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Hemunt Sharma
Hemunt Sharma

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Flutter Toast vs Snackbar

What is a toast message in an android application? It is just a message that is displayed on the top of the screen for a short time. This is the simplest meaning of the toast message and in a flutter, the toast message has the no different meaning it is the same as I described above.

And what is a Snackbar in flutter? It is also a way to communicate with the user or display a message to the user but with the snackbar your user can interact with the app by doing certain things. Snackbar can be used in areas where simple external information is required with options to use. For example: In the GMail application, when you delete a message, a quick snackbar with the option message ‘Deleted’ and ‘Restore’ displays on the top of the mobile screen. After clicking the ‘Restore’ button, the deleted information will be restored.

You can compare Toast vs Snackbar in android development with using java but in flutter showing a snackbar and showing a toast message are the same thing although there is a package in flutter especially for displaying the toast message on the screen just like the toast message from java. And you can use this package to display a toast message.

Use this plugin

Fluttertoast.showToast(

msg: “This is a Toast message”, // message

toastLength: Toast.LENGTH_SHORT, // length

gravity: ToastGravity.CENTER, // location

timeInSecForIos: 1 // duration

);
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For displaying a snackbar in flutter you don’t need any extra package. Flutter comes with a pre-define snackbar property in scaffold widget of the app.

ScaffoldMessenger.of(context).showSnackBar(
 SnackBar(

  content: Text(“Sending Message”),

 )
);
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if you use the flutter toast package then here is a little comparison between toast and snackbar. In my opinion, if your goal is to show warnings or information that requires user interaction/confirmation, then you should use a snackbar. If it’s just information that doesn’t require user authentication, you can use a toast message.

#TOAST

  1. You can not dismiss by swiping

  2. Widget not required (Can show in the android home or above other apps)

  3. It can not handle user input

  4. Best to show info messages to the user

#Snackbar

  1. It can be dismissed by swiping

  2. It can only be displayed inside the app widget or activity

  3. It can easily handle user input

  4. Good for showing warning/info type messages to the user that needs attention

You can use whatever you want to show the message but in my opinion, I would rather use snackbar for displaying the message because it gives the ability to interact with the user, and by using snackbar we can do lots of stuff that can not be done using flutter toast.

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