Fyne: Embedded struct of Entry not refreshing

[MarkRosemaker]

Describe the bug

I want my chat interface to pass on my string when I hit enter.
I've created a struct that embeds the Entry widget like so:

type ChatEntry struct {
    widget.Entry
}

func (e *ChatEntry) TypedKey(key *fyne.KeyEvent) {
        // Call the function as defined in widget.Entry
    e.Entry.TypedKey(key)

        // Do something else on hitting the enter key.
    if (key.Name == fyne.KeyReturn || key.Name == fyne.KeyEnter) {
        fmt.Sprint("Enter pressed! Text: ", e.Text)
        e.SetText("")
    }
}

I then put widget w on one of my screens:

var chat *ChatEntry= &ChatEntry{*widget.NewEntry()}`
w := widget.NewGroup("Chat",
    widget.NewEntry(), // for comparison
    chat)

The console is showing expected behavior.
However, the widget is not refreshing its display at all: it will not show that it's focused, it won't even remove placeholder text if I set one.

I can't even find a way to manually refresh it. After digging a bit I hoped the following works but it doesn't:

// doesn't visually refresh the widget
widget.Refresh(e)
e.CreateRenderer().Refresh()

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Add ChatEntry as defined above to your project.
2. During runtime, click into the widget and type.

Device (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows 10.0.18362
• go version go1.13 windows/amd64
• fyne.io/fyne v1.1.2

Thanks in advance!

[andydotxyz]

Thanks, this is indeed something that should “just work” - but doesn’t.
We intend to have this fixed in a widget refactor that will be released soon. In fact I have it working locally and your code makes a great test case thanks :).

Short answer is that right now there is not a workaround but it will work as you expected in 1.2 - apologies for the delay.

[MarkRosemaker]

That is very good news. Thank you so much!

[andydotxyz]

This is now pushed to develop and ready for pre-release testing if you are interested.
It does require an additional line of code but that is all. Update your var chat *ChatEntry line to:

    chat := &ChatEntry{}
    chat.ExtendBaseWidget(chat)

That code could also be moved to a constructor function as it's important that the ExtendBaseWidget call is before any sub-widgets are initialised.

[dhinojosac]

This is now pushed to develop and ready for pre-release testing if you are interested.
It does require an additional line of code but that is all. Update your var chat *ChatEntry line to:

  chat := &ChatEntry{}
  chat.ExtendBaseWidget(chat)

That code could also be moved to a constructor function as it's important that the ExtendBaseWidget call is before any sub-widgets are initialised.

Thank you very much, it was just a problem I had with a chat application that I try to do. I initially edited the entry to make it happen. I also edited the groupScroll so that I could go all the way when new text was added with the enter. I've never contributed to the community but I'd like to try.
Thanks

[andydotxyz]

All contributions welcome. If you can't find something you need then open an issue or join us on the #fyne channel of the Gopher Slack server (links from our website footer https://fyne.io).