static wont update when using with Horizontal():

[classicalBit]

Hi, I am a beginner coder and I’m running into an issue: the update method for updating a Static widget only works when I’m not using a Horizontal container. The text isn’t showing.

This works:

def compose(self) -> ComposeResult:
    yield ItemTable(id="item_table")
    yield Static(id="description")

But this does not work:

def compose(self) -> ComposeResult:
    yield ItemTable(id="item_table")
    with Horizontal():
        yield Static(id="description")

This is the related code:

@on(DataTable.CellSelected, "#item_table")
def on_cell_selected(self, event: DataTable.CellSelected):
    row_key = event.cell_key.row_key  
    selected_item = self.item_table.items_map.get(row_key)

    if selected_item:
        description = selected_item.description  
        self.description_static.update(description)
    else:
        self.notify("cant update description")

And this is my on_mount method:

async def on_mount(self) -> None:
    self.item_table = self.query_one(ItemTable).focus()
    self.description_static = self.query_one(Static)

    await self.sync_items()
    
    self.set_interval(10.0, self.fetch_items)
    
    
    
    Thank you and sorry if this is a stupid question.

[wavebyrd]

The issue is that query_one(Static) returns the first Static widget found, which may not be your description widget when using containers.

Use the ID selector instead:

async def on_mount(self) -> None:
    self.item_table = self.query_one(ItemTable).focus()
    self.description_static = self.query_one("#description", Static)  # Use ID selector

    await self.sync_items()
    self.set_interval(10.0, self.fetch_items)

The #description selector specifically targets the Static with id="description", so it will find the correct widget regardless of container hierarchy.

This is a common gotcha - when you wrap widgets in containers, query_one(WidgetType) might find a different instance than expected.