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BreakingHigh impactOfficial migration guidesince 3.19.0landed 3.16.0-11.0.pre

Accessibility traversal order of tooltip changed

Framework · Official source

What changed?

During accessibility focus traversal, `Tooltip.message` is visited immediately after `Tooltip.child`.

Will this affect my application?

Who is affected
Applications and packages relying on the previous behaviour or signature. Code that uses Tooltip.message, Tooltip.child, Tooltip and related APIs.
Practical impact
Behaviour or API differences that can break builds or change runtime behaviour.
What action should I take?
Follow the official migration guide below, update affected call sites, run `dart fix --apply` where a fix is available, then run your tests.
APIs mentioned:Tooltip.messageTooltip.childTooltipOverlayEntry

How do I migrate safely?

Official migration guide (excerpt, © The Flutter Authors, CC BY 3.0)

This change moved the tooltip message in the semantics tree. You might see accessibility test failures if your tests expect a tooltip message to appear in a specific location in the semantics tree, when it is visible. Update any failing accessibility tests to adopt the new tooltip semantics order.

For example, if you constructed the following widget tree in your test:

Directionality(
  textDirection: TextDirection.ltr,
  child: Overlay(
    initialEntries: <OverlayEntry>[
      OverlayEntry(
        builder: (BuildContext context) {
          return ListView(
            children: <Widget>[
              const Text('before'),
              Tooltip(
                key: tooltipKey,
                showDuration: const Duration(days: 365),
                message: 'message',
                child: const Text('child'),
              ),
              const Text('after'),
            ],
          );
        },
      ),
    ],
  ),
);

When the tooltip message is visible, the corresponding semantics tree before this change should look like this:

SemanticsNode#0
 │
 ├─SemanticsNode#1
 │ │
 │ └─SemanticsNode#5
 │   │ flags: hasImplicitScrolling
 │   │ scrollChildren: 3
 │   │
 │   ├─SemanticsNode#2
 │   │   tags: RenderViewport.twoPane
 │   │   label: "before"
 │   │   textDirection: ltr
 │   │
 │   ├─SemanticsNode#3
 │   │   tags: RenderViewport.twoPane
 │   │   label: "child"
 │   │   tooltip: "message"
 │   │   textDirection: ltr
 │   │
 │   └─SemanticsNode#4
 │       tags: RenderViewport.twoPane
 │       label: "after"
 │       textDirection: ltr
 │
 └─SemanticsNode#6
     label: "message"
     textDirection: ltr

After this change, the same widget tree generates a slightly different semantics tree, as shown below. Node #6 becomes a child of node #3, instead of node #0.

SemanticsNode#0
 │
 └─SemanticsNode#1
   │
   └─SemanticsNode#5
     │ flags: hasImplicitScrolling
     │ scrollChildren: 3
     │
     ├─SemanticsNode#2
     │   tags: RenderViewport.twoPane
     │   label: "before"
     │   textDirection: ltr
     │
     ├─SemanticsNode#3
     │ │ tags: RenderViewport.twoPane
     │ │ label: "child"
     │ │ tooltip: "message"
     │ │ textDirection: ltr
     │ │
     │ └─SemanticsNode#6
     │     label: "message"
     │     textDirection: ltr
     │
     └─SemanticsNode#4
         tags: RenderViewport.twoPane
         label: "after"
         textDirection: ltr
Migration assistantAI-generated · grounded in cited sources
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Evidence & verification

Official migration guide·Verified classification (95%)

Listed in the official breaking-changes index (docs.flutter.dev/release/breaking-changes).

An official announcement or migration guide documents an intended behaviour or API change. A verified source change (git diff) shows code changed but does not by itself prove a public API is breaking. AI interpretations are labelled and never used to classify a change.

Source commit
b3045439b7c0
Source last updated
Oct 21, 2026
Last synchronized
Oct 21, 2026
Publication status
published
Publication history
  • Oct 21, 2026, 8:31 PM: new → published (ingestion) — Backed by an official breaking-change/migration guide.
AI explanationAI-generated · grounded in cited sources
AI explanations are not configured
Set AI_PROVIDER (for example to openai-compatible with a local Ollama or LM Studio endpoint) to enable grounded explanations. Everything else on this page works without an AI provider.
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