I would love to see this proposal accepted and implemented. I think this addition would align perfectly with the already existing mindset of Flutter, that is, to make it as easy to write performant code as possible.

@gskinner I created a small draft PR and decided not to include the parameter in AnimateList for now as I think it the RepaintBoundary is more likely to have negative effects there.
But do you think about that? Should I add it to have a uniform API across the animate widgets?

Thanks @S-ecki !

I think that's a good call, if you have a list of animated items, it's usually not going to be a good candidate for wrapping each item in RepaintBoundary. I'm coding on some other stuff right now, but will aim to look over the PR in the next day or so.

just a note that this is still on list to fully review, just working through a few other items first.

Looked this over, and it looks good, but I want to make sure there's a good answer for one simple question before including this: "why?"

What is the ultimate goal for this feature? It's not any shorter or easier than just wrapping in a widget:

foo.animate(useRepaintBoundary: true)
// vs
RepaintBoundary(child: foo.animate())

I have an idea or two of why it might be justified, but I'd be interested to hear other thoughts on this (versus, for example, just adding a note in the README about RepaintBoundary).

Sorry for not asking this sooner, it just occurred to me while reviewing the PR tonight. :)

quick note @gskinner, I'm in Australia backpacking rn, will answer as soon as I'm back :)

I think the addRepaintBoundary parameter will be used very frequently in animations, similar to how ListView often needs it for its items. I think that's why ListView provides the addRepaintBoundaries option. Having an addRepaintBoundary option, as opposed to directly using RepaintBoundary, reduces an extra layer of nesting and indentation, improving readability.

  ListView.builder(
      itemBuilder: (_, __) => const SizedBox.shrink(),
      itemCount: 1,
      addRepaintBoundaries: false,
    )