Add a drawer to a screen

In apps that use Material Design, there are two primary options for navigation: tabs and drawers. When there is insufficient space to support tabs, drawers provide a handy alternative.

In Flutter, use the Drawer widget in combination with a Scaffold to create a layout with a Material Design drawer. This recipe uses the following steps:

1. Create a Scaffold.
2. Add a drawer.
3. Populate the drawer with items.
4. Close the drawer programmatically.

To add a drawer to the app, wrap it in a Scaffold widget. The Scaffold widget provides a consistent visual structure to apps that follow the Material Design Guidelines. It also supports special Material Design components, such as Drawers, AppBars, and SnackBars.

In this example, create a Scaffold with a drawer:

Scaffold(
  appBar: AppBar(
    title: const Text('AppBar without hamburger button'),
  ),
  drawer: // Add a Drawer here in the next step.
);

Now add a drawer to the Scaffold. A drawer can be any widget, but it's often best to use the Drawer widget from the material library, which adheres to the Material Design spec.

Scaffold(
  appBar: AppBar(
    title: const Text('AppBar with hamburger button'),
  ),
  drawer: Drawer(
    child: // Populate the Drawer in the next step.
  ),
);

Now that you have a Drawer in place, add content to it. For this example, use a ListView. While you could use a Column widget, ListView is handy because it allows users to scroll through the drawer if the content takes more space than the screen supports.

Populate the ListView with a DrawerHeader and two ListTile widgets. For more information on working with Lists, see the list recipes.

Drawer(
  // Add a ListView to the drawer. This ensures the user can scroll
  // through the options in the drawer if there isn't enough vertical
  // space to fit everything.
  child: ListView(
    // Important: Remove any padding from the ListView.
    padding: EdgeInsets.zero,
    children: [
      const DrawerHeader(
        decoration: BoxDecoration(
          color: Colors.blue,
        ),
        child: Text('Drawer Header'),
      ),
      ListTile(
        title: const Text('Item 1'),
        onTap: () {
          // Update the state of the app.
          // ...
        },
      ),
      ListTile(
        title: const Text('Item 2'),
        onTap: () {
          // Update the state of the app.
          // ...
        },
      ),
    ],
  ),
);

Typically, you don't need to write any code to open a drawer, Because when the leading widget is null, the default implementation in AppBar is DrawerButton.

But if you want to have free control of the drawer. You can do this by using the Builder call Scaffold.of(context).openDrawer().

Scaffold(
  appBar: AppBar(
    title: const Text('AppBar with hamburger button'),
    leading: Builder(
      builder: (context) {
        return IconButton(
          icon: const Icon(Icons.menu),
          onPressed: () {
            Scaffold.of(context).openDrawer();
          },
        );
      },
    ),
  ),
  drawer: Drawer(
    child: // Populate the Drawer in the last step.
  ),
);

After a user taps an item, you might want to close the drawer. You can do this by using the Navigator.

When a user opens the drawer, Flutter adds the drawer to the navigation stack. Therefore, to close the drawer, call Navigator.pop(context).

ListTile(
  title: const Text('Item 1'),
  onTap: () {
    // Update the state of the app
    // ...
    // Then close the drawer
    Navigator.pop(context);
  },
),

This example shows a Drawer as it is used within a Scaffold widget. The Drawer has three ListTile items. The _onItemTapped function changes the selected item's index and displays the corresponding text in the center of the Scaffold.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() => runApp(const MyApp());

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

  static const appTitle = 'Drawer Demo';

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return const MaterialApp(
      title: appTitle,
      home: MyHomePage(title: appTitle),
    );
  }
}

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

  final String title;

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

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
  int _selectedIndex = 0;
  static const TextStyle optionStyle =
      TextStyle(fontSize: 30, fontWeight: FontWeight.bold);
  static const List<Widget> _widgetOptions = <Widget>[
    Text(
      'Index 0: Home',
      style: optionStyle,
    ),
    Text(
      'Index 1: Business',
      style: optionStyle,
    ),
    Text(
      'Index 2: School',
      style: optionStyle,
    ),
  ];

  void _onItemTapped(int index) {
    setState(() {
      _selectedIndex = index;
    });
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: Text(widget.title),
        leading: Builder(
          builder: (context) {
            return IconButton(
              icon: const Icon(Icons.menu),
              onPressed: () {
                Scaffold.of(context).openDrawer();
              },
            );
          },
        ),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: _widgetOptions[_selectedIndex],
      ),
      drawer: Drawer(
        // Add a ListView to the drawer. This ensures the user can scroll
        // through the options in the drawer if there isn't enough vertical
        // space to fit everything.
        child: ListView(
          // Important: Remove any padding from the ListView.
          padding: EdgeInsets.zero,
          children: [
            const DrawerHeader(
              decoration: BoxDecoration(
                color: Colors.blue,
              ),
              child: Text('Drawer Header'),
            ),
            ListTile(
              title: const Text('Home'),
              selected: _selectedIndex == 0,
              onTap: () {
                // Update the state of the app
                _onItemTapped(0);
                // Then close the drawer
                Navigator.pop(context);
              },
            ),
            ListTile(
              title: const Text('Business'),
              selected: _selectedIndex == 1,
              onTap: () {
                // Update the state of the app
                _onItemTapped(1);
                // Then close the drawer
                Navigator.pop(context);
              },
            ),
            ListTile(
              title: const Text('School'),
              selected: _selectedIndex == 2,
              onTap: () {
                // Update the state of the app
                _onItemTapped(2);
                // Then close the drawer
                Navigator.pop(context);
              },
            ),
          ],
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}