[version 3.24] ThemeData's hintColor not working in TextField, which was working in version 3.22.x

[peterweb2005]

Steps to reproduce

ThemeData(
hintColor: Colors.red,

Expected results

TextField's hint text color is read, as in previous version

Actual results

TextField's hint text color seems white

Code sample

Code sample

[Paste your code here]

Screenshots or Video

Screenshots / Video demonstration

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Logs

Logs

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Flutter Doctor output

Doctor output

$ flutter doctor
Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[√] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.24.0, on Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22631.3880], locale en-US)
[√] Windows Version (Installed version of Windows is version 10 or higher)
[√] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 35.0.0)
[√] Chrome - develop for the web
[X] Visual Studio - develop Windows apps
    X Visual Studio not installed; this is necessary to develop Windows apps.
      Download at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/.
      Please install the "Desktop development with C++" workload, including all of its default components
[√] Android Studio (version 2024.1)
[√] IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition (version 2024.2)
[√] VS Code, 64-bit edition (version 1.91.1)
[√] Connected device (4 available)
[√] Network resources

[huycozy]

I can reproduce this with sample code below:

Sample code

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(
    MaterialApp(
      home: MyApp(),
      theme: ThemeData(
        hintColor: Colors.red,
      ),
    ),
  );
}

class MyApp extends StatefulWidget {
  const MyApp({super.key});

  @override
  State<MyApp> createState() => _MyAppState();
}

class _MyAppState extends State<MyApp> {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      body: Center(
        child: TextField(
          decoration: InputDecoration(
            hintText: 'Enter your name',
          ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

flutter doctor -v (stable and master)

[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.24.0, on macOS 14.6 23G80 darwin-x64, locale en-VN)
    • Flutter version 3.24.0 on channel stable at /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision 80c2e84975 (7 days ago), 2024-07-30 23:06:49 +0700
    • Engine revision b8800d88be
    • Dart version 3.5.0
    • DevTools version 2.37.2

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 34.0.0)
    • Android SDK at /Users/huynq/Library/Android/sdk
    • Platform android-34, build-tools 34.0.0
    • ANDROID_HOME = /Users/huynq/Library/Android/sdk
    • Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home/bin/java
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.10+0-17.0.10b1087.21-11572160)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 15.4)
    • Xcode at /Applications/Xcode15.4.app/Contents/Developer
    • Build 15F31d
    • CocoaPods version 1.15.2

[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
    • Chrome at /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome

[✓] Android Studio (version 2023.3)
    • Android Studio at /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents
    • Flutter plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/9212-flutter
    • Dart plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/6351-dart
    • android-studio-dir = /Applications/Android Studio.app/
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.10+0-17.0.10b1087.21-11572160)

[✓] VS Code (version 1.91.1)
    • VS Code at /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents
    • Flutter extension version 3.94.0

[✓] Connected device (2 available)
    • macOS (desktop) • macos  • darwin-x64     • macOS 14.6 23G80 darwin-x64
    • Chrome (web)    • chrome • web-javascript • Google Chrome 127.0.6533.89

[✓] Network resources
    • All expected network resources are available.

• No issues found!

[!] Flutter (Channel master, 3.24.0-1.0.pre.545, on macOS 14.6 23G80 darwin-x64, locale en-VN)
    • Flutter version 3.24.0-1.0.pre.545 on channel master at /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter_master
    ! Warning: `flutter` on your path resolves to /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter/bin/flutter, which is not inside your current
      Flutter SDK checkout at /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter_master. Consider adding
      /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter_master/bin to the front of your path.
    ! Warning: `dart` on your path resolves to /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter/bin/dart, which is not inside your current Flutter
      SDK checkout at /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter_master. Consider adding /Users/huynq/Documents/GitHub/flutter_master/bin to
      the front of your path.
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision 18186df4b7 (27 hours ago), 2024-08-10 19:57:30 -0400
    • Engine revision d409dcdc9b
    • Dart version 3.6.0 (build 3.6.0-134.0.dev)
    • DevTools version 2.38.0
    • If those were intentional, you can disregard the above warnings; however it is recommended to use "git" directly to perform update
      checks and upgrades.

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 34.0.0)
    • Android SDK at /Users/huynq/Library/Android/sdk
    • Platform android-34, build-tools 34.0.0
    • ANDROID_HOME = /Users/huynq/Library/Android/sdk
    • Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home/bin/java
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.10+0-17.0.10b1087.21-11572160)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 15.4)
    • Xcode at /Applications/Xcode15.4.app/Contents/Developer
    • Build 15F31d
    • CocoaPods version 1.15.2

[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
    • Chrome at /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome

[✓] Android Studio (version 2024.1)
    • Android Studio at /Applications/Android Studio Koala.app/Contents
    • Flutter plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/9212-flutter
    • Dart plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/6351-dart
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.11+0-17.0.11b1207.24-11852314)

[✓] Android Studio (version 2023.3)
    • Android Studio at /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents
    • Flutter plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/9212-flutter
    • Dart plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/6351-dart
    • android-studio-dir = /Applications/Android Studio.app/
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.10+0-17.0.10b1087.21-11572160)

[✓] VS Code (version 1.92.0)
    • VS Code at /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents
    • Flutter extension version 3.94.0

[✓] Connected device (2 available)
    • macOS (desktop) • macos  • darwin-x64     • macOS 14.6 23G80 darwin-x64
    • Chrome (web)    • chrome • web-javascript • Google Chrome 127.0.6533.100

[✓] Network resources
    • All expected network resources are available.

! Doctor found issues in 1 category.

Additional info

• This is reproduced on the latest Flutter stable and master channel 3.24 but doesn't appear on the previous stable release 3.22.3

  3.24.0	3.22.3

• Adding hintStyle with color from Theme.of(context).hintColor to TextField's decoration can work around this. I'm not quite sure if this is intentional or a bug.

• From Flutter 3.24.0 release notes, this could be introduced by ThemeData minor spring cleaning #148408

• ThemeData.hintColor may be deprecated in the future: [ThemeData 🧹] Remove hintColor usages #116346, ☂️ Material Theme System Updates #91772

Keeping this issue open for other's input.

[bleroux]

@peterweb2005 Thanks for reporting this issue.
@huycozy Thank for the repro and the links you found.

This is related to the change in #150278.
Previously the M3 defaults were ignored (ThemeData.hintColor was meant for M2 and its default are compliant with M3 specification).

I will try to figure out a way to use ThemeData.hintColor only if it is provided. But this is not straightforward because, if it is not provided, the value is initialized directly in the ThemeData factory (see

flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/theme_data.dart

Line 448 in 9b84701

hintColor ??= isDark ? Colors.white60 : Colors.black.withOpacity(0.6);

).
For the moment, the solution is to is to replace ThemeData.hintColor usage with ThemeData.InputDecortationTheme.hintStyle

Updated code sample

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(
    MaterialApp(
      home: const MyApp(),
      theme: ThemeData(
        // hintColor: Colors.red,
        inputDecorationTheme: const InputDecorationTheme(hintStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.red)),
      ),
    ),
  );
}

class MyApp extends StatefulWidget {
  const MyApp({super.key});

  @override
  State<MyApp> createState() => _MyAppState();
}

class _MyAppState extends State<MyApp> {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return const Scaffold(
      body: Center(
        child: TextField(
          decoration: InputDecoration(
            hintText: 'Enter your name',
          ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

@justinmc @guidezpl
Do you think we should revert #150278 while figuring out if we can provide a way to use ThemeData.hintColor only if provided or, maybe, decide if we want to proceed with the deprecation initiated in #116346.

[guidezpl]

Since ThemeData.InputDecortationTheme.hintStyle is available, hintColor is on its way out (#91772), and this change has already made it to stable, I would recommend going forward with #116346 (or similar) cc @QuncCccccc

[peterweb2005]

@bleroux thanks, but
sorry, i dont understand
so, the color is
onSurfaceVariant
or
hintColor ??= isDark ? Colors.white60 : Colors.black.withOpacity(0.6);
?

and so better use onSurfaceVariant or InputDecorationTheme? and any side effect?

thanks