setting default text style causes arabic characters to be unrecongnized

[moham96]

To show the problem run this code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() async {
  WidgetsFlutterBinding.ensureInitialized();

  runApp(const GymApp());
}

class GymApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const GymApp({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      theme: ThemeData.dark().copyWith(
        textTheme: const TextTheme(
          bodyText2: TextStyle(
            color: Colors.white,

          ),
        ),
      ),
      home: const Test(),
    );
  }
}

class Test extends StatelessWidget {
  const Test({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    print(
        'bodyText2 fontFamily: ${Theme.of(context).textTheme.bodyText2!.fontFamily}');
    print(
        'bodyText2 fontFamilyFallback: ${Theme.of(context).textTheme.bodyText2!.fontFamilyFallback}');
    return Scaffold(
      body: Center(
        child: Column(
          mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
          children: const [
            Text('نص عربي'),
            Text('English Text'),
          ],
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

running this on mac os is fine (the text shows fine for both the Arabic and english text) but running it through 'flutter-pi' causes the Arabic text to be shown as rectangles, looking at the output of the print statements I have in the build method, you see that the fontFamily and fontFamilyFallback are being set to null when you set bodyText2 to something instead of leaving it unchanged, in macos somehow the system still shows the character even when the fontFamily is null but in the raspberry pi it causes the characters to be known.

[DoumanAsh]

You need to use custom font, it is probably that flutter engine uses some default font depending on your locale or available system fonts with no option for extended unicode symbols.
Hence best approach is bundling your own fonts with application.

You can also set system locale to arabic one and see if flutter engine picks up better fonts (I think arabic would be ar_AE.utf8)

[ardera]

what @DoumanAsh said 😄

Closing this for now because there's no response, feel free to reopen if the issue persists.