Hello, What is the correct way of creating a textfield in Compose Desktop? This work fine in Androi...

# compose-desktop

[John Aoussou]

Hello,

What is the correct way of creating a textfield in Compose Desktop? This work fine in Android but crashes on Desktop:

val textState = remember { mutableStateOf(TextFieldValue()) }
        TextField(
            value = textState.value,
            onValueChange = {
                textState.value = it
            }
        )

With the following error:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.NullPointerException: Parameter specified as non-null is null: method androidx.compose.ui.platform.PlatformInput$methodRequestsForInput$1.getTextLocation, parameter offset

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

What version of Compose are you using? The code looks fine, so I’m guessing it has something to do with missing or wrong dependencies.

[John Aoussou]

@Alexander Maryanovsky I'm using the default dependencies of the IntelliJ IDEA for a Desktop Compose project. The Compose version is 1.5.10:

IntelliJ IDEA 2023.3.2 (Community Edition)
Build #IC-233.13135.103, built on December 20, 2023
Runtime version: 17.0.9+7-b1087.9 amd64
VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o.
Linux 5.15.0-91-generic
GC: G1 Young Generation, G1 Old Generation
Memory: 3994M
Cores: 4
Registry:
  ide.experimental.ui=true
Kotlin: 233.13135.103-IJ
Current Desktop: ubuntu:GNOME

[John Aoussou]

import org.jetbrains.compose.desktop.application.dsl.TargetFormat

plugins {
    kotlin("jvm")
    id("org.jetbrains.compose")
}

group = "com.example"
version = "1.0-SNAPSHOT"

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    maven("<https://maven.pkg.jetbrains.space/public/p/compose/dev>")
    google()
}

dependencies {
    // Note, if you develop a library, you should use compose.desktop.common.
    // compose.desktop.currentOs should be used in launcher-sourceSet
    // (in a separate module for demo project and in testMain).
    // With compose.desktop.common you will also lose @Preview functionality
    implementation(compose.desktop.currentOs)
}

compose.desktop {
    application {
        mainClass = "MainKt"

        nativeDistributions {
            targetFormats(TargetFormat.Dmg, TargetFormat.Msi, TargetFormat.Deb)
            packageName = "debugTextField"
            packageVersion = "1.0.0"
        }
    }
}

[John Aoussou]

org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048m -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
kotlin.code.style=official
kotlin.version=1.9.20
compose.version=1.5.10

[John Aoussou]

pluginManagement {
    repositories {
        gradlePluginPortal()
        maven("<https://maven.pkg.jetbrains.space/public/p/compose/dev>")
    }

    plugins {
        kotlin("jvm").version(extra["kotlin.version"] as String)
        id("org.jetbrains.compose").version(extra["compose.version"] as String)
    }
}

rootProject.name = "debugTextField"

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Latest version is 1.5.11 and kotlin 1.9.21, but that shouldn’t really be the issue.

[John Aoussou]

Well, I literally created a project with the default settings and added the code in the Main App function.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Weird, there does seem to be a problem there. A kotlin function implementing a Java function that takes a nullable argument and doesn’t mark the type as nullable.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

But this code has been there since 2020

[John Aoussou]

Let me try on different computer then.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Are you running it and it crashes immediately?

[John Aoussou]

It crashes when I click the textfield.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

What version of Java are you running your app in?

[John Aoussou]

JDK 17.0.9

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Are you sure? Can you put this in your main?

println("${System.getProperty("java.version")}")

[John Aoussou]

> Task :compileJava NO-SOURCE
> Task :classes UP-TO-DATE
> Task :jar

> Task :run
17.0.9

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Ok, what OS? Any unusual input settings?

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Anyway, I’ll fix it…

[John Aoussou]

Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS

[John Aoussou]

Any unusual input settings?

For example? Like accents/non latin letters? (no)

[John Aoussou]

Anyway, I’ll fix it…

Please do let me know if you need any additional information.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

I don’t really know what would cause it, so hard to say.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Somehow the OS/JVM is interacting with the app in an unusual way. The bug is definitely in the app, but it’s surprising that we haven’t seen it for 4 years.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

You can follow the issue if you’d like.

[John Aoussou]

I can confirm there is no bug on MacOS.

[John Aoussou]

I guess it's going to be some time before the fix is actually implemented,would there be any workaround for the time being?

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Not that I can think of, sorry. There’s a -Xno-param-assertions compiler flag, but you would need to recompile compose itself, which isn’t trivial.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Can you use our dev builds? If so then you should see the fix in a few days at most.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Maybe a different version of Java won’t trigger it.

[John Aoussou]

Seems like Coretto 21 is working fine.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

@John Aoussou Hi. Do you recall when exactly the crash happens? Do you need to type anything into the textfield first?

[John Aoussou]

@Alexander Maryanovsky
If I remember correctly, it would crash as soon I clicked the text field (I wasn't able to input anything).

[John Aoussou]

https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/C01D6HTPATV/p1703946540576979?thread_ts=1703945090.386949&cid=C01D6HTPATV

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Got it, thanks