Tag: Effects

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.

 

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