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Broken text selection when selecting backwards from TextSpan into WidgetSpan within SelectionArea #166462

Description

@mack-at-pieces

Steps to reproduce

  1. Run the sample code
  2. Drag cursor to select text starting from a TextSpan widget and into a WidgetSpan widget with a Text child

Expected results

The text selection remains in-tact and spans the selected content region.

Screen.Recording.2025-04-02.at.1.03.59.PM.mov

Actual results

The text selection breaks.

Screen.Recording.2025-04-02.at.1.05.16.PM.mov

Code sample

Code sample
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

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

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

  // This widget is the root of your application.
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Flutter Demo',
      theme: ThemeData(
        // This is the theme of your application.
        //
        // TRY THIS: Try running your application with "flutter run". You'll see
        // the application has a purple toolbar. Then, without quitting the app,
        // try changing the seedColor in the colorScheme below to Colors.green
        // and then invoke "hot reload" (save your changes or press the "hot
        // reload" button in a Flutter-supported IDE, or press "r" if you used
        // the command line to start the app).
        //
        // Notice that the counter didn't reset back to zero; the application
        // state is not lost during the reload. To reset the state, use hot
        // restart instead.
        //
        // This works for code too, not just values: Most code changes can be
        // tested with just a hot reload.
        colorScheme: ColorScheme.fromSeed(seedColor: Colors.deepPurple),
      ),
      home: const MyHomePage(title: 'Flutter Demo Home Page'),
    );
  }
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
  const MyHomePage({super.key, required this.title});

  // This widget is the home page of your application. It is stateful, meaning
  // that it has a State object (defined below) that contains fields that affect
  // how it looks.

  // This class is the configuration for the state. It holds the values (in this
  // case the title) provided by the parent (in this case the App widget) and
  // used by the build method of the State. Fields in a Widget subclass are
  // always marked "final".

  final String title;

  @override
  State<MyHomePage> createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
  int _counter = 0;

  void _incrementCounter() {
    setState(() {
      // This call to setState tells the Flutter framework that something has
      // changed in this State, which causes it to rerun the build method below
      // so that the display can reflect the updated values. If we changed
      // _counter without calling setState(), then the build method would not be
      // called again, and so nothing would appear to happen.
      _counter++;
    });
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    // This method is rerun every time setState is called, for instance as done
    // by the _incrementCounter method above.
    //
    // The Flutter framework has been optimized to make rerunning build methods
    // fast, so that you can just rebuild anything that needs updating rather
    // than having to individually change instances of widgets.
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        // TRY THIS: Try changing the color here to a specific color (to
        // Colors.amber, perhaps?) and trigger a hot reload to see the AppBar
        // change color while the other colors stay the same.
        backgroundColor: Theme.of(context).colorScheme.inversePrimary,
        // Here we take the value from the MyHomePage object that was created by
        // the App.build method, and use it to set our appbar title.
        title: Text(widget.title),
      ),
      body: Center(
        // Center is a layout widget. It takes a single child and positions it
        // in the middle of the parent.
        child: Column(
          // Column is also a layout widget. It takes a list of children and
          // arranges them vertically. By default, it sizes itself to fit its
          // children horizontally, and tries to be as tall as its parent.
          //
          // Column has various properties to control how it sizes itself and
          // how it positions its children. Here we use mainAxisAlignment to
          // center the children vertically; the main axis here is the vertical
          // axis because Columns are vertical (the cross axis would be
          // horizontal).
          //
          // TRY THIS: Invoke "debug painting" (choose the "Toggle Debug Paint"
          // action in the IDE, or press "p" in the console), to see the
          // wireframe for each widget.
          mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
          children: <Widget>[
            SelectionArea(
              child: Column(
                crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
                children: [
                  Text('Broken'),
                  ...List.generate(
                    5,
                    (index) => Text.rich(
                      TextSpan(
                        children: [
                          /// Using a widget span here breaks the text selection.
                          /// Our use case: Markdown rendering with ordered and unordered lists
                          WidgetSpan(
                            alignment: PlaceholderAlignment.middle,
                            child: Text('$index. '),
                          ),
                          TextSpan(text: "This is a long line like you'd see in a bulleted list"),
                        ],
                      ),
                    ),
                  ),
                  SizedBox(height: 16),
                  Text('Functional'),
                  ...List.generate(
                    5,
                    (index) => Text.rich(
                      TextSpan(
                        children: [
                          /// Using text spans works fine
                          TextSpan(text: '$index. '),
                          TextSpan(text: "This is a long line like you'd see in a bulleted list"),
                        ],
                      ),
                    ),
                  ),
                ],
              ),
            ),
          ],
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

Screenshots or Video

Included above

Logs

N/A

Flutter Doctor output

Doctor output
mackmyers@Macks-MacBook-Pro-5 ~ % flutter doctor
Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.29.2, on macOS 15.3.1 24D70 darwin-arm64, locale
    en-US)
[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 31.0.0)
[!] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 15.4)
    ! CocoaPods 1.15.2 out of date (1.16.2 is recommended).
        CocoaPods is a package manager for iOS or macOS platform code.
        Without CocoaPods, plugins will not work on iOS or macOS.
        For more info, see https://flutter.dev/to/platform-plugins
      To update CocoaPods, see https://guides.cocoapods.org/using/getting-started.html#updating-cocoapods
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Android Studio (version 2022.1)
[✓] IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition (version 2024.2.0.2)
[✓] VS Code (version 1.98.2)
[✓] VS Code (version 1.98.0-insider)
[✓] Connected device (3 available)
    ! Error: Browsing on the local area network for Mack’s iPhone. Ensure the device is unlocked and attached with a
      cable or associated with the same local area network as this Mac.
      The device must be opted into Developer Mode to connect wirelessly. (code -27)
[✓] Network resources

! Doctor found issues in 1 category.

Metadata

Metadata

Labels

P2Important issues not at the top of the work listf: selectionSelectableRegion, SelectionArea, SelectionContainer, Selectable, and related APIsfound in release: 3.29Found to occur in 3.29found in release: 3.31Found to occur in 3.31frameworkflutter/packages/flutter repository. See also f: labels.has reproducible stepsThe issue has been confirmed reproducible and is ready to work onteam-text-inputOwned by Text Input teamtriaged-text-inputTriaged by Text Input team

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