous item, Right expands the subtree and Left closes it.

[joachimbulow]

Okay - then i guess i do have a bug and i will need to go further down that path - thanks for sharing, but glad to hear the team did not actually remove this 👍

[TB-StarcMed]

BTW, the following is the content of my settings.json file:

{
    "dart.flutterSdkPath": "<Flutter SDK path>",
    "editor.fontSize": 12,
    "editor.tabSize": 2,
    "editor.wordWrap": "on",
    "editor.renderWhitespace": "all",
    "files.encoding": "utf8bom",
    "files.trimTrailingWhitespace": true,
    "files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
    "git.openRepositoryInParentFolders": "never",
    "update.showReleaseNotes": false,
    "breadcrumbs.symbolSortOrder": "name",
    "prettyxml.settings.indentSpaceLength": 2,
    "prettyxml.settings.preserveWhiteSpacesInComment": true,
    "redhat.telemetry.enabled": false,
    "dart.devToolsLocation": {

        "default": "beside",
        "inspector": "beside"
    },
    "highlight.regexes": {
        "((?:<!-- *)?(?:#|// @|//|./\\*+|<!--|--|\\* @|{!|{{!--|{{!) *TODO(?:\\s*\\([^)]+\\))?:?)((?!\\w)(?: *-->| *\\*/| *!}| *--}}| *}}|(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^\\n@]*?)(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--(?!>)|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^@\\n]+)?))": {
            "filterFileRegex": ".*(?<!CHANGELOG.md)$",
            "decorations": [
                {
                    "overviewRulerColor": "#ffcc00",
                    "backgroundColor": "#ffcc00",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f",
                    "fontWeight": "bold"
                },
                {
                    "backgroundColor": "#ffcc00",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f"
                }
            ]
        },
        "((?:<!-- *)?(?:#|// @|//|./\\*+|<!--|--|\\* @|{!|{{!--|{{!) *(?:FIXME|FIX|BUG|UGLY|DEBUG|HACK)(?:\\s*\\([^)]+\\))?:?)((?!\\w)(?: *-->| *\\*/| *!}| *--}}| *}}|(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^\\n@]*?)(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--(?!>)|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^@\\n]+)?))": {
            "filterFileRegex": ".*(?<!CHANGELOG.md)$",
            "decorations": [
                {
                    "overviewRulerColor": "#cc0000",
                    "backgroundColor": "#cc0000",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f",
                    "fontWeight": "bold"
                },
                {
                    "backgroundColor": "#cc0000",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f"
                }
            ]
        },
        "((?:<!-- *)?(?:#|// @|//|./\\*+|<!--|--|\\* @|{!|{{!--|{{!) *(?:REVIEW|OPTIMIZE|TSC)(?:\\s*\\([^)]+\\))?:?)((?!\\w)(?: *-->| *\\*/| *!}| *--}}| *}}|(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^\\n@]*?)(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--(?!>)|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^@\\n]+)?))": {
            "filterFileRegex": ".*(?<!CHANGELOG.md)$",
            "decorations": [
                {
                    "overviewRulerColor": "#00ccff",
                    "backgroundColor": "#00ccff",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f",
                    "fontWeight": "bold"
                },
                {
                    "backgroundColor": "#00ccff",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f"
                }
            ]
        },
        "((?:<!-- *)?(?:#|// @|//|./\\*+|<!--|--|\\* @|{!|{{!--|{{!) *(?:IDEA)(?:\\s*\\([^)]+\\))?:?)((?!\\w)(?: *-->| *\\*/| *!}| *--}}| *}}|(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^\\n@]*?)(?= *(?:[^:]//|/\\*+|<!--|@|--(?!>)|{!|{{!--|{{!))|(?: +[^@\\n]+)?))": {
            "filterFileRegex": ".*(?<!CHANGELOG.md)$",
            "decorations": [
                {
                    "overviewRulerColor": "#cc00cc",
                    "backgroundColor": "#cc00cc",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f",
                    "fontWeight": "bold"
                },
                {
                    "backgroundColor": "#cc00cc",
                    "color": "#1f1f1f"
                }
            ]
        },
        "(\"@_[A-Z_]+\": {},)": {
            "filterFileRegex": ".*\\.arb",
            "decorations": [
                {
                    "overviewRulerColor": "#d19a66",
                    "backgroundColor": "#d19a66",
                    "color": "#282c34",
                    "fontWeight": "bold"
                }
            ]
        }
    },
    "highlight.decorations": {
        "rangeBehavior": 3
    },
    "testing.coverageToolbarEnabled": true,
    "testing.displayedCoveragePercent": "statement",
    "coverage-gutters.showLineCoverage": true,
    "dart.debugExternalPackageLibraries": false,
    "dart.debugSdkLibraries": false,
    "dart.devToolsLogFile": null,
}

And I have I also seen now that it does navigate the source code on the same time when selecting a widget in the debugged app. But it does not set the cursor to the location, it only sets the view up such that the declaration location is in the middle of the view and the Select Widget Mode also allows to the select Implementation Widget and therefore also navigates to locations within the Flutter SDK, even so "Show Implementation Widgets" is disabled.

[TB-StarcMed]

And the start of the "flutter doctor -v" output is the following on my end:

[√] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.32.8, on Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26100.6584], locale de-DE) [295ms]
    • Flutter version 3.32.8 on channel stable at C:\Progs\Flutter\flutter
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision edada7c56e (10 weeks ago), 2025-07-25 14:08:03 +0000
    • Engine revision ef0cd00091
    • Dart version 3.8.1
    • DevTools version 2.45.1

[elliette]

Thanks for everyone who responded. This doesn't appear to be an issue with Flutter DevTools, but rather with your Flutter app. I'm going to close this one out, thank you!