How to use a global key outside the file widget had been defined

Question

In file1 I'm defining the following widget:

class MyWidget extends StatefulWidget {
  const MyWidget({
    Key key,
  }) : super(key: key);

  @override
  _MyWidget createState() => _MyWidgetState();
}

In file2 I want to call this widget and give a global key for the key parameter. To do so I'm importing file1:

import 'package:mypackage/supplemental/file1.dart';

Then in this file (file2) I want to define a MyWidget global key:

GlobalKey<_MyWidgetState> globalKey;

But I'm getting this error:

The name '_MyWidgetState' isn't a type so it can't be used as a type argument. Try correcting the name to an existing type, or defining a type named '_MyWidgetState'

How come I cannot access it even though I imported the file?

Solution

Remove the underscore from in front of your _MyWidgetState to make it public. Change

_MyWidgetState

to

MyWidgetState

Comments

[danypata]

If you have a _ before a class or a variable declaration, it means that class or variable is private. In your case _MyWidgetState is private and can't be accessed from a different file. You can remove the _ from the class declaration and then it should work.