Flutter setState of child widget without rebuilding parent

A nice way to rebuild only a child widget when a value in the parent changes is to use ValueNotifier and ValueListenableBuilder. Add an instance of ValueNotifier to the parent's state class, and wrap the widget you want to rebuild in a ValueListenableBuilder.

When you want to change the value, do so using the notifier without calling setState and the child widget rebuilds using the new value.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

class Parent extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _ParentState createState() => _ParentState();
}

class _ParentState extends State<Parent> {
  ValueNotifier<bool> _notifier = ValueNotifier(false);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Column(
      children: [
        ElevatedButton(onPressed: () => _notifier.value = !_notifier.value, child: Text('toggle')),
        ValueListenableBuilder(
            valueListenable: _notifier,
            builder: (BuildContext context, bool val, Widget child) {
              return Text(val.toString());
            }),
      ],
    );
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
      _notifier.dispose();

      super.dispose();
  }
}

For optimal performance, you can create your own wrapper around Scaffold that gets the body as a parameter. The body widget will not be rebuilt when setState is called in HideFabOnScrollScaffoldState.

This is a common pattern that can also be found in core widgets such as AnimationBuilder.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

main() => runApp(MaterialApp(home: MyHomePage()));

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  State<StatefulWidget> createState() => MyHomePageState();
}

class MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
  ScrollController controller = ScrollController();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return HideFabOnScrollScaffold(
      body: ListView.builder(
        controller: controller,
        itemBuilder: (context, i) => ListTile(title: Text('item $i')),
      ),
      floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
        onPressed: () {},
        child: Icon(Icons.add),
      ),
      controller: controller,
    );
  }
}

class HideFabOnScrollScaffold extends StatefulWidget {
  const HideFabOnScrollScaffold({
    Key key,
    this.body,
    this.floatingActionButton,
    this.controller,
  }) : super(key: key);

  final Widget body;
  final Widget floatingActionButton;
  final ScrollController controller;

  @override
  State<StatefulWidget> createState() => HideFabOnScrollScaffoldState();
}

class HideFabOnScrollScaffoldState extends State<HideFabOnScrollScaffold> {
  bool _fabVisible = true;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    widget.controller.addListener(_updateFabVisible);
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    widget.controller.removeListener(_updateFabVisible);
    super.dispose();
  }

  void _updateFabVisible() {
    final newFabVisible = (widget.controller.offset == 0.0);
    if (_fabVisible != newFabVisible) {
      setState(() {
        _fabVisible = newFabVisible;
      });
    }
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      body: widget.body,
      floatingActionButton: _fabVisible ? widget.floatingActionButton : null,
    );
  }
}

Alternatively you could also create a wrapper for FloatingActionButton, but that will probably break the transition.