Flutter: Why is my listTile color being overwritten by the container color?

Question

I have a listTile builder that returns this listTile. The color of the listTile, white, is overwritten by its parent. How do I stop this?

return ListTile(
   key: Key(index.toString()),
   tileColor: Colors.white,
   title: Text(widget.userExercises[index].name),
   subtitle: Text("${widget.userExercises[index].reps} Reps"),
   trailing: Text("${widget.userExercises[index].sets} Sets"),
   onTap: () => widget.editFunction(widget.userExercises[index]),
);

However, when I run my app, the tileColor is overwritten by the parent Container's color.

return Container(
  alignment: Alignment.center,
  color: Colors.lightBlue,
  child: ExerciseTable(
    userExercises: todaysExercises,
    editFunction: _showEditDialog,
  ),
);

Resulting in the following:

Thank you! (and sorry for the image size I don't know how to change it)

Answer 1

ListTile paints its tileColor on a Material widget ancestor. When a colored Container is in between the ListTile and that ancestor you won't see the tileColor. To quote from here https://github.com/flutter/flutter/pull/86355/commits/9341a6b1d0d2852ee3c7eb413bbbdc9327f425c8 :

/// Requires one of its ancestors to be a [Material] widget.
/// One ancestor must be a [Material] widget and typically this is
/// provided by the app's [Scaffold]. The [tileColor],
/// [selectedTileColor], [focusColor], and [hoverColor] are not
/// painted by the list tile itself but by the material widget
/// ancestor. This generally has no effect. However, if an opaque
/// widget, like `Container(color: Colors.white)`, is included in
/// between the [ListTile] and its [Material] ancestor, then the
/// opaque widget will obscure the material widget and its background
/// [tileColor], etc. If this a problem, one can wrap a material
/// widget around the list tile, e.g.:
///
/// Container(
///   color: Colors.green,
///   child: Material(
///     child: ListTile(
///       title: const Text('ListTile with red background'),
///       tileColor: Colors.red,
///     ),
///   ),
/// )

See also this discussion: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/83108