StrutStyle class Null safety

Defines the strut, which sets the minimum height a line can be relative to the baseline.

Strut applies to all lines in the paragraph. Strut is a feature that allows minimum line heights to be set. The effect is as if a zero width space was included at the beginning of each line in the paragraph. This imaginary space is 'shaped' according the properties defined in this class. Flutter's strut is based on typesetting strut and CSS's line-height.

No lines may be shorter than the strut. The ascent and descent of the strut are calculated, and any laid out text that has a shorter ascent or descent than the strut's ascent or descent will take the ascent and descent of the strut. Text with ascents or descents larger than the strut's ascent or descent will layout as normal and extend past the strut.

Strut is defined independently from any text content or TextStyles.

The vertical components of strut are as follows:

  • Half the font-defined leading
  • ascent * height
  • descent * height
  • Half the font-defined leading

The sum of these four values is the total height of the line.

Ascent is the font's spacing above the baseline without leading and descent is the spacing below the baseline without leading. Leading is split evenly between the top and bottom. The values for ascent and descent are provided by the font named by fontFamily. If no fontFamily or fontFamilyFallback is provided, then the platform's default family will be used. Many fonts will have leading values of zero, so in practice, the leading component is often irrelevant.

When height is omitted or null, then the font defined ascent and descent will be used. The font's combined ascent and descent may be taller or shorter than the fontSize. When height is provided, the line's EM-square ascent and descent (which sums to fontSize) will be scaled by height to achieve a final line height of fontSize * height + fontSize * leading logical pixels. The proportion of ascent:descent with height specified is the same as the font metrics defined ascent:descent ratio.

Text height diagram

Each line's spacing above the baseline will be at least as tall as the half leading plus ascent. Each line's spacing below the baseline will be at least as tall as the half leading plus descent.

See also:

Fields and their default values.

Omitted or null properties will take the default values specified below:

  • fontFamily: the name of the font to use when calculating the strut (e.g., Roboto). No glyphs from the font will be drawn and the font will be used purely for metrics.

  • fontFamilyFallback: an ordered list of font family names that will be searched for when the font in fontFamily cannot be found. When all specified font families have been exhausted an no match was found, the default platform font will be used.

  • fontSize: the size of the ascent plus descent in logical pixels. This is also used as the basis of the custom leading calculation. This value cannot be negative. Default is 14 logical pixels.

  • height: the multiple of fontSize the line's height should be. The line's height will take the font's ascent and descent values if height is omitted or null. If provided, the EM-square ascent and descent (which sum to fontSize) is scaled by height. The height will impact the spacing above and below the baseline differently depending on the ratios between the font's ascent and descent. This property is separate from the leading multiplier, which is controlled through leading. Default is null.

  • leading: the custom leading to apply to the strut as a multiple of fontSize. Leading is additional spacing between lines. Half of the leading is added to the top and the other half to the bottom of the line height. This differs from height since the spacing is equally distributed above and below the baseline. Default is null, which will use the font-specified leading.

  • fontWeight: the typeface thickness to use when calculating the strut (e.g., bold). Default is FontWeight.w400.

  • fontStyle: the typeface variant to use when calculating the strut (e.g., italic). Default is FontStyle.normal.

  • forceStrutHeight: when true, all lines will be laid out with the height of the strut. All line and run-specific metrics will be ignored/overridden and only strut metrics will be used instead. This property guarantees uniform line spacing, however text in adjacent lines may overlap. This property should be enabled with caution as it bypasses a large portion of the vertical layout system. The default value is false.

Examples

In this simple case, the text will be rendered at font size 10, however, the vertical height of each line will be the strut height (Roboto in font size 30 * 1.5) as the text itself is shorter than the strut.
const Text(
  'Hello, world!\nSecond line!',
  style: TextStyle(
    fontSize: 10,
    fontFamily: 'Raleway',
  ),
  strutStyle: StrutStyle(
    fontFamily: 'Roboto',
    fontSize: 30,
    height: 1.5,
  ),
)

Here, strut is used to absorb the additional line height in the second line. The strut height was defined as 1.5 (the default font size is 14), which caused all lines to be laid out taller than without strut. This extra space was able to accommodate the larger font size of Second line! without causing the line height to change for the second line only. All lines in this example are thus the same height (14 * 1.5).
const Text.rich(
  TextSpan(
    text: 'First line!\n',
    style: TextStyle(
      fontSize: 14,
      fontFamily: 'Roboto'
    ),
    children: <TextSpan>[
      TextSpan(
        text: 'Second line!\n',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 16,
          fontFamily: 'Roboto',
        ),
      ),
      TextSpan(
        text: 'Third line!\n',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 14,
          fontFamily: 'Roboto',
        ),
      ),
    ],
  ),
  strutStyle: StrutStyle(
    fontFamily: 'Roboto',
    height: 1.5,
  ),
)

Here, strut is used to enable strange and overlapping text to achieve unique effects. The Ms in lines 2 and 3 are able to extend above their lines and fill empty space in lines above. The forceStrutHeight is enabled and functions as a 'grid' for the glyphs to draw on.

The result of the example below.

const Text.rich(
  TextSpan(
    text: '---------         ---------\n',
    style: TextStyle(
      fontSize: 14,
      fontFamily: 'Roboto',
    ),
    children: <TextSpan>[
      TextSpan(
        text: '^^^M^^^\n',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 30,
          fontFamily: 'Roboto',
        ),
      ),
      TextSpan(
        text: 'M------M\n',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 30,
          fontFamily: 'Roboto',
        ),
      ),
    ],
  ),
  strutStyle: StrutStyle(
    fontFamily: 'Roboto',
    fontSize: 14,
    height: 1,
    forceStrutHeight: true,
  ),
)

This example uses forceStrutHeight to create a 'drop cap' for the 'T' in 'The'. By locking the line heights to the metrics of the 14pt serif font, we are able to lay out a large 37pt 'T' on the second line to take up space on both the first and second lines.

The result of the example below.

const Text.rich(
  TextSpan(
    text: '       he candle flickered\n',
    style: TextStyle(
      fontSize: 14,
      fontFamily: 'Serif'
    ),
    children: <TextSpan>[
      TextSpan(
        text: 'T',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 37,
          fontFamily: 'Serif'
        ),
      ),
      TextSpan(
        text: 'in the moonlight as\n',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 14,
          fontFamily: 'Serif'
        ),
      ),
      TextSpan(
        text: 'Dash the bird fluttered\n',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 14,
          fontFamily: 'Serif'
        ),
      ),
      TextSpan(
        text: 'off into the distance.',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 14,
          fontFamily: 'Serif'
        ),
      ),
    ],
  ),
  strutStyle: StrutStyle(
    fontFamily: 'Serif',
    fontSize: 14,
    forceStrutHeight: true,
  ),
)

Mixed in types
Annotations

Constructors

StrutStyle({String? fontFamily, List<String>? fontFamilyFallback, double? fontSize, double? height, TextLeadingDistribution? leadingDistribution, double? leading, FontWeight? fontWeight, FontStyle? fontStyle, bool? forceStrutHeight, String? debugLabel, String? package})
Creates a strut style.
const
StrutStyle.fromTextStyle(TextStyle textStyle, {String? fontFamily, List<String>? fontFamilyFallback, double? fontSize, double? height, TextLeadingDistribution? leadingDistribution, double? leading, FontWeight? fontWeight, FontStyle? fontStyle, bool? forceStrutHeight, String? debugLabel, String? package})
Builds a StrutStyle that contains values of the equivalent properties in the provided textStyle.

Properties

debugLabel String?
A human-readable description of this strut style.
final
fontFamily String?
The name of the font to use when calculating the strut (e.g., Roboto). If the font is defined in a package, this will be prefixed with 'packages/package_name/' (e.g. 'packages/cool_fonts/Roboto'). The prefixing is done by the constructor when the package argument is provided.
final
fontFamilyFallback List<String>?
The ordered list of font families to fall back on when a higher priority font family cannot be found.
read-only
fontSize double?
The size of text (in logical pixels) to use when obtaining metrics from the font.
final
fontStyle FontStyle?
The typeface variant to use when calculating the strut (e.g., italics).
final
fontWeight FontWeight?
The typeface thickness to use when calculating the strut (e.g., bold).
final
forceStrutHeight bool?
Whether the strut height should be forced.
final
hashCode int
The hash code for this object.
read-onlyoverride
height double?
The minimum height of the strut, as a multiple of fontSize.
final
leading double?
The additional leading to apply to the strut as a multiple of fontSize, independent of height and leadingDistribution.
final
leadingDistribution TextLeadingDistribution?
How the vertical space added by the height multiplier should be distributed over and under the strut.
final
runtimeType Type
A representation of the runtime type of the object.
read-onlyinherited

Methods

compareTo(StrutStyle other) RenderComparison
Describe the difference between this style and another, in terms of how much damage it will make to the rendering.
debugFillProperties(DiagnosticPropertiesBuilder properties, {String prefix = ''}) → void
Adds all properties prefixing property names with the optional prefix.
override
inheritFromTextStyle(TextStyle? other) StrutStyle
Returns a new strut style that inherits its null values from corresponding properties in the other TextStyle.
noSuchMethod(Invocation invocation) → dynamic
Invoked when a non-existent method or property is accessed.
inherited
toDiagnosticsNode({String? name, DiagnosticsTreeStyle? style}) DiagnosticsNode
Returns a debug representation of the object that is used by debugging tools and by DiagnosticsNode.toStringDeep.
inherited
toString({DiagnosticLevel minLevel = DiagnosticLevel.info}) String
A string representation of this object.
inherited
toStringShort() String
A brief description of this object, usually just the runtimeType and the hashCode.
override

Operators

operator ==(Object other) bool
The equality operator.
override

Constants

disabled → const StrutStyle
A StrutStyle that will have no impact on the text layout.
StrutStyle(height: 0.0, leading: 0.0)