content_padding not working properly with updated Dropdown in 0.27.0

[jnsh]

Duplicate Check

• I have searched the opened issues and there are no duplicates

Describe the bug

In flet <0.27 it was possible to reduce the size of the Dropdown "button" by setting dense=True and adjusting content_padding. With the new implementation in 0.27.0 this does not work properly anymore, even though neither options are marked deprecated in the changelog.

It seems that the padding is now only changed on the left edge, but on top and bottom there seems to be a treshold where the padding can not be reduced further.

Increasing the content_padding still works vertically as it used to.

Also, content_padding does not seem to have any effect any more on the right edge in relation to the down-arrow.

Code sample

Code

import flet as ft

OPTIONS = [
    "Option 1",
    "Option 2",
    "Option 3",
    "Option 4",
    "Option 5",
]

def main(page: ft.Page):
    dropdown = ft.Dropdown(
        label="Label",
        dense=True,
        content_padding=ft.padding.all(8),
        width=float("inf"),
    )
    for status in OPTIONS:
        dropdown.options.append(ft.dropdown.Option(status))

    page.add(
        dropdown
    )

ft.app(main)

To reproduce

1. Create Dropdown with dense=True and reduce content_padding (e.g. content_padding=ft.padding.all(8)).

The Dropdown vertical size remains the same

Expected behavior

The Dropdown button padding changes as it did with the old Dropdown implementation

Screenshots / Videos

Captures

Flet 0.26.0:
with content_padding=ft.padding.all(8):

with content_padding=ft.padding.all(0):

with content_padding=ft.padding.all(30):

Flet 0.27.0:
with content_padding=ft.padding.all(8):

with content_padding=ft.padding.all(0):

with content_padding=ft.padding.all(30):

Operating System

Linux

Operating system details

Rocky Linux 9.3

Flet version

0.27.1

Regression

Yes, it used to work in a previous Flet version (please specify the version in additional details)

Suggestions

No response

Logs

No response

Additional details

Regression from 0.26

[ndonkoHenri]

Seems like this behavior cannot be changed, as this is how the DropdownMenu we are based on works. Perhaps that's the updated material design style.

[jnsh]

@ndonkoHenri Thank you for the reply.

Understandably, when your project is completely based on Flutter, you will inherit all the quirks and problems they have, and there isn't always much you can do to work around them.

However, simply closing any issues you inherited from upstream Flutter is not an appropriate or proficient way to handle those cases. Even if these issues are not caused by your code, they still exist in your project and cause trouble to your users.

In this case particularly, you seem to have closed the issue based on the assumption that this is intended behavior from updated material design style. Since you did not link any references supporting this assumption, I take this is merely your unconfirmed guess. To me, nothing about this behavior suggests that it would be intended, as the contentPadding is not behaving in any way consistently (works on some direction but not others). If this was indeed intended behavior from Flutter, you should be able to confirm this from its documentation or by asking directly from its developers.

Your project is 100% dependant on Flutter, and reporting or otherwise communicating your issues to their developers, and being actively involved in its development should be well established practice.

I am suggesting that you adopt the following conventions for issues that are (or you suspect are) inherited from Flutter:

1. Report the issues to upstream Flutter (your user are unlikely to have the required test environment and understanding of Flutter to do so)

2. Tag issues as "flutter bug" or something similar, but keep them open, with references to upstream issues and other relevant information, until they are actually fixed in Flet

Handling these issues professionally will not only help your own project and its users, but will benefit the whole Flutter ecosystem.

[jnsh]

Reported to flutter/flutter#164954