Flutter Location Button

Display a system-rendered Location Button (on Android 17+) with fallback options.

With it, you can ask the user for access to the device's location that is revoked when the app is closed. On other OSes and on Android 16 and previous versions, a Flutter-rendered button that is an equivalent to the native button will appear.

This button is preferred for user privacy and is easier to justify when publishing an app to the Play Store (or other stores with similar policies).

We are agnostic regarding which geolocation solution you use (geolocator, location, or another one), you won't have to update legacy code when migrating to this library, and you will use mature and familiar APIs.

Getting Started

Android Setup

The package already requests the new permission for the Location Button on Android 17 and up. Still, you will need to request the specific location permissions depending on your use case inside your app's AndroidManifest.xml :

Only accessing position through Location Buttons

Whatever version of Android you wish to support (as long as you are targeting SDK 37 and up), you can simply add those entries to your manifest:

<uses-permission
    android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"
    android:usesPermissionFlags="onlyForLocationButton"
    tools:targetApi="37" />

<uses-permission
    android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION"
    android:maxSdkVersion="36" />

The first permission means that you will only be able to access the user's precise location. When the app runs on Android 17+, the permission can only be granted through the Location Button.

The second permission is highly recommended, you can find more information here.

Mixing usage of the Location Button and regular geolocation APIs

If your app has, for example, a QOL feature that requires one-time access to geolocation and another optional feature that requires the usual geolocation permission, you can still use the Location Button.

The following lines must be added the manifest to use the button and request the precise location:

<uses-permission
    android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission
    android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />

Again, the second permission is very important, find more information here.

Note

The value of the Location Button is diminished as you will need to declare the same permissions in the manifest as if you didn't implement it, excepted the Location Button permission itself.

Flutter setup

To add a Location Button to your Flutter app, use the LocationButton widget.

The widget displays the button through a PlatformView when supported, which might look less "integrated" than the Flutter-rendered widget. Some focus actions may look subpar and matrix transformation is not supported.

For those reasons, we recommend keeping the button in a place that is either not in a scrollable widget or far from the scrolling edges (as view deformation animations won't render correctly).

Different overlays won't work as the button actually renders on top of the finalized Flutter frame. So, no dialog should be opened on top of a Location Button, and back page transitions may look janky (and thus should be avoided or minimized).

To use the widget, follow the instructions:

1. Add the dependency to your project:

   flutter pub add flutter_location_button

2. Import the package in your Dart file:

   import 'package:flutter_location_button/flutter_location_button.dart';

3. Add the widget to your tree: (example using the geolocator package)

   LocationButton(
     // Alternatively, use the named factories for LocationButtonStyle to match aesthetics 
     // for different Material widget themes.
     style: .new(
       // Context is required to translate flutter Logical Pixels to Android Display Units.
       context: context,
       height: 48,
       width: 256,
       textType: .nearMyPreciseLocation,
       cornerRadius: 8,
       pressedCornerRadius: 96,
     ),
     onPermissionGranted: () {
       // You can expect location permissions to be granted (may be coarse or exact).
       final latestLocation = await Geolocator.getCurrentPosition(
         locationSettings: .new(accuracy: .best),
       );
   
       print(
         'Permission granted! $onlyGrantedForSession $latestLocation',
       );
     },
     onPermissionDenied: () {
       print('Permission denied...');
     },
   )