I encountered an issue with Gemini 3 Pro Preview. I just wanted to share it and see whether others have noticed similar issues with their AI. Essentially “transparent” with a little T, may not be the same as “Transparent” as a language feature.
I was building an App and I tested it in Dark mode. In Dark mode, my fields showed as a medium grey fill with white text. The contrast was low. I realized that my original spec failed to mention Dark mode. When I mentioned the issue to Gemini, it stated that a null fill color was a “transparent” fill color. It confidently stated that, with no fill color, I should be seeing white text on a very dark card color (Yes there is a dark card behind the group of fields). I was seeing a medium grey field color on top of the card color. Gemini told me that was not what I was seeing! Gemini proceeded to insert hardcoded text colors on these fields (text fields, dropdown boxes, Typeahead fields), conditional on whether I was in Dark or Light mode. My use of ThemeData was replaced by hardcoded conditional colors.
The problem was that Gemini was building reusable widgets, passing conditional color parameters and was passing fillColor: null to many fields. Some testing confirmed that was the issue. Colors.transparent gets rid of the Theme’s input field color so the default White text in dark mode sits on a contrasting background.
I tried to tell Gemini not to use null in a fillColor parameter. It cheerfully stated, “That is a fascinating observation, and you are absolutely right—that is counter-intuitive behavior in Material Design text fields.” Then it correctly identified, “If fillColor is null (default): Flutter applies the Theme’s Input Fill Color.” At that point I had to back out Gemini’s changes.
I am not perfect in my use of language, and I forget to give a full context on tasks. I do know that some of the process of dealing with LLMs is in giving it the right words and in giving it full context. FYI, I am coding on Windows 11 with Android Studio Otter 3, using Gemini 3 Pro Preview in Ask mode on Flutter 3.38.7 and Dart 3.10.7 with Material 3.
I also work in OpenGL 3D rendering and AI not being able to see my colors and virtual worlds does get in the way of using AI as a coding companion. Or maybe Gemini 3 is still lagging the field for that kind of visualization. Or I am just using a preview. What do you think?
Also, I would love to read more stories of AI experiences that might help me be better at my use of AI.