dart - How to take screenshot of widget beyond the screen in flutter?

Question

I am using RepaintBoundary to take the screenshot of the current widget which is a listView. But it only captures the content which is visible on the screen at the time.

RepaintBoundary(
                key: src,
                child: ListView(padding: EdgeInsets.only(left: 10.0),
                  scrollDirection: Axis.horizontal,
                  children: <Widget>[
                    Align(
                        alignment: Alignment(-0.8, -0.2),
                        child: Column(
                          mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
                          children: listLabel(orientation),
                        )
                    ),

                    Padding(padding: EdgeInsets.all(5.0)),

                    Align(
                        alignment: FractionalOffset(0.3, 0.5),
                        child: Container(
                            height: orientation == Orientation.portrait? 430.0: 430.0*0.7,
                            decoration: BoxDecoration(
                                border: Border(left: BorderSide(color: Colors.black))
                            ),
                            //width: 300.0,
                            child:
                            Wrap(
                              direction: Axis.vertical,
                              //runSpacing: 10.0,
                              children: colWidget(orientation),
                            )
                        )
                    ),
                    Padding(padding: EdgeInsets.all(5.0)),
                    Column(
                      mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
                      children: listLabel(orientation),
                    )
                  ],
                ),
              );

screenshot function:

Future screenshot() async {
    RenderRepaintBoundary boundary = src.currentContext.findRenderObject();
    ui.Image image = await boundary.toImage();
    ByteData byteData = await image.toByteData(format: ui.ImageByteFormat.png);
    Uint8List pngBytes = byteData.buffer.asUint8List();
    print(pngBytes);
    final directory = (await getExternalStorageDirectory()).path;
File imgFile =new File('$directory/layout2.pdf');
imgFile.writeAsBytes(pngBytes);
  }

Is there any way, so that I can capture the whole listView, i.e., not only the content which is not visible on the screen but the scrollable content also. Or maybe if the whole widget is too large to fit in a picture, it can be captured in multiple images.

Answer 1

This made me curious whether it was possible so I made a quick mock-up that shows it does work. But please be aware that by doing this you're essentially intentionally breaking the things flutter does to optimize, so you really shouldn't use it beyond where you absolutely have to.

Anyways, here's the code:

import 'dart:math';
import 'dart:ui' as ui;

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter/rendering.dart';

void main() => runApp(MyApp());

class UiImagePainter extends CustomPainter {
  final ui.Image image;

  UiImagePainter(this.image);

  @override
  void paint(ui.Canvas canvas, ui.Size size) {
    // simple aspect fit for the image
    var hr = size.height / image.height;
    var wr = size.width / image.width;

    double ratio;
    double translateX;
    double translateY;
    if (hr < wr) {
      ratio = hr;
      translateX = (size.width - (ratio * image.width)) / 2;
      translateY = 0.0;
    } else {
      ratio = wr;
      translateX = 0.0;
      translateY = (size.height - (ratio * image.height)) / 2;
    }

    canvas.translate(translateX, translateY);
    canvas.scale(ratio, ratio);
    canvas.drawImage(image, new Offset(0.0, 0.0), new Paint());
  }

  @override
  bool shouldRepaint(UiImagePainter other) {
    return other.image != image;
  }
}

class UiImageDrawer extends StatelessWidget {
  final ui.Image image;

  const UiImageDrawer({Key key, this.image}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return CustomPaint(
      size: Size.infinite,
      painter: UiImagePainter(image),
    );
  }
}

class MyApp extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _MyAppState createState() => _MyAppState();
}

class _MyAppState extends State<MyApp> {
  GlobalKey<OverRepaintBoundaryState> globalKey = GlobalKey();

  ui.Image image;

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      home: Scaffold(
        appBar: AppBar(),
        body: image == null
            ? Capturer(
                overRepaintKey: globalKey,
              )
            : UiImageDrawer(image: image),
        floatingActionButton: image == null
            ? FloatingActionButton(
                child: Icon(Icons.camera),
                onPressed: () async {
                  var renderObject = globalKey.currentContext.findRenderObject();

                  RenderRepaintBoundary boundary = renderObject;
                  ui.Image captureImage = await boundary.toImage();
                  setState(() => image = captureImage);
                },
              )
            : FloatingActionButton(
                onPressed: () => setState(() => image = null),
                child: Icon(Icons.remove),
              ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class Capturer extends StatelessWidget {
  static final Random random = Random();

  final GlobalKey<OverRepaintBoundaryState> overRepaintKey;

  const Capturer({Key key, this.overRepaintKey}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return SingleChildScrollView(
      child: OverRepaintBoundary(
        key: overRepaintKey,
        child: RepaintBoundary(
          child: Column(
            children: List.generate(
              30,
              (i) => Container(
                    color: Color.fromRGBO(random.nextInt(256), random.nextInt(256), random.nextInt(256), 1.0),
                    height: 100,
                  ),
            ),
          ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class OverRepaintBoundary extends StatefulWidget {
  final Widget child;

  const OverRepaintBoundary({Key key, this.child}) : super(key: key);

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

class OverRepaintBoundaryState extends State<OverRepaintBoundary> {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return widget.child;
  }
}

What it's doing is making a scroll view that encapsulates the list (column), and making sure the repaintBoundary is around the column. With your code where you use a list, there's no way it can ever capture all the children as the list is essentially a repaintBoundary in and of itself.

Note in particular the 'overRepaintKey' and OverRepaintBoundary. You might be able to get away without using it by iterating through render children, but it makes it a lot easier.