💡 Discovering `CustomMultiChildLayout` in Flutter: A Personal Journey

Hi guys 👋🏽,

What I’m writing about today might not be groundbreaking for everyone—but if you’ve ever wrestled with layout precision in Flutter, this might just be the gem you didn’t know you needed.

🧠 Backstory: The Overlap Challenge

I was deep into a project when I hit a familiar design challenge: I needed to overlay a portion of one widget onto another. My go-to solution? A Stack with Positioned widgets. Simple, effective, and it got the job done—as you can see below:

But then came a twist.

While working on another part of the same project—Ballers (we’ll talk about that another day 😉)—I needed to recreate the same overlapping layout, but on a smaller scale and with more control. That’s when I stumbled upon a widget I hadn’t paid much attention to before: CustomMultiChildLayout.

And wow. It changed everything.

Let's dive into it...

##🔍 What Is CustomMultiChildLayout?

Flutter’s layout system is powerful, but sometimes you need more than just Rows and Columns. You need precision. You need control. You need... CustomMultiChildLayout.

This widget is a hidden gem in Flutter’s arsenal. It lets you position multiple children exactly where you want them—top-left, center, bottom-right, overlapping, floating—you name it. And when paired with a custom delegate, it becomes a layout playground for creative developers.

Unlike standard layout widgets, CustomMultiChildLayout gives you admin privileges over your layout logic. You define the rules, the positions, and the sizing behavior. It’s like writing your own layout engine—but with Flutter’s elegance.

🧪 My First Encounter

Here’s a simplified version of what I built using CustomMultiChildLayout. It’s responsive, clean, and gives me full control over where each widget lands:

• The Main widget
  

• The Cascade Delegate
  

• The result
  

This was my first encounter with the widget, and I mostly pulled from the sample provided by the Flutter team—then added a bit of my own touch to get it looking the way I wanted.

And yes, I’m well aware that the way I’ve used this widget might just be me...

...bringing a rocket launcher to a knife fight 😅

But hey, it works—and it looks good.

💬 Final Thoughts

Sometimes the best tools are the ones you stumble upon. CustomMultiChildLayout gave me the precision I needed and opened up new possibilities for layout design in Flutter. If you’ve ever felt boxed in by Rows, Columns, or even Stacks—give this widget a try.

And if you’re working on something cool like Ballers, or just want to level up your UI game, this might be the layout freedom you’ve been looking for. I might eventually build something more elaborate but for now...it is what it is 😁.

Let me know what you think, or share how you’ve used CustomMultiChildLayout in your own projects!