Xamarin.Tip – Borderless Picker

I previously put out a post on removing the border of a Xamarin.Forms Entry which was then used to create a custom PinView as well as a MaterialEntry that follows the material design standards for text fields. Check those out here:

In this post, we’ll apply some of the same principles to create a BorderlessPicker. It’s going to use a simple custom renderer, although this could and should be done using an Effect if being used on its own. However, this BorderlessPicker will be the foundation for future controls we will create such as the MaterialPicker that applies Material Design standards to the Xamarin.Forms Picker control on Android, iOS, and UWP.

You can find this code as part of my library in progress to create Material Design Form controls for Xamarin.Forms – https://github.com/SuavePirate/SuaveControls.MaterialFormControls.

Let’s get started with our custom control by first creating a custom subclass of Xamarin.Forms.Picker followed by a custom renderer class for iOS, Android, and UWP that kills the border.

BorderlessPicker.cs

namespace SuaveControls.MaterialForms
{
    public class BorderlessPicker : Picker
    {
    }
}

Nothing special here since we are using the default behavior of the Picker.

Android

Now let’s create an Android custom renderer.

BorderlessPickerRenderer.cs – Android

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(BorderlessPicker), typeof(BorderlessPickerRenderer))]
namespace SuaveControls.MaterialForms.Android.Renderers
{
    public class BorderlessPickerRenderer : PickerRenderer
    {
        public static void Init() { }
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Picker> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (e.OldElement == null)
            {
                Control.Background = null;

                var layoutParams = new MarginLayoutParams(Control.LayoutParameters);
                layoutParams.SetMargins(0, 0, 0, 0);
                LayoutParameters = layoutParams;
                Control.LayoutParameters = layoutParams;
                Control.SetPadding(0, 0, 0, 0);
                SetPadding(0, 0, 0, 0);
            }
        }
    }
}

We simple kill the default padding and margins while setting the Background property to null. This Background is what creates the drawable underline for the AppCompat Picker.

iOS

Follow with an iOS renderer.

BorderlessPickerRenderer.cs – iOS

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(BorderlessPicker), typeof(BorderlessPickerRenderer))]
namespace SuaveControls.MaterialForms.iOS.Renderers
{
    public class BorderlessPickerRenderer : PickerRenderer
    {
        public static void Init() { }
        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);

            Control.Layer.BorderWidth = 0;
            Control.BorderStyle = UITextBorderStyle.None;
        }
    }
}

All we do here is set the BorderWidth to 0 and the BorderStyle to UITextBorderStyle.None.

UWP

Lastly a renderer for UWP

BorderlessPickerRenderer.cs – UWP


[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(BorderlessPicker), typeof(BorderlessPickerRenderer))]

namespace SuaveControls.MaterialForms.UWP.Renderers
{
    public class BorderlessPickerRenderer : PickerRenderer
    {
        public static void Init() { }
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Picker> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (Control != null)
            {
                Control.BorderThickness = new Windows.UI.Xaml.Thickness(0);
                Control.Margin = new Windows.UI.Xaml.Thickness(0);
                Control.Padding = new Windows.UI.Xaml.Thickness(0);
            }
        }
    }
}

Similar to how we did it on Android, we set both the Margin and Padding to 0 and also set the BorderThickness to a 0’d Thickness.

Using the BorderlessPicker

Now you can use the BorderlessPicker in your XAML or C# code:

MainPage.xaml

<?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:ExampleMaterialApp"
             xmlns:suave="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.MaterialForms;assembly=SuaveControls.MaterialForms"
             x:Class="ExampleMaterialApp.MainPage">

    <ScrollView>
        <StackLayout Spacing="16" Margin="16">
            <Label Text="Borderless Picker!" Margin="32" HorizontalOptions="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center"/>
            <suave:BorderlessPicker x:Name="PickerDemo" Title="Options"/>

        </StackLayout>
    </ScrollView>

</ContentPage>

MainPage.xaml.cs

    public partial class MainPage : ContentPage
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            PickerDemo.ItemsSource = new List<string>
            {
                "Option 1",
                "Option 2",
                "Option 3",
                "Option 4"
            };
        }
    }

Check out those results on iOS:

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.Control – Xamarin.Forms MaterialEntry

Back by popular demand, bringing more Material Design controls to you Xamarin.Forms app! This time we will look at implementing the standards in Material Design’s text fields by building a MaterialEntry control. You can find the source code and example app here: https://github.com/SuavePirate/MaterialEntry but you can build your own by following this post.

Let’s build our Xamarin.Forms control to work the same on not only Android where Material Design is baked in, but also to run on iOS AND UWP. In the end, we should be able to use our floating label, set an accent color that expands on the label and underline when focused while being able to bind these properties through MVVM.

Simulator Screen Shot Jul 14, 2017, 3.42.03 PM

The first thing we need to do is create a BorderlessEntry that removes the border from our entry on all 3 platforms. I’ve done this in a previous blog post here: Xamarin.Forms Borderless Entry, so we won’t be implementing it here. This code is also in the GitHub link above.

With our BorderlessEntry we can now create our custom control WITHOUT ANY MORE CUSTOM RENDERERS!

Let’s set up the layout structure in our XAML file, and then wire up the animation logic in our code behind.

MaterialEntry.xaml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ContentView xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"               xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"              xmlns:local="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.MaterialEntry"              x:Class="SuaveControls.MaterialEntry.MaterialEntry">
  <ContentView.Content>
        <Grid ColumnSpacing="16" Margin="0,8">
            <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
                <RowDefinition Height="1"/>
            </Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <Label x:Name="HiddenLabel" FontSize="10" IsVisible="False" Margin="0"/>
            <local:BorderlessEntry x:Name="EntryField" Text="{Binding Text, Mode=TwoWay}" Margin="0,12,0,0"/>
            <BoxView x:Name="BottomBorder" BackgroundColor="Gray"  Grid.Row="1" HeightRequest="1" Margin="0" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand"/>
            <BoxView x:Name="HiddenBottomBorder" BackgroundColor="Gray" Grid.Row="1" HeightRequest="1" Margin="0" WidthRequest="0" HorizontalOptions="Center"/>
        </Grid>
    </ContentView.Content>
</ContentView>

We set up our BorderlessEntry that will act as our formal point for entering text. We also add a label that is initially hidden and laid out on top of the BorderlessEntry. This is the label we will be using to animate the floating action that Material Design uses based while we fade out the placeholder text. The last bit is two BoxViews that act as the bottom line below the Entry. One is the unfocused which has a standard gray color, while the other has a width of 0 and will have a background color of our selected AccentColor. This will have an animated width expansion when the BorderlessEntry is focused.

Now let’s look at the animation and bindings in the code behind:

MaterialEntry.xaml.cs

public partial class MaterialEntry : ContentView
    {
        public static void Init() { }
        public static BindableProperty TextProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(Text), typeof(string), typeof(MaterialEntry), defaultBindingMode: BindingMode.TwoWay);
        public static BindableProperty PlaceholderProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(Placeholder), typeof(string), typeof(MaterialEntry), defaultBindingMode: BindingMode.TwoWay, propertyChanged: (bindable, oldVal, newval) =>
        {
            var matEntry = (MaterialEntry)bindable;
            matEntry.EntryField.Placeholder = (string)newval;
            matEntry.HiddenLabel.Text = (string)newval;
        });

        public static BindableProperty IsPasswordProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(IsPassword), typeof(bool), typeof(MaterialEntry), defaultValue: false, propertyChanged: (bindable, oldVal, newVal) =>
        {
            var matEntry = (MaterialEntry)bindable;
            matEntry.EntryField.IsPassword = (bool)newVal;
        });
        public static BindableProperty KeyboardProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(Keyboard), typeof(Keyboard), typeof(MaterialEntry), defaultValue: Keyboard.Default, propertyChanged: (bindable, oldVal, newVal) =>
        {
            var matEntry = (MaterialEntry)bindable;
            matEntry.EntryField.Keyboard = (Keyboard)newVal;
        });
        public static BindableProperty AccentColorProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(AccentColor), typeof(Color), typeof(MaterialEntry), defaultValue: Color.Accent);
        public Color AccentColor
        {
            get
            {
                return (Color)GetValue(AccentColorProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(AccentColorProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public Keyboard Keyboard
        {
            get
            {
                return (Keyboard)GetValue(KeyboardProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(KeyboardProperty, value);
            }
        }

        public bool IsPassword
        {
            get
            {
                return (bool)GetValue(IsPasswordProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(IsPasswordProperty, value);
            }
        }

        public string Text
        {
            get
            {
                return (string)GetValue(TextProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(TextProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public string Placeholder
        {
            get
            {
                return (string)GetValue(PlaceholderProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(PlaceholderProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public MaterialEntry()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            EntryField.BindingContext = this;
            EntryField.Focused += async (s, a) =>
            {
                HiddenBottomBorder.BackgroundColor = AccentColor;
                HiddenLabel.TextColor = AccentColor;
                HiddenLabel.IsVisible = true;
                if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(EntryField.Text))
                {
                    // animate both at the same time
                    await Task.WhenAll(
                        HiddenBottomBorder.LayoutTo(new Rectangle(BottomBorder.X, BottomBorder.Y, BottomBorder.Width, BottomBorder.Height), 200),
                        HiddenLabel.FadeTo(1, 60),
                        HiddenLabel.TranslateTo(HiddenLabel.TranslationX, EntryField.Y - EntryField.Height + 4, 200, Easing.BounceIn)
                     );
                    EntryField.Placeholder = null;
                }
                else
                {
                    await HiddenBottomBorder.LayoutTo(new Rectangle(BottomBorder.X, BottomBorder.Y, BottomBorder.Width, BottomBorder.Height), 200);
                }
            };
            EntryField.Unfocused += async (s, a) =>
            {
                HiddenLabel.TextColor = Color.Gray;
                if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(EntryField.Text))
                {
                    // animate both at the same time
                    await Task.WhenAll(
                        HiddenBottomBorder.LayoutTo(new Rectangle(BottomBorder.X, BottomBorder.Y, 0, BottomBorder.Height), 200),
                        HiddenLabel.FadeTo(0, 180),
                        HiddenLabel.TranslateTo(HiddenLabel.TranslationX, EntryField.Y, 200, Easing.BounceIn)
                     );
                    EntryField.Placeholder = Placeholder;
                }
                else
                {
                    await HiddenBottomBorder.LayoutTo(new Rectangle(BottomBorder.X, BottomBorder.Y, 0, BottomBorder.Height), 200);
                }
            };
        }
    }

We first set up the BindableProperties and public properties to enable the binding of the AccentColor, Text, Placeholder, and Keyboard. These BindableProperties also handle their own PropertyChanged events to update the view elements dynamically.

After that, we handle our constructor and wire up our Focused and Unfocused events on our BorderlessEntry. In the Focused event, we set the colors of the hidden bar, and the floating label to the accent color. We then start the animations of expanding the hidden bar, and the fade in and float up of the floating label.

On the Unfocused event, we do the inverse of setting the floating label color back to the unfocused color, check if there is text, if there is not – float the label back down, and then animate the collapse of the colored bar.

With all these things together, we get a nicely animated text field that has a floating label and expanding bottom bar with a given accent color!

ios_Material_Entry2

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 – Comparing Models in Kotlin, Java, and C# for Xamarin

Models are an obvious important part of our applications we develop. It’s how we define our data and because of that, we can grow our models to be quite large in number. This post will look at comparing the definition of models between Java, C# (for Xamarin), and Kotlin.

Our example model will be a simple Person that has a Name and Description along with an ID. Let’s look at how we can define our Person model with these fields as well as the ability to access these fields publicly.

Using Java

Java is going to be our largest and most annoying to develop. We need to define our class, private fields, and then public functions/methods to get and set the value of each of the fields. We also need to be able to instantiate a Person with all these properties set in the constructor.

Person.java

public class Person{
    private int id;
    private String name;
    private String description;

    public Person(int id, string name, string description){
        this.id = id;
        this.name = name;
        this.description = description;
    }

    public void setID(int id){
        this.id = id;
    }
    public int getID(){
        return this.id;
    }
    public void setName(String name){
        this.name = name;
    }
    public String getName(){
        return this.name;
    }
    public void setDescription(String description){
        this.description = description;
    }
    public String getDescription(){
        return this.description;
    }
}

That’s exhausting…

Now we can instantiate it and update properties like this:

...
Person bob = new Person(1, "Bob", "He writes code and stuff");
bob.setDescription("He doesn't actually write code");
...

Using C# for Xamarin Applications

C# makes our lives a lot easier with the get and set mechanism built into properties.

Person.cs

public class Person
{
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }

    public Person(int id, string name, string description)
    {
        ID = id;
        Name = name;
        Description = description;
    }
}

Nice and neat!

Now we can instantiate it and update properties like this:

...
var bob = new Person(1, "Bob", "He writes code and stuff");
bob.Description = "He doesn't actually write code";
...

Using Kotlin

Kotlin has some cool tricks that allow us to define and set properties directly in our constructor without having to define and set them separately. This gives us the quickest way to create simple POCO definitions and speed up that development time.

Person.kt

class Person(var id: Int, var name: String, var description: String);

One line.

Now we can instantiate it and update properties like this:

...
val bob = Person(1, "Bob", "He writes code and stuff");
bob.description = "He doesn't actually write code";
...

Conclusion

Each language has their nuances, but I think we can all agree that defining models in Java is just a headache that other languages have solved with better solutions.

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 – Create a TabLayout

We’ll once again take a break from the cross-platform Xamarin content and look at an example of using the latest Kotlin language from Jetbrains with our native Android applications. In this post, we’ll look at an implementation of a TabLayout with a ViewPager using Kotlin!

I also apologize for the lack of useful highlighting of the Kotlin code in this post. Since it is a new language, WordPress doesn’t support it as well for code snippets…

The source code for this example can be found on my GitHub here:
https://github.com/SuavePirate/KotlinPuppies.

The Layout

This example will use a RecyclerView for the content of each Fragment. So we need to define layouts for our Puppy, Fragment, and our entire Activity that houses the TabLayout and Fragments.

Our puppy item will contain a CardView that has an image and text to contain a picture of the puppy and the pup’s name!

puppy_item.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">

    <android.support.v7.widget.CardView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_margin="8dp"
        app:cardElevation="8dp">

        <LinearLayout
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:layout_margin="16dp"
            android:orientation="vertical">

            <ImageView
                android:id="@+id/puppyImageView"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                app:srcCompat="@mipmap/ic_launcher" />

            <TextView
                android:id="@+id/puppyTextView"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:textAlignment="center"
                android:text="Puppy Name" />
        </LinearLayout>

    </android.support.v7.widget.CardView>
</LinearLayout>

Now let’s look at our Fragment layout that will contain a RecylerView that houses each collection of puppies.

puppy_fragment.xml

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="com.suavepirate.kotlinpuppies.MainActivity$PlaceholderFragment">

    <android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView
        android:id="@+id/puppyRecyclerView"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        tools:listitem="@layout/puppy_item" />
</RelativeLayout>

Now let’s wrap it all together with our main layout:

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/main_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
    tools:context="com.suavepirate.kotlinpuppies.MainActivity">

    <android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
        android:id="@+id/appbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:paddingTop="@dimen/appbar_padding_top"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme.AppBarOverlay">

        <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
            android:id="@+id/toolbar"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
            android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
            app:layout_scrollFlags="scroll|enterAlways"
            app:popupTheme="@style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay">

        </android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>

        <android.support.design.widget.TabLayout
            android:id="@+id/tabs"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

    </android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

    <android.support.v4.view.ViewPager
        android:id="@+id/container"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior" />


</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>

Now that we have our layouts, let’s create our Fragment, Adapters, and then wrap it all together in our MainActivity.

Building the Recycler Adapter

Let’s first define our RecyclerView adapter and ViewHolder to contain our collections of puppies.

PuppyHolder.kt

class PuppyHolder(itemView: View) : RecyclerView.ViewHolder(itemView) {
    private val puppyImage: ImageView = itemView.findViewById<ImageView>(R.id.puppyImageView)
    private val puppyName: TextView = itemView.findViewById(R.id.puppyTextView)

    fun updateWithPuppy(puppy: Puppy) {
        puppyImage.setImageDrawable(puppy.imageFile)
        puppyName.text = puppy.name
    }
}

This code defines a class that inherits the RecyclerView.ViewHolder with a default constructor that requires a View parameter that is also passed into the base class constructor. It then defines the two subviews we need to populate – the TextView and ImageView of a single puppy. Lastly, we create our updateWithPuppy function that will be called by our Adapter to instantiate the content with the given puppy’s information.

Now that we have our ViewHolder, we can create our Adapter:

PuppyAdapter.kt

class PuppyAdapter(private val puppies: ArrayList<Puppy>) : RecyclerView.Adapter<PuppyHolder>() {

    override fun onCreateViewHolder(parent: ViewGroup, viewType: Int): PuppyHolder {
        val puppyItem = LayoutInflater.from(parent.context).inflate(R.layout.puppy_item, parent, false) as LinearLayout
        return PuppyHolder(puppyItem)
    }

    override fun onBindViewHolder(holder: PuppyHolder, position: Int) {
        holder.updateWithPuppy(puppies[position])
    }

    override fun getItemCount(): Int {
        return puppies.toArray().count();
    }

}

This adapter uses another cool feature of Kotlin – Defining a private field in the constructor while also auto-setting it. The class declaration and default constructor of PuppyAdapter(private val puppies: ArrayList) is the equivalent to something like this in Java:

public class PuppyAdapter{
    private final ArrayList<Puppy> puppies;
    public PuppyAdapter(ArrayList<Puppy> puppies){
        this.puppies = puppies;
    }
}

That’s pretty sweet! The rest of the wire up for the Adapter is pretty standard. It sets the ViewHolder using the PuppyHolder we created above and updates it with the puppy by finding it with the given index.

The Puppy Fragment

Now we can create our Fragment that will contain and wire up the RecyclerView for each puppy collection.

PuppyListFragment.kt


class PuppyListFragment(passedContext: Context) : Fragment(){

    val puppyFactory : PuppyFactory = PuppyFactory(passedContext)
    val ARG_LIST_TYPE = "LIST_TYPE"
    val passThroughContext : Context = passedContext


    override fun onCreateView(inflater: LayoutInflater?, container: ViewGroup?,
                              savedInstanceState: Bundle?): View? {
        val rootView = inflater!!.inflate(R.layout.fragment_main, container, false)
        val recyclerView = rootView.findViewById<RecyclerView>(R.id.puppyRecyclerView) as RecyclerView
        val listType = this.arguments.getSerializable(ARG_LIST_TYPE) as PuppyListType
        var puppies = ArrayList<Puppy>()
        when (listType) {
            PuppyListType.All -> puppies = puppyFactory.puppies
            PuppyListType.Active -> puppies = puppyFactory.activePuppies
            PuppyListType.LeashTrained -> puppies = puppyFactory.leashTrainedPuppies
            PuppyListType.Big -> puppies = puppyFactory.bigPuppies
            PuppyListType.Small -> puppies = puppyFactory.smallPuppies
        }

        recyclerView.adapter = PuppyAdapter(puppies)
        recyclerView.layoutManager = LinearLayoutManager(passThroughContext)
        return rootView
    }

    companion object {
        val ARG_LIST_TYPE = "LIST_TYPE"

        fun newInstance(listType: PuppyListType, context: Context): PuppyListFragment {
            val fragment = PuppyListFragment(context)
            val args = Bundle()
            args.putSerializable(ARG_LIST_TYPE, listType)
            fragment.arguments = args
            return fragment
        }
    }


}

In the onCreateView override, we get our puppies by type from our factory class and then instantiate our PuppyAdapter and LinearLayoutManager that get applied to the RecyclerView that we grab from our layout created earlier. Now we can pass in the PuppyListType that the fragment is responsible for displaying which will then set up our RecyclerView to render those particular puppies.

We also set up what is the equivalent of a static function that can instantiate a new instance of a PuppyListFragment by using a nested companion object.

Adding Page Adapter

Now that we have our Fragment and it’s child RecyclerView for puppies all set up, we can now create an adapter that is responsible for handling the different pages within the TabLayout that we are ultimately setting up.

PageAdapter.kt

class PageAdapter(fm: FragmentManager, private val context: Context) : FragmentPagerAdapter(fm) {

    override fun getItem(position: Int): Fragment {
        when (position) {
            0 -> return PuppyListFragment.newInstance(PuppyListType.All, context)
            1 -> return PuppyListFragment.newInstance(PuppyListType.Big, context)
            2 -> return PuppyListFragment.newInstance(PuppyListType.Small, context)
            3 -> return PuppyListFragment.newInstance(PuppyListType.LeashTrained, context)
            4 -> return PuppyListFragment.newInstance(PuppyListType.Active, context)
        }
        return PuppyListFragment.newInstance(PuppyListType.All, context)
    }

    override fun getCount(): Int {
        // Show 5 total pages.
        return 5
    }

    override fun getPageTitle(position: Int): CharSequence? {
        // return null to show no title.
        return null
        
    }

}

This is a pretty standard implementation of a PageAdapter. We override the getItem function and return the appropriate instantiated PuppyListFragment by passing in the PuppyListType we want to use by the grouping.

Set up the Activity

The last bit now is the set up our Activity that will house our TabLayout and ViewPager that will contain multiple instances of the PuppyListFragment to show different collections of puppies by category.

MainActivity.kt



class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    private var mSectionsPagerAdapter: PageAdapter? = null

    /**
     * The [ViewPager] that will host the section contents.
     */
    private var mViewPager: ViewPager? = null

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        val toolbar = findViewById<View>(R.id.toolbar) as Toolbar
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar)

        // Create the adapter that will return a fragment for each of the three
        // primary sections of the activity.
        mSectionsPagerAdapter = PageAdapter(supportFragmentManager, this)

        // Set up the ViewPager with the sections adapter.
        mViewPager = findViewById<ViewPager?>(R.id.container)
        mViewPager!!.adapter = mSectionsPagerAdapter

        val tabLayout = findViewById<View>(R.id.tabs) as TabLayout
        tabLayout.setupWithViewPager(mViewPager)

        // set icons
        tabLayout.getTabAt(0)!!.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_home_white_24dp)
        tabLayout.getTabAt(1)!!.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_dog_white_24dp)
        tabLayout.getTabAt(2)!!.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_small_dog_white_24dp)
        tabLayout.getTabAt(3)!!.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_trained_white_24dp)
        tabLayout.getTabAt(4)!!.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_active_white_24dp)

    }
}

Our MainActivity holds a private field for the ViewPager reference, and in the override of onCreate, we set up our view components by finding them in our associated layout file, then wire up the PageAdapter with our TabLayout. Then we set our icons for each given tab after calling the setupWithViewPager on our TabLayout.

View the Results

We can run our application and view our expected results of our tabs and different list of puppy cards!

Screen Shot 2017-07-05 at 11.14.13 AM

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.Basics – Adding a Bottom Navigation View

Changing my pace of steady Xamarin content to go to my roots of native mobile development. This time, we’ll look at implementing the latest control provided by Google and Material Design – The BottomNavigationView.

Resources

Aren’t These Just Tabs?

I mean… yeah, but… it’s new and cool! Google finally realized that stretching to the top of the app can be annoying.
Screen Shot 2017-06-27 at 5.56.48 PM.png

This new control is also a little different from the TabLayout we all know in love from Material Design and Android development in that it is limited to 5 maximum tab items and does not support scrolling. It’s meant to act as top level or sibling level navigation as long as all items are of equal importance in the context of the application/current view. It is also nice to give some variety to our applications navigation scheme; larger apps with many tabbed views can become overwhelming, so tossing something new is relieving to our users.

Code

There are 3 major components to setting up a view with a BottomNavigationView.

  1. First, we need to create a menu resource for our navigation items.
  2. Then we need to create, style, and set up our BottomNavigationView in our layout.
  3. Lastly, add listeners for when an item is selected in our BottomNavigationView and make sure it fits the experience expectation defined in Material Design.

Create a Menu

In our example, we will be building an application for viewing adoptable puppies. Each navigation item will be a different set of these puppies by categorizing them. Let’s create a menu for “all”, “big”, “small”, “trained”, and “active” as categories for our puppies:

res/menu/bottom_bar_menu.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/all_puppies"         android:title="@string/action_all"         android:icon="@drawable/ic_home_white_24dp" />

    <item android:id="@+id/big_puppies"         android:title="@string/action_big"         android:icon="@drawable/ic_dog_white_24dp" />

    <item android:id="@+id/small_puppies"         android:title="@string/action_small"         android:icon="@drawable/ic_small_dog_white_24dp" />

    <item android:id="@+id/trained_puppies"         android:title="@string/action_trained"         android:icon="@drawable/ic_trained_white_24dp" />

    <item android:id="@+id/active_puppies"         android:title="@string/action_active"         android:icon="@drawable/ic_active_white_24dp" />
</menu>

With our menu, we can create our layout.

Updating the Layout

In our example, we are moving from a TabLayout with a ViewPager. However, the Material Design documentation for the BottomNavigationView states that it should NOT be used with side-swiping actions such as a ViewPager. Let’s replace that ViewPager with a FrameLayout that will be used to swap our active Fragment and also remove the TabLayout that is being replaced by the BottomNavigationView:

res/layout/activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"     xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"     xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"     android:id="@+id/main_content"     android:layout_width="match_parent"     android:layout_height="match_parent"     android:fitsSystemWindows="true"     tools:context="com.suavepirate.bottomnavigationpuppies.activities.MainActivity">

    <android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout         android:id="@+id/appbar"         android:layout_width="match_parent"         android:layout_height="wrap_content"         android:paddingTop="@dimen/appbar_padding_top"         android:theme="@style/AppTheme.AppBarOverlay">

        <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar             android:id="@+id/toolbar"             android:layout_width="match_parent"             android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"             android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"             app:layout_scrollFlags="scroll|enterAlways"             app:popupTheme="@style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay">

        </android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>
    </android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

<FrameLayout     android:id="@+id/container"     android:layout_width="match_parent"     android:layout_height="match_parent"     app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior" ></FrameLayout>
<android.support.design.widget.BottomNavigationView     android:id="@+id/bottombar"     android:layout_width="match_parent"     android:layout_height="56dp"     android:layout_gravity="bottom|fill_horizontal|start"     app:menu="@menu/bottom_bar_menu"     android:background="@android:color/white"     app:elevation="8dp"/>
</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>

It’s important to layout the BottomNavigationView at the bottom of the page as well as give it a solid background and elevation. Also, notice how we apply our menu we created to the view by setting app:menu="@menu/bottom_bar_men".

With our layout set, let’s wire up listeners to update the current Fragment based on the selected navigation item.

Setting Up Listeners

In our MainActivity.java we can implement the BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener interface and override the onNavigationItemSelected method:

MainActivity.java

// imports

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener {
    private PageAdapter mSectionsPagerAdapter;
    private FrameLayout mContainer;
    private BottomNavigationView mBottomBar;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
        // Create the adapter that will return a fragment for each of puppy types
        mSectionsPagerAdapter = new PageAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager(), this);

        // Set up the ViewPager with the sections adapter.
        mContainer = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.container);

        // set up the first Fragment
        FragmentTransaction ft = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
        ft.add(R.id.container, mSectionsPagerAdapter.getItem(0), "CURRENT_PAGE");
        ft.commit();

        // set up the bottom bar and listener
        mBottomBar = (BottomNavigationView)findViewById(R.id.bottombar);
        mBottomBar.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener(this);

    }

    // Handles when an item is selected to update the fragment container
    @Override
    public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(@NonNull MenuItem item) {
        FragmentTransaction ft = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
        ft.setCustomAnimations(android.R.anim.fade_in, android.R.anim.fade_out);

        switch(item.getItemId()){
            case R.id.all_puppies: ft.replace(R.id.container, mSectionsPagerAdapter.getItem(0));
                break;
            case R.id.big_puppies: ft.replace(R.id.container, mSectionsPagerAdapter.getItem(1));
                break;
            case R.id.small_puppies: ft.replace(R.id.container, mSectionsPagerAdapter.getItem(2));
                break;
            case R.id.trained_puppies: ft.replace(R.id.container, mSectionsPagerAdapter.getItem(3));
                break;
            case R.id.active_puppies: ft.replace(R.id.container, mSectionsPagerAdapter.getItem(4));
                break;
        }
        ft.commit();
        return true;
    }
}

Now with all of this, we are able to switch the current Fragment with a fade in and out animation when the selected navigation item is updated. That means our BottomNavigationView is implemented and ready to go!

Screenshot_1497932698

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 – Fixing the VS for Mac Xamarin.Forms Template Android Issues

Here’s another quick resolution to one of the most annoying issues I’ve faced in working with Visual Studio for Mac…

The Problem

When creating a brand new, out of the box, Xamarin.Forms project, it didn’t work. This has been a common trend for Xamarin/Microsoft over the last year or so as they roll out Xamarin + Visual Studio updates. The latest culprit was that the Android project was never able to actually install the Xamarin.Forms package from nuget. This was not obvious during the actual build, since the project DID load successfully, and the build errors were along the lines of not being able to find Android Support library resources in the styles.xml. This also caused an issue where source files were not loading with intellisense or highlighting, so the error was even less obvious (see Xamarin.Tip – Fixing the Highlighting Drop In Your Xamarin.Android Projects).

When going into the nuget package manager and trying to manually add the Xamarin.Forms package, I was hit with this error:

Could not install package 'Xamarin.Android.Support.v4 23.3.0'. You are trying to install this package into a project that targets 'MonoAndroid,Version=v2.3'
...

The Solution

My first instinct was to check the Android target version in the project options to make sure that they were within the supported SDK range, and they were:
Screen Shot 2017-06-21 at 4.05.17 PM

Unlike Visual Studio 2017 (or any Windows VS with Xamarin), there was no “Compile using Android Version” picker. THIS field is what is really determines the projects target framework level, but VS for Mac doesn’t have it like it should (hope you’re reading this Microsoft!).

Let’s fix it manually:

  1. Unload your Android project by right clicking it in the Solution explorer and clicking “Unload”
  2. Open the Android project .csproj in the editor by right clicking > Tools > Edit.
  3. For each build configuration, add an explicit TargetFrameworkVersion that’s compatible. In my case that was v4.4
  4. Your .csproj should look like this:
    <Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
    ... 
      <PropertyGroup>
        <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
        <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
        <ProjectGuid>{2BC9AAD5-D311-499E-8B06-A63CCB65C633}</ProjectGuid>
        <ProjectTypeGuids>{EFBA0AD7-5A72-4C68-AF49-83D382785DCF};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>
        <OutputType>Library</OutputType>
        <RootNamespace>AppName.Droid</RootNamespace>
        <AssemblyName>AppName.Droid</AssemblyName>
        <AndroidApplication>True</AndroidApplication>
        <AndroidResgenFile>Resources\Resource.designer.cs</AndroidResgenFile>
        <AndroidResgenClass>Resource</AndroidResgenClass>
        <AndroidManifest>Properties\AndroidManifest.xml</AndroidManifest>
        <MonoAndroidResourcePrefix>Resources</MonoAndroidResourcePrefix>
        <MonoAndroidAssetsPrefix>Assets</MonoAndroidAssetsPrefix>
        <AndroidUseLatestPlatformSdk>true</AndroidUseLatestPlatformSdk>
        <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.4</TargetFrameworkVersion> <!-- THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO ADD OR CHANGE -->
      </PropertyGroup>
      <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
        <DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
        <DebugType>full</DebugType>
        <Optimize>false</Optimize>
        <OutputPath>bin\Debug</OutputPath>
        <DefineConstants>DEBUG;</DefineConstants>
        <ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
        <WarningLevel>4</WarningLevel>
        <AndroidLinkMode>None</AndroidLinkMode>
        <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.4</TargetFrameworkVersion><!-- THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO ADD OR CHANGE -->
      </PropertyGroup>
      <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' ">
        <DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols>
        <DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
        <Optimize>true</Optimize>
        <OutputPath>bin\Release</OutputPath>
        <ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
        <WarningLevel>4</WarningLevel>
        <AndroidManagedSymbols>true</AndroidManagedSymbols>
        <AndroidUseSharedRuntime>false</AndroidUseSharedRuntime>
        <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.4</TargetFrameworkVersion><!-- THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO ADD OR CHANGE -->
      </PropertyGroup>
    
    ...
    </Project>
    
  5. Close the .csproj editor
  6. Reload the project by right clicking in the Solution Explorer and selecting Reload
  7. Retry adding the Xamarin.Forms nuget package to the project

Now you should be good to go. Did this not work for you? Leave a comment below and I’d be happy to help you fix this annoying issue as well!

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 – Adding Dynamic Elevation to Your Xamarin.Forms Buttons

Before Reading

In a previous post, I talked about bringing Material Design to your iOS applications in Xamarin.Forms and adding drop shadows to them. You might want to read that here first: Xamarin.Tips – Creating a Material Design Button in iOS

In another post, we learned how to override the Android Button Elevations. We will be doing this in this post in order to set a dynamic elevation. You can read that here: Xamarin.Tips – Overriding Android Button Shadows/Elevation

Now in this post, we will combine these two concepts with a new custom Xamarin.Forms component called MaterialButton that will have a new Elevation property to control the elevation and shadow of the underlying button control.

The source code and an example can be found here: https://github.com/SuavePirate/MaterialButton

Using the existing code

You can of course use the code I wrote and put on GitHub for this. In order to use it, simply:

  1. Clone the repository at  https://github.com/SuavePirate/MaterialButton
  2. Include all 3 `src` projects in your Solution
  3. Reference the Shared project in all Xamarin.Forms and platform projects
  4. Reference the Android project in your Android projects
  5. Reference the iOS project in your iOS projects
  6. Use the control as below (see example projects to demo)

Reference the control in your XAML:

MainPage.xaml

<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"              xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"              xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MaterialButtonExample"              xmlns:suave="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.MaterialButton.Shared;assembly=SuaveControls.MaterialButton.Shared"              x:Class="MaterialButtonExample.MainPage">

	<suave:MaterialButton x:Name="MyButton"                            BackgroundColor="#03A9F4"                            TextColor="White"                            Text="Click to raise elevation"                            Elevation="1"                            VerticalOptions="Center"                            HorizontalOptions="Center"                           WidthRequest="300"                           Clicked="MyButton_Clicked"/>

</ContentPage>

MainPage.xaml.cs

namespace MaterialButtonExample
{
    public partial class MainPage : ContentPage
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void MyButton_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            MyButton.Elevation++;
        }
    }
}

In your iOS AppDelegate you’ll also need to call the Initialize method to ensure that the Custom renderer does not get excluded during linking:

AppDelegate.cs

namespace MaterialButtonExample.iOS
{
    [Register("AppDelegate")]
    public partial class AppDelegate : global::Xamarin.Forms.Platform.iOS.FormsApplicationDelegate
    {

        public override bool FinishedLaunching(UIApplication app, NSDictionary options)
        {
            global::Xamarin.Forms.Forms.Init();
            MaterialButtonRenderer.Initialize();
            LoadApplication(new App());

            return base.FinishedLaunching(app, options);
        }
    }
}

Now you can see your results!

Creating Your Own Material Design Button

First things first, let’s create our new Xamarin.Forms control before we implement our custom renderers:

MaterialButton.cs

namespace SuaveControls.MaterialButton.Shared
{
    public class MaterialButton : Button
    {
        public static BindableProperty ElevationProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(Elevation), typeof(float), typeof(MaterialButton), 4.0f);

        public float Elevation
        {
            get
            {
                return (float)GetValue(ElevationProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(ElevationProperty, value);
            }
        }
    }
}

Now let’s implement our iOS and Android custom renderers.

iOS:
MaterialButtonRenderer


[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(MaterialButton), typeof(MaterialButtonRenderer))]
namespace SuaveControls.MaterialButton.iOS
{
    public class MaterialButtonRenderer : ButtonRenderer
    {
        public static void Initialize()
        {
            // empty, but used for beating the linker
        }
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Button> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (e.NewElement == null)
                return;

        }

        public override void Draw(CGRect rect)
        {
            base.Draw(rect);
            UpdateShadow();
        }

        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);
            if(e.PropertyName == "Elevation")
            {
                UpdateShadow();
            }
        }

        private void UpdateShadow()
        {

            var materialButton = (Shared.MaterialButton)Element;

            // Update shadow to match better material design standards of elevation
            Layer.ShadowRadius = materialButton.Elevation;
            Layer.ShadowColor = UIColor.Gray.CGColor;
            Layer.ShadowOffset = new CGSize(2, 2);
            Layer.ShadowOpacity = 0.80f;
            Layer.ShadowPath = UIBezierPath.FromRect(Layer.Bounds).CGPath;
            Layer.MasksToBounds = false;

        }
    }
}

Notice how we use the UpdateShadow method to use the Elevation property to set the ShadowRadius of our UIButton's Layer.

It’s important to also make the UpdateShadow call in the OnElementPropertyChanged so that we can dynamically change the Elevation property in our Xamarin.Forms control and see it reflected in the underlying UIButton.

Now let’s do it on Android:

MaterialButtonRenderer

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(MaterialButton), typeof(MaterialButtonRenderer))]
namespace SuaveControls.MaterialButton.Droid
{
    public class MaterialButtonRenderer : Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.AppCompat.ButtonRenderer
    {
        ///
<summary>
        /// Set up the elevation from load
        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="e"></param>
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Xamarin.Forms.Button> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (e.NewElement == null)
                return;

            var materialButton = (Shared.MaterialButton)Element;

            // we need to reset the StateListAnimator to override the setting of Elevation on touch down and release.
            Control.StateListAnimator = new Android.Animation.StateListAnimator();

            // set the elevation manually
            ViewCompat.SetElevation(this, materialButton.Elevation);
            ViewCompat.SetElevation(Control, materialButton.Elevation);
        }

        public override void Draw(Canvas canvas)
        {
            var materialButton = (Shared.MaterialButton)Element;
            Control.Elevation = materialButton.Elevation;
            base.Draw(canvas);
        }

        ///
<summary>
        /// Update the elevation when updated from Xamarin.Forms
        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);
            if(e.PropertyName == "Elevation")
            {
                var materialButton = (Shared.MaterialButton)Element;
                ViewCompat.SetElevation(this, materialButton.Elevation);
                ViewCompat.SetElevation(Control, materialButton.Elevation);
                UpdateLayout();
            }
        }
    }
}

Just as mentioned in the iOS implementation, we need to make sure that we implement our changes in both the OnElementChanged method as well as the OnElementPropertyChanged event to ensure we are able to update our Elevation with MVVM.

Now we can use our control in our pages!

MainPage.xaml

<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"              xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"              xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MaterialButtonExample"              xmlns:suave="clr-namespace:SuaveControls.MaterialButton.Shared;assembly=SuaveControls.MaterialButton.Shared"              x:Class="MaterialButtonExample.MainPage">

	<suave:MaterialButton x:Name="MyButton"                            BackgroundColor="#03A9F4"                            TextColor="White"                            Text="Click to raise elevation"                            Elevation="1"                            VerticalOptions="Center"                            HorizontalOptions="Center"                           WidthRequest="300"                           Clicked="MyButton_Clicked"/>

</ContentPage>

MainPage.xaml.cs

namespace MaterialButtonExample
{
    public partial class MainPage : ContentPage
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void MyButton_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            MyButton.Elevation++;
        }
    }
}

In your iOS AppDelegate you’ll also need to call the Initialize method to ensure that the Custom renderer does not get excluded during linking:

AppDelegate.cs

namespace MaterialButtonExample.iOS
{
    [Register("AppDelegate")]
    public partial class AppDelegate : global::Xamarin.Forms.Platform.iOS.FormsApplicationDelegate
    {

        public override bool FinishedLaunching(UIApplication app, NSDictionary options)
        {
            global::Xamarin.Forms.Forms.Init();
            MaterialButtonRenderer.Initialize();
            LoadApplication(new App());

            return base.FinishedLaunching(app, options);
        }
    }
}

Now you can see your results!

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 – Binding a Picker to an Enum

So a recent Xamarin.Forms update released the new Bindable Picker, which allows you to bind an IList of objects to the picker (which will be ToString()‘ed). However, I’ve often find myself needing to create a form for a model that has enum properties. Previously, in order to do this, I would have to create a custom List or string from my enum and map it manually, then read from the SelectedItem bound to another string property, then when I need the actual value I’d have to map it back to the enum it “represents”.

It might have looked something like this:

MyViewModel.cs

...
private DogBreed _breedEnum; // this is our enum of: BorderCollie, LabradorRetriever, PitBull, etc.

public List<string> BreedNames
{
    get
    {
        return new List<string> { "Border Collie", "Labrador Retriever", "Pit Bull" };
    }
}

private string _selectedBreed;
public string SelectedBreed
{
    get
    {
        return _selectedBreed;
    }
    set
    {
        Set(ref _selectedBreed, value); // this is using MvvmLight
    }
}

public void DoSomethingWithTheBreed()
{
    switch(SelectedBreed)
    {
        case "Border Collie": _breedEnum = DogBreed.BorderCollie;
            break;
        case "Labrador Retriever": _breedEnum = DogBreed.LabradorRetriever;
            break;
        case "Pit Bull": _breedEnum = DogBreed.PitBull;
            break;
        //...
    }

    DoSomething(_breedEnum);
}
...

And our XAML

<Picker ItemsSource="{Binding BreedNames}" SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedBreed}"/>

As you can see, this is pretty gross…

Here’s a quick little strategy I use to make the binding process a little easier with my enums. It’s broken into just 3 quick parts:

  1. Create a extension methods to get a readable string from our `enum`
  2. Create a `Converter` to convert the `SelectedIndex` to the `enum` field
  3. Wire up the fields and XAML

Let’s create our enum extension methods to get a readable string for the UI:
StringExtensions.cs

    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        public static string SplitCamelCase(this string str)
        {
            return Regex.Replace(
                Regex.Replace(
                    str,
                    @"(\P{Ll})(\P{Ll}\p{Ll})",
                    "$1 $2"
                ),
                @"(\p{Ll})(\P{Ll})",
                "$1 $2"
            );
        }
    }

This SplitCamelCase method will take a string that is camel cased and split it out into separate words such as `”ThisIsMyValue”.SplitCamelCase(); // “This Is My Value”

Now that we have the ability to get a readable string from the enum values, let’s create our ViewModel properties we will need.

MyViewModel.cs

...
private DogBreed _selectedBreed;
public DogBreed SelectedBreed
{
    get
    {
        return _selectedBreed;
    }
    set
    {
        Set(ref _selectedBreed, value);
    }
}

public List<string> BreedNames
{
    get
    {
        return Enum.GetNames(typeof(DogBreed)).Select(b => b.SplitCamelCase()).ToList();
    }
}

public void DoSomethingWithBreed()
{
    DoSomething(SelectedBreed);
}
...

So much cleaner already. Now we need to create a Converter that our XAML can use to actually set the SelectedBreed property of our ViewModel.

IntEnumConverter.cs

    public class IntEnumConverter : IValueConverter
    {
        public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
        {
            if (value is Enum)
            {
                return (int)value;
            }
            return 0;
        }

        public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
        {
            if(value is int)
            {
                return Enum.ToObject(targetType, value);
            }
            return 0;
        }
    }

Last thing to do is use our IntEnumConverter and our properties to create our view in XAML:

MyView.xaml

<ContentPage.Resources>
    <ResourceDictionary>
        <converters:IntEnumConverter x:Key="IntEnum"/>
    </ResourceDictionary>
</ContentPage.Resources>
<Picker ItemsSource="{Binding BreedNames}" SelectedIndex="{Binding SelectedBreed, Converter=IntEnum}"/>

Here’s what we have!

Now you have the means to bind any of your Pickers quite easily to any of your custom enum fields!

“Woah! How did you get that Material Design Looking Picker on iOS”… Stay tuned!

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.Tips – Overriding Android Button Shadows/Elevation

Since Material Design’s implementation in the Android OS, some controls that ship with either the new styles, or with the App Compat packages place some under-the-cover restrictions on what you can do with the control by default. In this example, we will look at updating the App Compat Button Shadows and Elevation that ship with the control.

According to Material Design’s standards, “raised buttons” (versus flat buttons and floating action buttons) should have a resting elevation of 2dp, and an pressed/hover elevation of 8dp.

whatismaterial_3d_elevation_component02

This principle is also implemented in the App Compat Button. However, if you try to update the Elevation of your Button, you’ll notice that it won’t stay that way on the redraw, but will go right back to the 4dp it is by default.


supportButton.Elevation = 9; // set it directly
ViewCompat.SetElevation(supportButton, 9); // set using app compat method

...

Console.WriteLine(supportButton.Elevation); // will return 4...

So why is this? And how is Android creating the pressed animation automatically to increase the elevation? It certainly isn’t any code we’ve written. The answer is in the StateListAnimator property of the Button. The StateListAnimator is responsible for setting properties of the Button during certain states such as Enabled, Disabled, Focused, Pressed, etc. and is what is overriding the manual set of Button.Elevation.

You can override this in a few different ways to claim back full control. First, if you want to handle your different different states manually in your code, you can set the StateListAnimator to a new instance, or null, then set the Elevation to what you want.

In Code

supportButton.StateListAnimator = new StateListAnimator();
ViewCompat.SetElevation(supportButton, 9);

...

Console.WriteLine(supportButton.Elevation); // 9!

The most reusable way to do this is to subclass Button and set the StateListAnimator in the constructor:

CustomElevatingButton.cs

public class CustomElevatingButton : Android.Support.V7.Widget.AppCompatButton
{
    public CustomElevatingButton(Context context): base(context)
    {
        StateListAnimator = new StateListAnimator();
    }
}

Using Styles

Alternatively, you can set it using styles for your Button:

styles.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="AppTheme.Base">
    </style>
    <style name="AppTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/NoShadowButton</item>
    </style>
    <style name="NoShadowButton" parent="android:style/Widget.Button">
        <item name="android:stateListAnimator">@null</item>
    </style>
</resources>

You can also do it per-button:

 styles.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="AppTheme.Base">
    </style>
    <style name="AppTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        ...
    </style>
    <style name="NoShadowButton" parent="android:style/Widget.Button">
        <item name="android:stateListAnimator">@null</item>
    </style>
</resources>

some_layout.axml

...
<Button style="@style/NoShadowButton" ... />
...

In Xamarin.Forms

We can do the same thing in Xamarin.Forms with either a custom renderer or a custom Effect. In this example, we will create a universal Xamarin.Forms.Button custom renderer to set an explicit height:

ElevatedButtonRenderer

public class ElevatedButtonRenderer : Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.AppCompat.ButtonRenderer
{
    public override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Button> e)
    {
        StateListAnimator = null; // clear the state list animator
        Elevation = 9; // set the elevation
    }
}

Creating Your Own StateListAnimator

Of course, instead of clearing the StateListAnimator and handling your elevation manually, you could create your own to handle the states and animations however you want. Google has documentation included in the discussion about animations here. Here’s an example of creating and applying your own:

anim/reverse_state_list_animator.xml

<!-- animate the elevation property of a view when pressed -->
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item android:state_pressed="true">
    <set>
      <objectAnimator android:propertyName="elevation"
        android:duration="@android:integer/config_shortAnimTime"
        android:valueTo="0dp"
        android:valueType="floatType"/>
        <!-- you could have other objectAnimator elements
             here for "x" and "y", or other properties -->
    </set>
  </item>
  <item android:state_enabled="true"
    android:state_pressed="false"
    android:state_focused="true">
    <set>
      <objectAnimator android:propertyName="elevation"
        android:duration="100"
        android:valueTo="2dp"
        android:valueType="floatType"/>
    </set>
  </item>
</selector>

This animation will do the reverse of the Material Design Standard, and will take the Button elevation from 2dp to 0dp when pressed.

Now we just need to apply this animation resource to our Button style either universally or on a specific button:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="AppTheme.Base">
    </style>
    <style name="AppTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/NoShadowButton</item>
    </style>
    <style name="NoShadowButton" parent="android:style/Widget.Button">
        <item name="android:stateListAnimator">@anim/reverse_state_list_animator</item>
    </style>
</resources>

Now pressing any button within the AppTheme will reverse the elevation property and go more “into” the view rather than elevating.

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.Controls – Xamarin.Forms FloatingActionButton (including iOS!)

You did actually read that title correctly – we have a FloatingActionButton to use in Xamarin.Forms that works in both Android and iOS!

I’ve put the source code up for this here: https://github.com/SuavePirate/Xamarin.Forms.Controls.FloatingActionButton

It’s rudimentary and has room for some more fun properties, but it is fully functional! If you would like to contribute to the repository, see the TODO: list at the bottom of the README and start forking and making pull requests!

To breakdown the steps to create your own Floating Action Button in Xamarin.Forms, you’ll need:

  1. A custom Xamarin.Forms `Element`
  2. An Android Custom renderer to use the native `Android.Compat.Design.Widgets.FloatingActionButton`
  3. An iOS Custom renderer to create a button that looks like a FAB.

So let’s go in that order.

In Xamarin.Forms PCL

FloatingActionButton.xaml.cs

  public partial class FloatingActionButton : Button
    {
        public static BindableProperty ButtonColorProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(ButtonColor), typeof(Color), typeof(FloatingActionButton), Color.Accent);
        public Color ButtonColor
        {
            get
            {
                return (Color)GetValue(ButtonColorProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(ButtonColorProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public FloatingActionButton()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

We added a new BindableProperty for the ButtonColor. This is done because setting the BackgroundColor will mess up the Android renderer and apply the background behind the FAB. We want to inherit from Button so that we can utilize some of the already useful properties that come with it – namely the Image property that consumes a FileImageSource. We can use this to set the icon for our FAB.

In Android

FloatingActionButtonRenderer.cs

using FAB = Android.Support.Design.Widget.FloatingActionButton;

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(SuaveControls.Views.FloatingActionButton), typeof(FloatingActionButtonRenderer))]
namespace SuaveControls.FloatingActionButton.Droid.Renderers
{
    public class FloatingActionButtonRenderer : Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.AppCompat.ViewRenderer<SuaveControls.Views.FloatingActionButton, FAB>
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<SuaveControls.Views.FloatingActionButton> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (e.NewElement == null)
                return;

            var fab = new FAB(Context);
            // set the bg
            fab.BackgroundTintList = ColorStateList.ValueOf(Element.ButtonColor.ToAndroid());

            // set the icon
            var elementImage = Element.Image;
            var imageFile = elementImage?.File;

            if (imageFile != null)
            {
                fab.SetImageDrawable(Context.Resources.GetDrawable(imageFile));
            }
            fab.Click += Fab_Click;
            SetNativeControl(fab);

        }
        protected override void OnLayout(bool changed, int l, int t, int r, int b)
        {
            base.OnLayout(changed, l, t, r, b);
            Control.BringToFront();
        }

        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            var fab = (FAB)Control;
            if (e.PropertyName == nameof(Element.ButtonColor))
            {
                fab.BackgroundTintList = ColorStateList.ValueOf(Element.ButtonColor.ToAndroid());
            }
            if (e.PropertyName == nameof(Element.Image))
            {
                var elementImage = Element.Image;
                var imageFile = elementImage?.File;

                if (imageFile != null)
                {
                    fab.SetImageDrawable(Context.Resources.GetDrawable(imageFile));
                }
            }
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);

        }

        private void Fab_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // proxy the click to the element
            ((IButtonController)Element).SendClicked();
        }
    }
}

A few important things to point out:

  • We add the additional using statement `using FAB = Android.Support.Design.Widget.FloatingActionButton;` to help us distinguish between our Xamarin.Forms element and the built in Android control.
  • We are NOT using a `ButtonRenderer` as our base class, but instead using a basic `ViewRenderer`. This is because the underlying control will not be a native Android `Button`, but the native Android `FloatingActionButton`.
  • Because we replace the `ButtonRenderer`, we need to make sure we still propagate click events up to the Xamarin.Forms element.

Now let’s look at iOS, which can utilize more of the built in pieces from Xamarin.Forms since it supports the BorderRadius property on Buttons.

In iOS

FloatingActionButtonRenderer.cs

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(SuaveControls.Views.FloatingActionButton), typeof(FloatingActionButtonRenderer))]
namespace SuaveControls.FloatingActionButton.iOS.Renderers
{
    [Preserve]
    public class FloatingActionButtonRenderer : ButtonRenderer
    {
        public static void InitRenderer()
        {
        }
        public FloatingActionButtonRenderer()
        {
        }
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Button> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (e.NewElement == null)
                return;

            // remove text from button and set the width/height/radius
            Element.WidthRequest = 50;
            Element.HeightRequest = 50;
            Element.BorderRadius = 25;
            Element.BorderWidth = 0;
            Element.Text = null;

            // set background
            Control.BackgroundColor = ((SuaveControls.Views.FloatingActionButton)Element).ButtonColor.ToUIColor();
        }
        public override void Draw(CGRect rect)
        {
            base.Draw(rect);
            // add shadow
            Layer.ShadowRadius = 2.0f;
            Layer.ShadowColor = UIColor.Black.CGColor;
            Layer.ShadowOffset = new CGSize(1, 1);
            Layer.ShadowOpacity = 0.80f;
            Layer.ShadowPath = UIBezierPath.FromOval(Layer.Bounds).CGPath;
            Layer.MasksToBounds = false;

        }
        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);

            if (e.PropertyName == "ButtonColor")
            {
                Control.BackgroundColor = ((SuaveControls.Views.FloatingActionButton)Element).ButtonColor.ToUIColor();
            }
        }
    }
}

We set an explicit WidthRequest, HeightRequest, and BorderRadius to get ourselves a circle. I’m not a big fan of doing it here, since it’s better suited as a calculation, but for now it works.

Lastly in our Draw override, we set up the drop shadow behind out button, and make sure that our ShadowPath is actually built from an oval so that it rounds off with the Button.
Also note that we take the ButtonColor property and apply it as the BackgroundColor of the UIButton to override the color from Xamarin.Forms. Don’t forget to set Text to null so that we can’t add text to the button and mess it up.

As a side note, iOS might try to link our your custom renderer if you are using it in an iOS Class Library. In order to avoid this, make sure to call a static InitRenderer method in your AppDelegate.cs as it will prevent it from being linked out.

Using the FloatingActionButton

Now that we have our renderers registered for our new Element, we can use it in our XAML or C# of our PCL or Shared Project:

MainPage.xaml

<?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>

and our code behind:

MainPage.xaml.cs

namespace SuaveControls.FabExample
{
    public partial class MainPage : ContentPage
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

        }

        private async void Button_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            await DisplayAlert("FAB Clicked!", "Congrats on creating your FAB!", "Thanks!");
        }
    }
}

Then we get these results in our Android and iOS apps:

Android

Screenshot_1493173400

iOS

2017-04-25_10-38-38-PM

If you want to just pull down the control I built on GitHub, the steps are straight forward:

  1. Clone the repository
  2. Reference the PCL in your PCL/Shared Lib
  3. Reference the PCL and native projects in your respective native project
  4. Pull the namespace into your XAML (or C#)
  5. Start using it!

The repository also contains an example app that references the source libraries.

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.