Category: Android

Android Kotlin Basics – Visibility Modifiers

About This Series

This “Android Kotlin Basics” blog series is all about fundamentals. We’ll take a look at the basics of building Android apps with Kotlin from the SUPER basics, to the standard basics, to the not-so-basics. We’ll also be drawing comparisons to how things are done in Kotlin vs. Java and some other programming languages to build Android apps (like C# and Xamarin or JavaScript/TypeScript for Hybrid implementations).

Check Out the Pluralsight Course!

If you like this series, be sure to check out my course on Pluralsight – Building Android Apps with Kotlin: Getting Started where you can learn more while building your own real-world application in Kotlin along the way. You can also join the conversation and test your knowledge throughout the course with learning checks through each module!

Watch it here: https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/building-android-apps-kotlin-getting-started/table-of-contents

Kotlin Visibility Modifiers

Visibility modifiers are what we use to facilitate the Encapsulation and Polymorphism aspects of object-oriented design and it seems that every language handles a few things differently. We use modifiers to restrict access to certain parts of our code from other code. We know Kotlin is interoperable with Java, but their visibility modifiers are actually different in a few ways!

Java has 4 primary modifiers:

  • public
  • private
  • protected
  • package-private: The default if you do not explicitly provide one

However, these modifiers are not available for top level structures such as classes or interfaces. All the modifiers are used for members of those classes and interfaces, but only public and package-private are used for the actual classes and interfaces.

Oracle has created a useful chart on what each modifier is and what it restricts:

Access Levels
Modifier Class Package Subclass World
public Yes Yes Yes Yes
protected Yes Yes Yes No
no modifier Yes Yes No No
private Yes No No No

source: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/accesscontrol.html

Those are pretty straightforward. public means everyone gets to see it, protected means subclasses and packages can see it, package-private means objects in the same package see it, but that’s it, and private means only the immediate class can see it.

Let’s look at Kotlin’s implementation, and what I personally believe to be more useful and logical. If you come from a C# background these will seem familiar.

Kotlin has 4:

  • public
  • private
  • protected
  • internal

One important thing to note is that Kotlin, unlike many other languages, defaults to public. This means everything is exposed, and it is up to the developer to determine what should be hidden. Java’s approach is to enforce the security more directly with their default which then forces the developer to determine what should be exposed. It’s an interesting approach, but the more you get into Kotlin development, the more you’ll see why it is appropriate for the style. Kotlin is statically-typed object oriented, but does not require your code to be written in forced structures, and has a lot of functional aspects to it, but we’ll get into that later in the series.

Let’s create our own chart for these:

Access Levels
Modifier Class Package Subclass World Module*
public or no modifier Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
protected Yes No Yes No No
internal Yes Yes Yes if in Module No Yes
private Yes No No No No

*Modules are unique to Kotlin and include all files compiled in one source-set. More info here https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/visibility-modifiers.html#modules

Some important things to note:

  • protected is not visible to the entire package – it is basically private but also exposes to sublcasses. This is the same as C# protected.
  • internal is like public if the referencing code is within the same Module
  • private is not just for classes, since Kotlin does not actually require a class for functions. private restricts to the actual FILE that the code lives in.

 

Now that we know how to use encapsulation and visibility modifiers, we can start to understand more of how we can secure our code and architect our solutions in strong and logical ways.

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

Android Kotlin Basics – Property Encapsulation

About This Series

This “Android Kotlin Basics” blog series is all about fundamentals. We’ll take a look at the basics of building Android apps with Kotlin from the SUPER basics, to the standard basics, to the not-so-basics. We’ll also be drawing comparisons to how things are done in Kotlin vs. Java and some other programming languages to build Android apps (like C# and Xamarin or JavaScript/TypeScript for Hybrid implementations).

Check Out the Pluralsight Course!

If you like this series, be sure to check out my course on Pluralsight – Building Android Apps with Kotlin: Getting Started where you can learn more while building your own real-world application in Kotlin along the way. You can also join the conversation and test your knowledge throughout the course with learning checks through each module!

Watch it here: https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/building-android-apps-kotlin-getting-started/table-of-contents

Kotlin Property Encapsulation

Okay, let’s get to it then. Kotlin is an object-oriented, statically typed, programming language. This means we use interfaces, classes, and abstract classes (among some other unique data structures) to define our data and objects. Encapsulation in our classes serves 2 primary purposes – Code security and architecture strength. It’s how we restrict access to these data structures as well as their contained properties and functions.

In this post we will focus on how we encapsulate properties within our classes, interfaces, and more. Kotlin is 100% interoperable with Java so its practices have to work back and forth with the limitations of Java as well. Let’s take a look at ways we encapsulate properties in Java first, then show how much better it is in Kotlin!

Let’s look at 2 classes – Animal and a child class Dog. We’ll first be showing the Java implementation, then look at how much nicer the Kotlin implementation is!

Animal.java

abstract class Animal {
    // name property
    private String name;

    // constructor with name parameter
    protected Animal(String name) {
        this.name = name; // sets the name
    }

    public String getName() {
        return this.Name
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
         this.name = name;
    }
}

Dog.java

public class Dog extends Animal {
    private String breed;
    // constructor with name parameter
    protected Dog(String name, String breed) {
        super(name); // sets the name through base constructor
        this.breed = breed;
    }

    public String getBreed() {
        return this.breed;
    }

}

To summarize the relationship – Animal has a property called name that we have access to both get and set via the getName and setName functions. Dog then inherits those functions from the Animal class and adds a new property called breed, but breed can only be set by the constructor, so we do not create a setBreed function.

This is just a simple example of encapsulating properties and using functions to manage the access of reading and writing the data separately.

Now let’s see how much better this looks in Kotlin:

Animal.kt

abstract class Animal(public var name: String) { }

Yup… that’s literally it. This creates an abstract class with a public property name that is instantiated in the constructor and has public access to both read and write.

Now let’s look at how that inheritance works and how to restrict write access

Dog.kt

class Dog(name: String, breed: String) : Animal(name) {
    val breed: String = breed
        private set
}

4 lines of code. A class that inherits everything from Animal and has a breed property that is set by the default constructor and can only be set privately.

You can use these get and set modifiers to restrict access to either as well as create custom “dynamic” getters and setters (that we will look at further later in the series).

There are many different ways to handle the code above in Kotlin, but I wanted to demonstrate the shortest and most direct. In future parts of the series, we will also look at constructor overloading, dynamic getters/setters, val vs. var, and so much more.

One last thing – because Kotlin is interoperable with Java, we need to know how this ends up outputting in Java. When we create custom getters and setters for public properties, it actually creates a dynamic function getPropertyName and setPropertyName that can be consumed by Java. And even does it the other way around. If you reference a Java library in your Kotlin code, you can access the underlying property since it will automatically map methods with the prefix of “get” or “set” to custom properties. Pretty cool!

For those coming from a C# background this is extremely similar to how C# handles property getters and setters. In C# it will create methods with the name get_PropertyName and set_PropertyName to handle the dynamic encapsulation and implementations! Kotlin pulls the best parts from the best langauges!

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

 

Pluralsight Course Announcement – Building Android Apps with Kotlin: Getting Started

Today’s the day! My first Pluralsight course Building Android Apps with Kotlin: Getting Started has finally released!
Take a look at the course here: https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/building-android-apps-kotlin-getting-started/

And read below for more information.

What’s in it for me?

In this course, we take an introductory look at Android application development with the newest language set out to replace Java – Kotlin. This is a beginner’s course to both Android and Kotlin, so no experience in either is required. If you have some Android knowledge, come take a look at how it looks in Kotlin, and if you have some Kotlin experience, take a look at how it is applied to Android development.

In the end you’ll leave the course with a fully built real-world application that you can always look back to and reference in your own Android apps going forward!

Touch on topics such as:

  • Android fundamentals
  • Activities and their lifecycle
  • Fragments and their lifecycle
  • Creating models in Kotlin to represent remote data
  • Accessing data over HTTP
  • Storing data locally on the device with Sqlite and Anko
  • Making asynchronous data calls to ensure the UI remains smooth
  • Material design
  • Other helpful tools and libraries
  • Comparing Java to Kotlin
  • So much more…

 

I’m planning a paired blog series to tag along with the course that will focus on some other basic Android+Kotlin concepts and draw comparisons to how they were done in Java and how they should be done in Kotlin, so keep an eye out for that as well!

Feedback

Again, this is my first course completed with Pluralsight, so I’m always looking for feedback or questions you might have about the course. You can either, comment in the “Discussion” section of the course, comment on this post, or reach me on Twitter @Suave_Pirate. What did you like? What could have been done better? What are you stuck on?

Thank You!

A special thank you to my Editor, Alex Walton, and my Author Success Manager, Beth Gerard-Hess for their help through the process as well as the rest of the Pluralsight team for being so great while I produced my first course.

 

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

 

Xamarin.Tip – Xamarin.Forms Long Press Effect

Here’s a quick and helpful tool to use in your Xamarin.Forms applications! How many times have you wanted to add a long press handler? Seems like something that should be a simple Gesture built into the platform, but we have to fend for ourselves. Luckily the solution is pretty simple using Xamarin.Forms Effects!

Let’s first create our shared Effect in our shared code:

LongPressedEffect.cs

    /// <summary>
    /// Long pressed effect. Used for invoking commands on long press detection cross platform
    /// </summary>
    public class LongPressedEffect : RoutingEffect
    {
        public LongPressedEffect() : base("MyApp.LongPressedEffect")
        {
        }

        public static readonly BindableProperty CommandProperty = BindableProperty.CreateAttached("Command", typeof(ICommand), typeof(LongPressedEffect), (object)null);
        public static ICommand GetCommand(BindableObject view)
        {
            return (ICommand)view.GetValue(CommandProperty);
        }

        public static void SetCommand(BindableObject view, ICommand value)
        {
            view.SetValue(CommandProperty, value);
        }


        public static readonly BindableProperty CommandParameterProperty = BindableProperty.CreateAttached("CommandParameter", typeof(object), typeof(LongPressedEffect), (object)null);
        public static object GetCommandParameter(BindableObject view)
        {
            return view.GetValue(CommandParameterProperty);
        }

        public static void SetCommandParameter(BindableObject view, object value)
        {
            view.SetValue(CommandParameterProperty, value);
        }
    }

Now we have 2 bindable properties – the Command that we want to bind when the long press is detected and the CommandParameter to pass into the Command.

We can use these in our native Effect implementations to invoke when the press is detected. Let’s create our Android implementation.

AndroidLongPressedEffect.cs

[assembly: ResolutionGroupName("MyApp")]
[assembly: ExportEffect(typeof(AndroidLongPressedEffect), "LongPressedEffect")]
namespace AndroidAppNamespace.Effects
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Android long pressed effect.
    /// </summary>
    public class AndroidLongPressedEffect : PlatformEffect
    {
        private bool _attached;

        /// <summary>
        /// Initializer to avoid linking out
        /// </summary>
        public static void Initialize() { }

        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the
        /// <see cref="T:Yukon.Application.AndroidComponents.Effects.AndroidLongPressedEffect"/> class.
        /// Empty constructor required for the odd Xamarin.Forms reflection constructor search
        /// </summary>
        public AndroidLongPressedEffect()
        {
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Apply the handler
        /// </summary>
        protected override void OnAttached()
        {
            //because an effect can be detached immediately after attached (happens in listview), only attach the handler one time.
            if (!_attached)
            {
                if (Control != null)
                {
                    Control.LongClickable = true;
                    Control.LongClick += Control_LongClick;
                }
                else
                {
                    Container.LongClickable = true;
                    Container.LongClick += Control_LongClick;
                }
                _attached = true;
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Invoke the command if there is one
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender">Sender.</param>
        /// <param name="e">E.</param>
        private void Control_LongClick(object sender, Android.Views.View.LongClickEventArgs e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Invoking long click command");
            var command = LongPressedEffect.GetCommand(Element);
            command?.Execute(LongPressedEffect.GetCommandParameter(Element));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Clean the event handler on detach
        /// </summary>
        protected override void OnDetached()
        {
            if (_attached)
            {
                if (Control != null)
                {
                    Control.LongClickable = true;
                    Control.LongClick -= Control_LongClick;
                }
                else
                {
                    Container.LongClickable = true;
                    Container.LongClick -= Control_LongClick;
                }
                _attached = false;
            }
        }
    }

And now for iOS:

iOSLongPressedEffect.cs

[assembly: ResolutionGroupName("MyApp")]
[assembly: ExportEffect(typeof(iOSLongPressedEffect), "LongPressedEffect")]
namespace iOSNamespace.Effects
{
    /// <summary>
    /// iOS long pressed effect
    /// </summary>
    public class iOSLongPressedEffect : PlatformEffect
    {
        private bool _attached;
        private readonly UILongPressGestureRecognizer _longPressRecognizer;
        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the
        /// <see cref="T:Yukon.Application.iOSComponents.Effects.iOSLongPressedEffect"/> class.
        /// </summary>
        public iOSLongPressedEffect()
        {
            _longPressRecognizer = new UILongPressGestureRecognizer(HandleLongClick);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Apply the handler
        /// </summary>
        protected override void OnAttached()
        {
            //because an effect can be detached immediately after attached (happens in listview), only attach the handler one time
            if (!_attached)
            {
                Container.AddGestureRecognizer(_longPressRecognizer);
                _attached = true;
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Invoke the command if there is one
        /// </summary>
        private void HandleLongClick()
        {
            var command = LongPressedEffect.GetCommand(Element);
            command?.Execute(LongPressedEffect.GetCommandParameter(Element));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Clean the event handler on detach
        /// </summary>
        protected override void OnDetached()
        {
            if (_attached)
            {
                Container.RemoveGestureRecognizer(_longPressRecognizer);
                _attached = false;
            }
        }

    }

Now that we have our 2 implementations, let’s use it in our XAML!

MyPage.xaml

<Label Text="Long Press Me!" effects:LongPressedEffect.Command="{Binding ShowAlertCommand}" effects:LongPressedEffect.CommandParameter="{Binding .}">
    <Label.Effects>
        <effects:LongPressedEffect />
    </Label.Effects>
</Label>

Now you can start handling long presses on any control! If you want to add it to a ListView just attach it to either the ViewCell or the internal View of the cell.

 

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

Xamarin.NuGet – Xamarin.Forms Dynamic Bindable StackLayout

I recently released a component I commonly use in my Xamarin.Forms applications for binding data to a wrapping layout here: Xamarin.NuGet – DynamicWrapLayout Announcement! In the spirit of this type of control, I’ve also released a new NuGet package for a bindable DynamicStackLayout. It’s a simple control that allows you to create a StackLayout and bind an ItemsSource collection and an ItemTemplate. This is useful for smaller, but dynamic collections with the use of the orientation changing of a StackLayout. This means you could have a horizontally scrolling list of cards, bind the orientation or change it to vertical, and play with positioning more easily than using a ListView. I would still highly suggest using a ListView over this control for a standard vertical stack of dynamic content since this control does NOT use any view recycling or virtualization which can cause performance issues with large collections or constantly changing collection.

Get it here

NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/DynamicStackLayout

Github: https://github.com/SuavePirate/DynamicStackLayout

In the end, you get something like this!

Be sure to read the documentation below:

DynamicStackLayout

A Xamarin.Forms layout for creating dynamically wrapped views. Inspired by the WrapLayout example: https://developer.xamarin.com/samples/xamarin-forms/UserInterface/CustomLayout/WrapLayout/

Installation

It’s on NuGet! https://www.nuget.org/packages/DynamicStackLayout/

Install-Package DynamicStackLayout

Be sure to install in all projects that use it.

Usage

There are two key properties that make this control useful – the ItemsSource (like a ListView) and the ItemTemplate (although, you can also just add children to the view – it does both!)
Be sure to wrap it in a ScrollView though

XAML

Add the xmlns:

xmlns:suave=&quot;clr-namespace:SuaveControls.DynamicStackLayout;assembly=SuaveControls.DynamicStackLayout&quot;

Use it in your View:

&lt;ScrollView&gt;
    &lt;suave:DynamicStackLayout ItemsSource=&quot;{Binding Items}&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;Fill&quot;&gt;
        &lt;suave:DynamicStackLayout.ItemTemplate&gt;
            &lt;DataTemplate&gt;
                &lt;StackLayout BackgroundColor=&quot;Gray&quot; WidthRequest=&quot;120&quot; HeightRequest=&quot;180&quot;&gt;
                    &lt;Label Text=&quot;{Binding .}&quot; VerticalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; VerticalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; HorizontalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; /&gt;
                &lt;/StackLayout&gt;
            &lt;/DataTemplate&gt;
        &lt;/suave:DynamicStackLayout.ItemTemplate&gt;
    &lt;/suave:DynamicStackLayout&gt;
&lt;/ScrollView&gt;

Don’t like data-binding and want to just use child views? You can do that too!

&lt;ScrollView&gt;
    &lt;suave:DynamicStackLayout HorizontalOptions=&quot;Fill&quot;&gt;
      &lt;StackLayout BackgroundColor=&quot;Gray&quot; WidthRequest=&quot;120&quot; HeightRequest=&quot;180&quot;&gt;
          &lt;Label Text=&quot;0&quot; TextColor=&quot;White&quot; VerticalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; VerticalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; HorizontalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/StackLayout&gt;
      &lt;StackLayout BackgroundColor=&quot;Gray&quot; WidthRequest=&quot;120&quot; HeightRequest=&quot;180&quot;&gt;
          &lt;Label Text=&quot;1&quot; TextColor=&quot;White&quot; VerticalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; VerticalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; HorizontalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/StackLayout&gt;
      &lt;StackLayout BackgroundColor=&quot;Gray&quot; WidthRequest=&quot;120&quot; HeightRequest=&quot;180&quot;&gt;
          &lt;Label Text=&quot;2&quot; TextColor=&quot;White&quot; VerticalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; VerticalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; HorizontalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/StackLayout&gt;
      &lt;StackLayout BackgroundColor=&quot;Gray&quot; WidthRequest=&quot;120&quot; HeightRequest=&quot;180&quot;&gt;
          &lt;Label Text=&quot;3&quot; TextColor=&quot;White&quot; VerticalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; VerticalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; HorizontalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/StackLayout&gt;
      &lt;StackLayout BackgroundColor=&quot;Gray&quot; WidthRequest=&quot;120&quot; HeightRequest=&quot;180&quot;&gt;
          &lt;Label Text=&quot;4&quot; TextColor=&quot;White&quot; VerticalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; HorizontalOptions=&quot;FillAndExpand&quot; VerticalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; HorizontalTextAlignment=&quot;Center&quot; /&gt;
      &lt;/StackLayout&gt;
    &lt;/suave:DynamicStackLayout&gt;
&lt;/ScrollView&gt;

Features

  • Bindable child views
  • Bindable to collections
  • Handles layout changing well (try rotating the device)
  • Doesn’t require custom renderers (All Xamarin.Forms baby!)

Notes

This does not use any native view virtualization, which means performance does not scale well with extremely large data sets.

Coming soon

  • ItemSelected event and SelectedItem bindable property (for now, you can add custom gestures and commands to your DataTemplate and handle the events yourself)
  • Better Collection Updating

 

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

Xamarin.NuGet – DynamicWrapLayout Announcement!

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted about any new Xamarin Controls or updates, but here’s a great one!

I needed to create a layout that could bind to a collection of data in Xamarin.Forms that fit to a dynamic grid that also scaled to larger devices and orientation changes. I thought about creating a new custom renderer that uses the RecyclerView with a GridLayoutManager and a UICollectionView with a custom layout. However, I didn’t need to bind to tons of data, so I decided to create a new control that is entirely Xamarin.Forms – No custom renderers!

I’ve called it the DynamicWrapLayout since it was inspired by the WrapLayout from Charles Petzold and David Britch.

Get it on NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/DynamicWrapLayout/
Get the source on GitHub: https://github.com/SuavePirate/DynamicWrapLayout

Because it is all Xamarin.Forms, it should work on all the platforms that Forms supports! So use it everywhere! I’ll create another post about how I built it if you want to work on your own implementation, but for now, you can read the documentation on the control below.

Documentation

DynamicWrapLayout

A Xamarin.Forms layout for creating dynamically wrapped views. Inspired by the WrapLayout example: https://developer.xamarin.com/samples/xamarin-forms/UserInterface/CustomLayout/WrapLayout/

Installation

It’s on NuGet! https://www.nuget.org/packages/DynamicWrapLayout/

Install-Package DynamicWrapLayout

Be sure to install in all projects that use it.

Usage

There are two key properties that make this control useful – the ItemsSource (like a ListView) and the DataTemplate (although, you can also just add children to the view – it does both!)
Be sure to wrap it in a ScrollView though

XAML

Add the xmlns:

xmlns:suave="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.DynamicWrapLayout;assembly=SuaveControls.DynamicWrapLayout"

Use it in your View:

<ScrollView>
    <suave:DynamicWrapLayout ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" HorizontalOptions="Fill">
        <suave:DynamicWrapLayout.ItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <StackLayout BackgroundColor="Gray" WidthRequest="120" HeightRequest="180">
                    <Label Text="{Binding .}" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" />
                </StackLayout>
            </DataTemplate>
        </suave:DynamicWrapLayout.ItemTemplate>
    </suave:DynamicWrapLayout>
</ScrollView>

Don’t like data-binding and want to just use child views? You can do that too!

<ScrollView>
    <suave:DynamicWrapLayout HorizontalOptions="Fill">
      <StackLayout BackgroundColor="Gray" WidthRequest="120" HeightRequest="180">
          <Label Text="0" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" />
      </StackLayout>
      <StackLayout BackgroundColor="Gray" WidthRequest="120" HeightRequest="180">
          <Label Text="1" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" />
      </StackLayout>
      <StackLayout BackgroundColor="Gray" WidthRequest="120" HeightRequest="180">
          <Label Text="2" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" />
      </StackLayout>
      <StackLayout BackgroundColor="Gray" WidthRequest="120" HeightRequest="180">
          <Label Text="3" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" />
      </StackLayout>
      <StackLayout BackgroundColor="Gray" WidthRequest="120" HeightRequest="180">
          <Label Text="4" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" />
      </StackLayout>
    </suave:DynamicWrapLayout>
</ScrollView>

Features

  • Bindable child views
  • Bindable to collections
  • Handles layout changing well (try rotating the device)
  • Doesn’t require custom renderers (All Xamarin.Forms baby!)

What does this thing look like?

Android:


iOS:


Notes

This does not use any native view virtualization, which means performance does not scale well with extremely large data sets.

Coming soon

  • ItemSelected event and SelectedItem bindable property (for now, you can add custom gestures and commands to your DataTemplate and handle the events yourself)
     

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

Xamarin.Meetup – Boston Meetup Today: DevOps for Mobile Apps with Dan Hermes

Join us at Microsoft’s NERD Center to learn about DevOps for Mobile Apps! Meet with some of the local Xamarin MVPs and employees while also enjoying some food.

https://www.meetup.com/bostonmobiledev/events/244933704/

How do we keep our iOS and Android builds organized, tested, and distributed to team members and users who need them, with the correct versions flowing into the app stores? This is DevOps for mobile apps.

Dan Hermes, Xamarin MVP and co-organizer of Boston Mobile C# Developers Group, will discuss the high points of his upcoming edX video course for Microsoft on how to do all of these things using Visual Studio Mobile Center (VSMC). He will talk about developing, deploying and managing mobile applications in DevOps environments. He’ll cover setup and management of VSMC and the testing and deployment of mobile apps. Mobile Center Build, Test, and Distribute are powered by Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), Xamarin Test Cloud, and HockeyApp.  Learn the VSMC workflows that tie all of these tools together.

This talk is for any and all native app developers, not just C#.  Many features of VSMC work for Objective-C and Java just as well as Xamarin.

About the Speaker

Dan Hermes is a Xamarin MVP,  Microsoft MVP, and founder of Lexicon Systems, an award-winning Xamarin consulting firm. Mr. Hermes helps developers create great mobile apps and helps businesses develop a winning mobile strategy. His firm’s Xamarin projects include B4UFLY, a drone app for the Federal Aviation Administration, and a cross-platform app for Thermo Fisher Scientific which won a W3, a Davey award, and was a finalist for a Xammy award. Mr. Hermes’ clientele includes dozens of software-building firms such as Fidelity Investments, EDS, and Computerworld Magazine. He has spoken recently at Microsoft Ignite, IBM InterConnect, Microsoft Azure Day, Xamarin DevDays, and mobile user groups nationwide . His mobile cross-platform dev blog is http://mobilecsharpcafe.com/. Connect with him on Twitter at @danhermes. Dan is a writer for MSDN Magazine, a video course instructor for Microsoft’s OpenEdX curriculum, and author of the best-selling Apress book Xamarin Mobile Application Development.

 

 

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

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Xamarin.Forms Floating Action Button NuGet Announcement

As promised, here is another release of one of my GitHub libraries for Xamarin! This time we are talking about the FloatingActionButton or “FAB”!

Here are some important links:

GitHub project: https://github.com/SuavePirate/Xamarin.Forms.Controls.FloatingActionButton
NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/SuaveControls.FloatingActionButton

Don’t forget to read up on my original post on how to create your own FloatingActionButton and how to use it: Xamarin.Controls – Xamarin.Forms FloatingActionButton (including iOS!)

Documentation

Xamarin.Forms.Controls.FloatingActionButton

A custom view to create a FloatingActionButton for both Android and iOS as part of Material Design

That’s right, even on iOS!

How to use

Clone the repository and open include the src projects in your Xamarin.Forms and Platform projects.

Now Available on NuGet!

Install-Package SuaveControls.FloatingActionButton

Special note for iOS: Make sure to call FloatingActionButtonRenderer.InitRenderer(); in your AppDelegate.cs in order to avoid linking it out.

Then you can include it in your XAML or call it from C# (See the example projects for a demo):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
             xmlns:local="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.FabExample"
             xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.Views;assembly=SuaveControls.FloatingActionButton"
             x:Class="SuaveControls.FabExample.MainPage">
    <StackLayout Margin="32">
        <Label Text="This is a Floating Action Button!" 
           VerticalOptions="Center" 
           HorizontalOptions="Center"/>

        <controls:FloatingActionButton x:Name="FAB" HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" WidthRequest="50" HeightRequest="50"  VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" Image="ic_add_white.png" ButtonColor="#03A9F4" Clicked="Button_Clicked"/>
    </StackLayout>
</ContentPage>

Android Example

Android Floating Action Button

iOS Example

iOS Floating Action Button

TODO:

  • Make it more flexible. Add Different color states, add sizing adjustments, etc.
  • Create UWP implementation
  • Create Xamarin Component

Come support the project and join the contributors list! We would love to see this TODO list dropped to nothing!

 

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

Xamarin.Forms BadgeView NuGet Announcement!

As promised, here is another release of one of my GitHub libraries for Xamarin! This time we are talking about the BadgeView​!

Here are some important links:

GitHub project: https://github.com/SuavePirate/BadgeView
NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/BadgeView

Don’t forget to read up on my original post on how to create your own BadgeView and how to use it: Xamarin.Controls – BadgeView

Documentation

 

BadgeView

A simple Xamarin.Forms control to display a round badge

Now available on nuget! https://www.nuget.org/packages/BadgeView

Installation

Install-Package BadgeView

Usage

<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms" xmlns:badge="clr-namespace:BadgeView.Shared;assembly=BadgeView.Shared" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml" x:Class="BadgeViewExample.BadgePage">
    <ContentPage.Content>
        <StackLayout Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" VerticalOptions="Center">
            <Label HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" Text="Look at me!" />
            <badge:BadgeView Text="3" BadgeColor="Green" VerticalOptions="Center" HorizontalOptions="End" />
        </StackLayout>
    </ContentPage.Content>
</ContentPage>

With Bindings

<badge:BadgeView Text="{Binding BadgeNumber}" BadgeColor="{Binding BadgeColor}" VerticalOptions="Center" HorizontalOptions="End" />

Without XAML

var badge = new BadgeView()
{
    Text = "4",
    BadgeColor = Color.Red
};

Additional Resources

Check out my blog post on how to build your own if you want!

Xamarin.Controls – BadgeView

 

// TODO:

I’m still working on adding UWP support, but if you want to help contribute to the repository, please do!

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.

.NET Flux Toolkit Nuget Announcement

Last week I mentioned that I was going to be publishing some of my GitHub library projects on Nuget to make them easier to integrate into your projects – Here’s the newest library for using the Flux in your .NET applications such as Xamarin, UWP, WPF, WinForms, and even ASP.NET.

Nuget: https://www.nuget.org/packages/FluxToolkit/
GitHub: https://github.com/SuavePirate/FluxToolkit/

Here’s how to get started!

FluxToolkit

A super simple library to enable the implementation of Flux in .NET Applications such as Xamarin, UWP, WPF, and more. It contains some base level Flux components to help you get started with your implementation faster.

What is Flux?

Flux is a design pattern created by Facebook with the purpose of creating robust data-driven UI components and handles the flow of data between components and outward to services.

Components

Flux consists of 4 major components – Stores, Actions, Components, and the Dispatcher

Stores

Stores are responsible for containing and managing data for a single domain or data type. Stores listen to the dispatcher for certain events and use the data from the dispatcher to update their data, handle errors, and then pass that update down to the components that are subscribed to the store.

Actions

Actions are responsible for piping events through the dispatcher. Actions are invoked from Components or from background processes. They can also handle some small business logic such as data mapping or talking to external services.

Components

Components are the UI and UI logic layers. They are responsible for displaying views to the users and for handling user events. They invoke Actions and subsribe to Stores to handle updates to the data.

Dispatcher

A single dispatcher is responsible for the Pub/Sub mechanism of events invoked from Actions. Stores subscribe to events by name through the Dispatcher.

How does it work with MVVM and data binding?

ViewModels can be considered part of the Component layer but are separated from the actual UI/Views. This means that the ViewModels are responsible for invoking Actions, and subscribing to Stores. The Views themselves are only responsible for showing the UI and communicating to the ViewModel.

Getting Started

Install

The FluxToolkit is available on Nuget: https://www.nuget.org/packages/FluxToolkit It has no external dependencies and should work with any .NET Standard library or project including Xamarin, Xamarin.Forms, UWP, WPF, and even WinForms. It has not been used for web application development, but it is compatible with ASP.NET projects.

Install the nuget package with the nuget package manager or via the Package Manager command line:

Install-Package FluxToolkit

Create your Stores

Use the StoreBase class from the FluxToolkit to implement your unique stores for your different data types. It contains a generic Data field based on the TData type you pass into the definition. Now you don’t have to worry about communicating to the dispatcher for pub/sub – simply call the base methods for Subsribe and Unsubscribe.

Ensure that you are not using multiple instances of your Stores, but rather should be using either a Singleton or Inversion of Control with Dependency Injection to pass the implementation of your Store to the Components that require it through the constructor. Constantly creating new Stores can cause memory leaks due to the event subscriptions.

Here’s an example store implementation:

    /// <summary>
    /// Event store for holding and managing todo items
    /// </summary>
    public class TodoStore : StoreBase<ObservableCollection<Todo>>
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a new store and handles subscriptions to the dispatcher
        /// </summary>
        public TodoStore()
        {
            Subscribe<string>(TodoActionTypes.ADD_TODO);
            Subscribe(TodoActionTypes.DELETE_COMPLETED_TODOS);
            Subscribe<string>(TodoActionTypes.DELETE_TODO);
            Subscribe<Todo>(TodoActionTypes.EDIT_TODO);
            Subscribe(TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_ALL_TODOS);
            Subscribe<string>(TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_TODO);

            Data = new ObservableCollection<Todo>();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Processes an event from the dispatcher before emitting it.
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="TData"></typeparam>
        /// <param name="eventType"></param>
        /// <param name="data"></param>
        protected override void ReceiveEvent<TData>(string eventType, TData data)
        {
            try
            {
                Error = null;
                switch (eventType)
                {
                    case TodoActionTypes.ADD_TODO:
                        Data.Add(new Todo
                        {
                            Id = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(),
                            Text = data as string,
                            IsComplete = false
                        });
                        break;
                    case TodoActionTypes.DELETE_COMPLETED_TODOS:
                        var itemsToRemove = Data.Where(t => t.IsComplete);
                        foreach(var item in itemsToRemove.ToList())
                        {
                            Data.Remove(item);
                        }
                        break;
                    case TodoActionTypes.DELETE_TODO:
                        var itemToRemove = Data.FirstOrDefault(t => t.Id == data as string);
                        if (itemToRemove != null)
                            Data.Remove(itemToRemove);
                        break;
                    case TodoActionTypes.EDIT_TODO:
                        var itemToEdit = Data.FirstOrDefault(t => t.Id == (data as Todo).Id);
                        if (itemToEdit != null)
                            itemToEdit.Text = (data as Todo).Text;
                        break;
                    case TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_ALL_TODOS:
                        var areAllComplete = !Data.Any(t => !t.IsComplete);
                        foreach(var todo in Data)
                        {
                            todo.IsComplete = !areAllComplete;
                        }
                        break;
                    case TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_TODO:
                        var itemToToggle = Data.First(t => t.Id == (data as string));
                        if (itemToToggle != null)
                            itemToToggle.IsComplete = !itemToToggle.IsComplete;
                        break;

                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // if something goes wrong, set the error before emitting
                Error = ex.Message;
            }
           
            base.ReceiveEvent(eventType, data);
        }
    }

Create your Actions

Create an Actions class for each of your main data types. These actions will call to the Dispatcher to fire events and will also need to implement IActions in order to properly handle the pub/sub mechanism.

    /// <summary>
    /// Actions to be taken against Todo items
    /// </summary>
    public class TodoActions : IActions
    {
        public void AddTodo(string text)
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions, string>(this, TodoActionTypes.ADD_TODO, text);
        }

        public void DeleteCompletedTodos()
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions>(this, TodoActionTypes.DELETE_COMPLETED_TODOS);
        }

        public void DeleteTodo(string id)
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions, string>(this, TodoActionTypes.DELETE_TODO, id);
        }

        public void EditTodo(string id, string text)
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions, Todo>(this, TodoActionTypes.EDIT_TODO, new Todo
            {
                Id = id,
                Text = text
            });
        }

        public void StartEditingTodo(string id)
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions, string>(this, TodoActionTypes.START_EDITING_TODO, id);
        }

        public void StopEditingTodo()
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions>(this, TodoActionTypes.STOP_EDITING_TODO);
        }

        public void ToggleAllTodos()
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions>(this, TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_ALL_TODOS);
        }

        public void ToggleTodo(string id)
        {
            Dispatcher.Send<IActions, string>(this, TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_TODO, id);
        }
        
    }

Define your ActionTypes

For each of your data types, you’ll need to define some ActionTypes which translate to the id or name of the events your Actions are invoking through the Dispatcher.

    /// <summary>
    /// Different types of actions that can be completed within the context of Todo items
    /// </summary>
    public class TodoActionTypes
    {
        public const string ADD_TODO = "add_todo";
        public const string DELETE_COMPLETED_TODOS = "delete_completed_todos";
        public const string DELETE_TODO = "delete_todo";
        public const string EDIT_TODO = "edit_todo";
        public const string START_EDITING_TODO = "start_editing_todo";
        public const string STOP_EDITING_TODO = "stop_editing_todo";
        public const string TOGGLE_ALL_TODOS = "toggle_all_todos";
        public const string TOGGLE_TODO = "toggle_todo";
        public const string UPDATE_DRAFT = "update_draft";
    }

Wire up your Components (with MVVM or without)

Have your components subscribe to the Stores that are appropriate for the data need, and invoke the Actions they need. This is a great place to place inject your Stores and Actions into the constructor of your Componentswhether it is through a ViewModel or an Activity, ViewController, or Xamarin.Forms.Page.

    public class TodoListPageViewModel : BasePageViewModel
    {
        private readonly TodoStore _todoStore;
        private readonly TodoActions _todoActions;
        private ObservableCollection<Todo> _items;
        private ICommand _createCommand;
        private ICommand _toggleCommand;
        private ICommand _toggleAllCommand;
        private ICommand _deleteCommand;
        private ICommand _deleteCompletedCommand;
        private ICommand _editCommand;
        private ICommand _populateCommand;

        public ICommand CreateCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _createCommand ??
                    (_createCommand = new RelayCommand(async () =>
                    {
                        var result = await UserDialogs.Instance.PromptAsync(string.Empty, "New", "Done", "Cancel", "Todo...");
                        if (result.Ok)
                        {
                            _todoActions.AddTodo(result.Text);
                        }
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ICommand EditCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _editCommand ??
                    (_editCommand = new RelayCommand<Todo>(async (t) =>
                    {
                        var result = await UserDialogs.Instance.PromptAsync(new PromptConfig()
                            .SetText(t.Text)
                            .SetTitle("Edit")
                            .SetOkText("Done")
                            .SetCancelText("Cancel")
                            .SetPlaceholder("Todo..."));
                        if (result.Ok)
                        {
                            _todoActions.EditTodo(t.Id, result.Text);
                        }
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ICommand ToggleCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _toggleCommand ??
                    (_toggleCommand = new RelayCommand<Todo>((t) =>
                    {
                        _todoActions.ToggleTodo(t.Id);
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ICommand ToggleAllCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _toggleAllCommand ??
                    (_toggleAllCommand = new RelayCommand(() =>
                    {
                        _todoActions.ToggleAllTodos();
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ICommand DeleteCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _deleteCommand ??
                    (_deleteCommand = new RelayCommand<Todo>((t) =>
                    {
                        _todoActions.DeleteTodo(t.Id);
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ICommand DeleteCompletedCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _deleteCompletedCommand ??
                    (_deleteCompletedCommand = new RelayCommand(() =>
                    {
                        _todoActions.DeleteCompletedTodos();
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ICommand PopulateCommand
        {
            get
            {
                return _populateCommand ??
                    (_populateCommand = new RelayCommand(() =>
                    {
                        for(var i = 1; i < 20; i++)
                        {
                            _todoActions.AddTodo($"New Item {i}");
                            Task.Delay(200);
                        }
                    }));
            }
        }

        public ObservableCollection<Todo> Items
        {
            get
            {
                return _todoStore.Data;
            }
        }

        public TodoListPageViewModel(TodoStore todoStore, TodoActions todoActions)
        {
            _todoStore = todoStore;
            _todoActions = todoActions;
            _todoStore.OnEmitted += TodoStore_OnEmitted;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Processes events from the todo store and updates any UI that isn't handled automatically
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        private void TodoStore_OnEmitted(object sender, StoreEventArgs e)
        {
            switch (e.EventType)
            {
                case TodoActionTypes.ADD_TODO:
                    if(_todoStore.Error == null)
                    {
                        UserDialogs.Instance.Toast("Item added");
                    }
                    break;
                case TodoActionTypes.DELETE_COMPLETED_TODOS:
                    if (_todoStore.Error == null)
                    {
                        UserDialogs.Instance.Toast("Items deleted");
                    }
                    break;
                case TodoActionTypes.DELETE_TODO:
                    if (_todoStore.Error == null)
                    {
                        UserDialogs.Instance.Toast("Item deleted");
                    }
                    break;
                case TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_ALL_TODOS:
                    if (_todoStore.Error == null)
                    {
                        UserDialogs.Instance.Toast("Items toggled");
                    }
                    break;
                case TodoActionTypes.TOGGLE_TODO:
                    if (_todoStore.Error == null)
                    {
                        UserDialogs.Instance.Toast("Item toggled");
                    }
                    break;
            }
            if(_todoStore.Error != null)
            {
                UserDialogs.Instance.ShowError(_todoStore.Error);
            }
        }
    }

Contributing

Want to add additional examples or more tooling to help people develop their apps with Flux? Fork this repository and create a pull request!

Additional Resources

 

If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow me on twitter @Suave_Pirate, check out my GitHub, and subscribe to my blog to learn more mobile developer tips and tricks!

Interested in sponsoring developer content? Message @Suave_Pirate on twitter for details.