Tag: Xamarin

Xamarin.Tips – Changing a TableView’s Separator Color

In previous posts, I talked about the misfortunes of the Xamarin.Forms TableView. In this post, we will look at changing the separator color with a custom renderer.

For some other Xamarin.Tips on upgrading your TableView, check out these two posts on customizing the Section Titles!

Android: Xamarin.Tips – Xamarin.Forms Android Custom TableView Section Titles
iOS: Xamarin.Tips – Xamarin.Forms iOS Custom TableView Section Titles

Let’s get started with a custom view that inherits the TableView and adds a BindableProperty for our SeparatorColor:

ColoredTableView.cs

    public partial class ColoredTableView : TableView
    {
        public static BindableProperty SeparatorColorProperty = BindableProperty.Create("SeparatorColor", typeof(Color), typeof(ColoredTableView), Color.White);
        public Color SeparatorColor
        {
            get
            {
                return (Color)GetValue(SeparatorColorProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(SeparatorColorProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public ColoredTableView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

Now let’s take this view and create our renderers!

Let’s start with Android:

ColoredTableViewRenderer.cs

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(ColoredTableView), typeof(ColoredTableViewRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_ANDROID_NAMESPACE
{
    public class ColoredTableViewRenderer : TableViewRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<TableView> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (Control == null)
                return;

            var listView = Control as Android.Widget.ListView;
            var coloredTableView = (ColoredTableView)Element;
            listView.Divider = new ColorDrawable(coloredTableView.SeparatorColor.ToAndroid());
            listView.DividerHeight = 3;
        }

        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);
            if(e.PropertyName == "SeparatorColor")
            {
                var listView = Control as Android.Widget.ListView;
                var coloredTableView = (ColoredTableView)Element;
                listView.Divider = new ColorDrawable(coloredTableView.SeparatorColor.ToAndroid());
            }
        }
    }
}

Basically, we take the color and apply it as a ColorDrawable, including updating when the property changes from our Forms code.

Now let’s write up our iOS renderer:

ColoredTableViewRenderer.cs

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(ColoredTableView), typeof(ColoredTableViewRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_IOS_NAMESPACE
{
    public class ColoredTableViewRenderer : TableViewRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<TableView> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (Control == null)
                return;

            var tableView = Control as UITableView;
            var coloredTableView = Element as ColoredTableView;
            tableView.SeparatorColor = coloredTableView.SeparatorColor.ToUIColor();
        }

        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);
            if(e.PropertyName == "SeparatorColor")
            {
                var tableView = Control as UITableView;
                var coloredTableView = Element as ColoredTableView;

                tableView.SeparatorColor = coloredTableView.SeparatorColor.ToUIColor();
            }
        }
    }
}

Similarly to our Android implementation, we set the SeparatorColor of our Native UITableView on set up and when the value changes.

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!

Xamarin.Tips – Android Shadows on Transparent Views

I talked in a previous post about creating box-shadows on iOS UIViews that are transparent that you can find here: Xamarin.Tips – iOS Shadow on Transparent UIView

This is the Android counterpart! Let’s look at putting some shadows around a view with a fully transparent background. Android presented some completely different challenges compared to iOS. In the iOS solution, we ran into issues with Shadow layers requiring something in front of it to draw the drop shadow. With Android, using a CardView from the design support library gives us access to the Elevation and CardElevation properties which CAN indeed give us shadows around our view even though it is transparent. However, that kills any border on the view. Remember that we are looking for a transparent view, with a solid border, and shadows around it.

The general approach for iOS was to draw two new layers with shadows around the right and bottom sides of the UIView. Using layers allowed us to draw outside the actual frame of the view. However, with iOS, we aren’t so lucky.

So here’s the idea:
1. Adjust the margin and padding to allow us to expand the frame of the view
2. Draw a shadow gradient on the right side
3. Draw a shadow gradient on the bottom side
4. Draw a border around what our inner frame was

Here’s what that looks like in a custom renderer (since the origin of this was a custom Xamarin.Forms view):

TransparentFrameRenderer.cs

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(TransparentFrame), typeof(TransparentFrameRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_ANDROID_NAMESPACE
{
    public class TransparentFrameRenderer : Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.AppCompat.FrameRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Frame> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (e.NewElement != null)
            {
                Element.Margin = new Thickness(-5);
                Element.Padding = new Thickness(15);
                Control.CardElevation = 0;
                Control.PreventCornerOverlap = false;
            }
        }

        protected override void OnDraw(Canvas canvas)
        {
            base.OnDraw(canvas);

            // draw border
            var strokePaint = new Paint();
            strokePaint.SetARGB(255, 255, 255, 255);
            strokePaint.SetStyle(Paint.Style.Stroke);
            strokePaint.StrokeWidth = 2;
            var rect = canvas.ClipBounds;
            var outline = new Rect(15, 15, rect.Right - 15, rect.Bottom - 15);

            var bottomPaint = new Paint();
            bottomPaint.SetStyle(Paint.Style.Fill);
            var shadowShader = new LinearGradient(0, 0, 0, 30, new Android.Graphics.Color(0, 0, 0, 100), new Android.Graphics.Color(0, 0, 0, 0), Shader.TileMode.Mirror);
            bottomPaint.SetShader(shadowShader);

            var rightPaint = new Paint();
            rightPaint.SetStyle(Paint.Style.Fill);
            var rightShader = new LinearGradient(0, 0, 20, 0, new Android.Graphics.Color(0, 0, 0, 100), new Android.Graphics.Color(0, 0, 0, 0), Shader.TileMode.Mirror);
            rightPaint.SetShader(rightShader);

            // draw the bottom and right shadows
            canvas.DrawRect(12, rect.Bottom - 12, rect.Right - 12, rect.Bottom + 3, bottomPaint);
            canvas.DrawRect(rect.Right - 12, 14, rect.Right + 3, rect.Bottom, rightPaint);
            canvas.DrawRect(outline, strokePaint);
        }
    }
}

Look at the Draw override. We are setting up 3 different paints. The first is the Paint for our white border. bottomPaint sets up for our bottom shadow using a LinearGradient as the shader, and similarly, rightPaint sets up our shadow for the right side.

Finally, we call DrawRect for both our shadows, then our border. The values in the DrawRect calls for the shadows are just examples to play with padding and size values. You can play with those as you see fit to make your view look best.

I’ve tested this in some large ListViews to test against the classic Android overdraw issue that can happen, but because it consists of 3 pretty simple strokes, I haven’t run into any performance issues. Hopefully this solution works for you!

This is NOT a complete solution, or a real reusable control, but more of a general approach to rendering shadows around a control with a transparent background.

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!

Xamarin.Tips – Xamarin.Forms Android Custom TableView Section Titles

Xamarin.Forms’ TableView is a really useful control for displaying static content. However, it has some shortfalls. The one we will look at today is customizing the Section Title.

If you are looking for this solution on iOS, check it out here: Xamarin.Tips – Xamarin.Forms iOS Custom TableView Section Titles

Before reading ahead, I would suggest looking at your solution and assessing whether or not your TableView could be easily replaced by a ListView. I want to point this out, because ListViews have more flexibility for GroupHeader and allow you to put any control in there without having to leave your happy place that is XAML.

If that isn’t the case, keep reading; Let’s look at some simple custom renderers that can solve this problem for Android specifically.

First, let’s create a custom view that inherits TableView:

ColoredTableView.cs

 public partial class ColoredTableView : TableView
    {
        public static BindableProperty GroupHeaderColorProperty = BindableProperty.Create("GroupHeaderColor", typeof(Color), typeof(ColoredTableView), Color.White);
        public Color GroupHeaderColor
        {
            get
            {
                return (Color)GetValue(GroupHeaderColorProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(GroupHeaderColorProperty, value);
            }
        }

        public ColoredTableView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

Now we can create our Android renderer:

ColoredTableViewRenderer

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(ColoredTableView), typeof(ColoredTableViewRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_ANDROID_NAMESPACE
{
    public class ColoredTableViewRenderer : TableViewRenderer
    {
       
        protected override TableViewModelRenderer GetModelRenderer(Android.Widget.ListView listView, TableView view)
        {
            return new CustomHeaderTableViewModelRenderer(Context, listView, view);
        }

        private class CustomHeaderTableViewModelRenderer : TableViewModelRenderer
        {
            private readonly ColoredTableView _coloredTableView;

            public CustomHeaderTableViewModelRenderer(Context context, Android.Widget.ListView listView, TableView view) : base(context, listView, view)
            {
                _coloredTableView = view as ColoredTableView;
            }

            public override Android.Views.View GetView(int position, Android.Views.View convertView, ViewGroup parent)
            {
                var view = base.GetView(position, convertView, parent);

                var element = GetCellForPosition(position);

                // section header will be a TextCell
                if (element.GetType() == typeof(TextCell))
                {
                    try
                    {
                        // Get the textView of the actual layout
                        var textView = ((((view as LinearLayout).GetChildAt(0) as LinearLayout).GetChildAt(1) as LinearLayout).GetChildAt(0) as TextView);

                        // get the divider below the header
                        var divider = (view as LinearLayout).GetChildAt(1);

                        // Set the color
                        textView.SetTextColor(_coloredTableView.GroupHeaderColor.ToAndroid());
                        textView.TextAlignment = Android.Views.TextAlignment.Center;
                        textView.Gravity = GravityFlags.CenterHorizontal;
                        divider.SetBackgroundColor(_coloredTableView.GroupHeaderColor.ToAndroid());
                    }
                    catch (Exception) { }
                }

                return view;
            }
        }
    }
}

Similar to the iOS solution, the important part is our override of GetView. What we are doing here is getting a reference to the inner child native views of our section header (why we check against the type and TextCell). Then we get our actual android TextView and the LinearLayout which is the divider below the header. From there we can change the properties of the views however we prefer. The default behavior of these views are to take the AccentColor from the android styles and use them as the BackgroundColor of the divider and the TextColor of the TextView.

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!

Xamarin.Tips – Xamarin.Forms iOS Custom TableView Section Titles

Xamarin.Forms’ TableView is a really useful control for displaying static content. However, it has some shortfalls. The one we will look at today is customizing the Section Title. Before reading ahead, I would suggest looking at your solution and assessing whether or not your TableView could be easily replaced by a ListView. I want to point this out, because ListViews have more flexibility for GroupHeader and allow you to put any control in there without having to leave your happy place that is XAML.

If that isn’t the case, keep reading; Let’s look at some simple custom renderers that can solve this problem for iOS specifically (Android to follow).

First, let’s create a custom view that inherits TableView:

ColoredTableView.cs

 public partial class ColoredTableView : TableView
    {
        public static BindableProperty GroupHeaderColorProperty = BindableProperty.Create("GroupHeaderColor", typeof(Color), typeof(ColoredTableView), Color.White);
        public Color GroupHeaderColor
        {
            get
            {
                return (Color)GetValue(GroupHeaderColorProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(GroupHeaderColorProperty, value);
            }
        }

        public ColoredTableView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

Now let’s create a renderer in our iOS project:

ColoredTableViewRenderer.cs


[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(ColoredTableView), typeof(ColoredTableViewRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_IOS_NAMESPACE
{
    public class ColoredTableViewRenderer : TableViewRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<TableView> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (Control == null)
                return;

            var tableView = Control as UITableView;
            var coloredTableView = Element as ColoredTableView;
            tableView.WeakDelegate = new CustomHeaderTableModelRenderer(coloredTableView);
        }

        private class CustomHeaderTableModelRenderer : UnEvenTableViewModelRenderer
        {
            private readonly ColoredTableView _coloredTableView;
            public CustomHeaderTableModelRenderer(TableView model) : base(model)
            {
                _coloredTableView = model as ColoredTableView;
            }
            public override UIView GetViewForHeader(UITableView tableView, nint section)
            {
                return new UILabel()
                {
                    Text = TitleForHeader(tableView, section),
                    TextColor = _coloredTableView.GroupHeaderColor.ToUIColor(),
                    TextAlignment = UITextAlignment.Center
                };
            }
        }
    }
}

Basically what we are doing is overriding the WeakDelegate of the native UITableView that is under the Xamarin.Forms TableView. That WeakDelegate is of type TableViewModelRenderer which also inherits the UITableViewSource and holds our native overrides for getting cell heights, etc. Note that this inherits NOT TableViewModelRenderer, but UnEvenTableViewRenderer. This is because my TableView has set HasUnevenRows to true. This is a business rule for my application, but if you aren’t, then you can use the default TableViewModelRenderer.

The important piece is the override of GetViewForHeader. We override this in order to create a custom label that can use the properties and styles we need!

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!

Xamarin.Controls – BadgeView

Who knew it could be so difficult to just put a number on a circle in Xamarin.Forms? Here’s a freebie to make your life easier in creating your own badges.

Before we dive in, I want to note that with the Xamarin.Forms.Themes, this can be easier. Check out the docs here: https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-forms/user-interface/themes/. Basically, they added a StyleClass for BoxView that allows you to render it as a circle (although I’ve had problems with it in the past). This example is going to be avoiding the Themes package with a custom rolled implementation.

To start, we are going to create a custom CircleView. That CircleView is going to inherit from BoxView and use a custom renderer to give us the rounded edges we want. After that, we are going to make a reusable view called BadgeView that will essentially just slap a Label on top of our new CircleView.

Start here, with your CircleView in your PCL or Shared Library:

CircleView.cs

    public partial class CircleView : BoxView
    {
        public static readonly BindableProperty CornerRadiusProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(CornerRadius), typeof(double), typeof(CircleView), 0.0);

        public double CornerRadius
        {
            get { return (double)GetValue(CornerRadiusProperty); }
            set { SetValue(CornerRadiusProperty, value); }
        }

        public CircleView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

Now let’s create our custom renderers. I want to note, that for iOS it is much simpler, and could also be done as an Effect rather than a BoxRenderer, however, in order to be consistent with the more complicated Android implementation, we are doing both as renderers.

First, and easiest – iOS:

CircleViewRenderer.cs


[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(CircleView), typeof(CircleViewRenderer))]
namespace YourNamespace.iOS
{
    public class CircleViewRenderer : BoxRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<BoxView> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (Element == null)
                return;

            Layer.MasksToBounds = true;
            Layer.CornerRadius = (float)((CircleView)Element).CornerRadius / 2.0f;
        }

    }
}

and of course Android:

CircleViewRenderer.cs


[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(CircleView), typeof(CircleViewRenderer))]
namespace YouNamespace.Droid
{
    public class CircleViewRenderer : BoxRenderer
    {
        private float _cornerRadius;
        private RectF _bounds;
        private Path _path;
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<BoxView> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (Element == null)
            {
                return;
            }
            var element = (CircleView)Element;

            _cornerRadius = TypedValue.ApplyDimension(ComplexUnitType.Dip, (float)element.CornerRadius, Context.Resources.DisplayMetrics);

        }

        protected override void OnSizeChanged(int w, int h, int oldw, int oldh)
        {
            base.OnSizeChanged(w, h, oldw, oldh);
            if (w != oldw && h != oldh)
            {
                _bounds = new RectF(0, 0, w, h);
            }

            _path = new Path();
            _path.Reset();
            _path.AddRoundRect(_bounds, _cornerRadius, _cornerRadius, Path.Direction.Cw);
            _path.Close();
        }

        public override void Draw(Canvas canvas)
        {
            canvas.Save();
            canvas.ClipPath(_path);
            base.Draw(canvas);
            canvas.Restore();
        }
    }
}

Cool. Now we can draw pretty circles in our Xamarin.Forms views:

<views:CircleView CornerRadius="16" WidthRequest="16" HeightRequest="16"/>

Now let’s apply that to a reusable BadgeView.

BadgeView.xaml

<Grid      xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"      xmlns:local="clr-namespace:your_local_namespace"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"      x:Class="your_local_namespace.BadgeView"     HeightRequest="16"     WidthRequest="16">
    <local:CircleView x:Name="BadgeCircle" HeightRequest="16" WidthRequest="16" CornerRadius="16" VerticalOptions="Center" HorizontalOptions="Center" />
    <Label x:Name="BadgeLabel" TextColor="White" VerticalOptions="Center" HorizontalOptions="Center" VerticalTextAlignment="Center" HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" FontSize="10"/>
</Grid>

BadgeView.xaml.cs

 public partial class BadgeView : Grid
    {
        public static BindableProperty TextProperty = BindableProperty.Create("Text", typeof(string), typeof(BadgeView), "0", propertyChanged: (bindable, oldVal, newVal) =>
        {
            var view = (BadgeView)bindable;
            view.BadgeLabel.Text = (string)newVal;
        });

        public static BindableProperty BadgeColorProperty = BindableProperty.Create("BadgeColor", typeof(Color), typeof(BadgeView), Color.Blue, propertyChanged: (bindable, oldVal, newVal) =>
        {
            var view = (BadgeView)bindable;
            view.BadgeCircle.BackgroundColor = (Color)newVal;
        });

        public string Text
        {
            get
            {
                return (string)GetValue(TextProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(TextProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public Color BadgeColor
        {
            get
            {
                return (Color)GetValue(BadgeColorProperty);
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue(BadgeColorProperty, value);
            }
        }
        public BadgeView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            BadgeLabel.Text = Text;
            BadgeCircle.BackgroundColor = BadgeColor;
        }
    }

This is obviously a super simple example, but you can always add any other properties you want such as handling changing sizes, corners, shapes, colors, etc.

But now we can see our final results when using our control:

 <Grid>
    <Label HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" Text="Look at me!"/>
    <views:BadgeView Text="3" BadgeColor="Green" VerticalOptions="Start" HorizontalOptions="End"/>
</Grid>

BadgeExample

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!

Xamarin.Tips – iOS Shadow on Transparent UIView

I ran into another interesting requirement that took some creativity to solve. At a basic level, on iOS, we needed to have a UIView with a fully transparent background that also had a dropshadow (acting more as a box shadow). With its offset being to the bottom right, meaning the shadow should not be visible from the top or left sections of the view.

I know you might be thinking, that sounds like a ridiculous requirement! Why would someone ever do that? It actually gives a pretty cool magnifying look on the large image behind the view, like the UIView was layered above the image and focusing a portion of the large image. I can’t share screenshots, but I would suggest giving the look a try!

But to get to the point, if you haven’t yet, try setting Shadow details on the Layer of a UIView that has a UIColor.Clear background color. You’ll notice that nothing shows up. The next logical thought is to just add another layer that applies the shadow, then add that layer as a sublayer to the view’s main layer. However, that will simply add a gray frame behind yours (since iOS’s shadows act as drop shadows, not box shadows).

At the brink of a mental breakdown, I came up with a solution that worked well for our situation without having to add extra views to act as the shadows or any other wacky workaround (although I will say this workaround is quite wacky).

I did this in Xamarin.Forms, so this is in a Custom renderer for a Frame, but the same thing applies to any UIView. The basic premise is to add two new layers for the bottom portion of the shadow and the right portion.

    public class TransparentFrameRenderer : FrameRenderer
    {

        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Frame> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if(e.NewElement != null)
            {
            }
        }
        public override void Draw(CGRect rect)
        {
            Layer.InsertSublayer(CreateShadowLayer(new CGRect(rect.Width + 2, 3, 4, rect.Height + 2)), 0);
            Layer.InsertSublayer(CreateShadowLayer(new CGRect(3, rect.Height + 2, rect.Width, 4.0f)), 0);
            base.Draw(rect);

        }

        private CALayer CreateShadowLayer(CGRect rect)
        {
            var shadowLayer = new CALayer();
            shadowLayer.BackgroundColor = UIColor.Black.CGColor;
            shadowLayer.ShadowOpacity = 0.8f;
            shadowLayer.ShadowOffset = new CGSize(0, 0);
            shadowLayer.ShadowColor = UIColor.Black.CGColor;
            shadowLayer.ShadowPath = UIBezierPath.FromRect(rect).CGPath;

            return shadowLayer;
        }
    }

Note the helper method to create a layer with the shadow details set to what we need, and inserting two sublayers that set the frame for the layer. These are specific values I used in our situation, but you can easily play with them and also see how the same thing can be applied if your shadow needs to be applied to all four sides (if your light perspective is perfectly perpendicular to the view), inverse of what we have here, or if you need larger or smaller shadows.

This is NOT a complete solution, or a real reusable control, but more of a general approach to rendering shadows around a control with a transparent background.

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!

Xamarin.Forms Borderless Entry

Here’s a quick freebee. If you want to create an entry that has no border, it can be done with a pretty simple custom renderer.

Let’s first create a new control that inherits Entry:

BorderlessEntry.cs

 public partial class BorderlessEntry : Entry
    {
        public BorderlessEntry()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

We aren’t doing any special logic or anything here since all we need to do is remove the border.

Now let’s create our renderer on Android:

BorderlessEntryRenderer.cs


[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(BorderlessEntry), typeof(BorderlessEntryRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_NAMESPACE
{
    public class BorderlessEntryRenderer : EntryRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Entry> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);
            if (e.OldElement == null)
            {
                Control.Background = null;
            }
        }
    }
}

Note that setting the background drawable to null will kill the border (including the bottom line in AppCompt).

Now let’s create our renderer on iOS:

BorderlessEntryRenderer.cs

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(BorderlessEntry), typeof(BorderlessEntryRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_NAMESPACE
{
    public class BorderlessEntryRenderer : EntryRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnElementPropertyChanged(sender, e);
            
            Control.Layer.BorderWidth = 0;
            Control.BorderStyle = UITextBorderStyle.None;
        }
    }
}

The main property here is the BorderStyle.

Lastly, UWP (this should also be the same thing for WP and Win8):

BorderlessEntryRenderer.cs

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(BorderlessEntry), typeof(BorderlessEntryRenderer))]
namespace YOUR_NAMESPACE
{
    public class BorderlessEntryRenderer : EntryRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Entry> e)
        {
            base.OnElementChanged(e);

            if (Control != null)
            {
                Control.BorderThickness = new Thickness(0);
            }
        }
    }
}

That’s all there is to it!

Xamarin.Controls – Creating your own Markdown TextBlock in UWP

After talking about using the MarkdownTextView I created and how to accomplish rendering Markdown in iOS and Android without a WebView, I received a few requests to do it for UWP as well.

Check these previous posts out:

  1. Xamarin.Controls – MarkdownTextView
  2. Xamarin.Controls – Creating Your Own Android Markdown TextView
  3. Xamarin.Controls – Creating Your Own iOS Markdown UILabel

Let’s dive in to rendering markdown into a TextBlock in UWP. We’ll break it down into a few steps:

  1. Parse a markdown string into an html string
  2. Create a Behavior for the TextBlock
  3. Parse the html into relevant Span tags in the behavior
  4. Use the new Behavior in our XAML or C#

 

Parsing Markdown

This is traditionally the most difficult part. However, our community is awesome and open sourced a Markdown processor with an MIT license (so use it freely!).

I won’t put the actual code in here because it is overwhelmingly long, but here is a link to it:

https://github.com/SuavePirate/MarkdownTextView/blob/master/src/Forms/SPControls.MarkdownTextView/SPControls.MarkdownTextView/Markdown.cs

Note that this is portable, so you can use it in a PCL without a problem and share it between your platforms.

Now that we have our means of processing the Markdown, let’s create some extension methods to make it easier to parse and do some extra processing like cleaning up our tags, line breaks, etc.

#region MARKDOWN STYLES
private const string ORIGINAL_PATTERN_BEGIN = "<code>";
private const string ORIGINAL_PATTERN_END = "</code>";
private const string PARSED_PATTERN_BEGIN = "<font color=\"#888888\" face=\"monospace\"><tt>";
private const string PARSED_PATTERN_END = "</tt></font>";

#endregion

public static string ToHtml(this string markdownText)
{
    var markdownOptions = new MarkdownOptions
    {
        AutoHyperlink = true,
        AutoNewlines = false,
        EncodeProblemUrlCharacters = false,
        LinkEmails = true,
        StrictBoldItalic = true
    };
    var markdown = new Markdown(markdownOptions);
    var htmlContent = markdown.Transform(markdownText);
    var regex = new Regex("\n");
    htmlContent = regex.Replace(htmlContent, "
");

    var html = htmlContent.HtmlWrapped();
    var regex2 = new Regex("\r");
    html = regex.Replace(html, string.Empty);
    html = regex2.Replace(html, string.Empty);
    return html;
}

///
<summary>
/// Wrap html with a full html tag
/// </summary>
/// <param name="html"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static string HtmlWrapped(this string html)
{
    if (!html.StartsWith("<html>") || !html.EndsWith("</html>"))
    {
        html = $"<html><body>{html}</body></html>";
    }
    return html;
}

///<summary>
/// Parses html with code or pre tags and gives them proper
/// styled spans so that Android can parse it properly
/// </summary>
/// <param name="htmlText">The html string</param>
/// <returns>The html string with parsed code tags</returns>
public static string ParseCodeTags(this string htmlText)
{
    if (htmlText.IndexOf(ORIGINAL_PATTERN_BEGIN) < 0) return htmlText;
    var regex = new Regex(ORIGINAL_PATTERN_BEGIN);
    var regex2 = new Regex(ORIGINAL_PATTERN_END);

    htmlText = regex.Replace(htmlText, PARSED_PATTERN_BEGIN);
    htmlText = regex2.Replace(htmlText, PARSED_PATTERN_END);
    htmlText = htmlText.TrimLines();
    return htmlText;
}

public static bool EqualsIgnoreCase(this string text, string text2)
{
    return text.Equals(text2, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);
}

public static string ReplaceBreaks(this string html)
{
    var regex = new Regex("
");
    html = regex.Replace(html, "\n");
    return html;
}

public static string ReplaceBreaksWithSpace(this string html)
{
    var regex = new Regex("
");
    html = regex.Replace(html, " ");
    return html;
}

public static string TrimLines(this string originalString)
{
    originalString = originalString.Trim('\n');
    return originalString;
}

Now we can properly parse markdown to html:

var markdown = "# Hello *World*";
var html = markdown.ToHtml();
// html = "<h1>Hello <strong>World</strong></h1>"

Create a Behavior

I’m going to take some inspiration from Shawn Kendrot and his post here.

The first thing Shawn does is implement a base Behavior class, so let’s go ahead and use that here:

    // WinRT Implementation of the base Behavior classes
    public abstract class Behavior<T> : Behavior where T : DependencyObject
    {
        protected T AssociatedObject
        {
            get { return base.AssociatedObject as T; }
        }

        protected override void OnAttached()
        {
            base.OnAttached();
            if (this.AssociatedObject == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("AssociatedObject is not of the right type");
        }
    }

    public abstract class Behavior : DependencyObject, IBehavior
    {
        public void Attach(DependencyObject associatedObject)
        {
            AssociatedObject = associatedObject;
            OnAttached();
        }

        public void Detach()
        {
            OnDetaching();
        }

        protected virtual void OnAttached()
        {

        }

        protected virtual void OnDetaching()
        {

        }

        protected DependencyObject AssociatedObject { get; set; }

        DependencyObject IBehavior.AssociatedObject
        {
            get { return this.AssociatedObject; }
        }
    }

Now we can create our actual Behavior implementation to handle the html parsing. If you want the entire file, you can find it in a gist here. Or keep reading so we can break it down.

HtmlTextBehavior.cs

public class HtmlTextBehavior : Behavior<TextBlock>
{
    protected override void OnAttached()
    {
        base.OnAttached();
        AssociatedObject.Loaded += OnAssociatedObjectLoaded;
        AssociatedObject.LayoutUpdated += OnAssociatedObjectLayoutUpdated;
    }
 
    protected override void OnDetaching()
    {
        base.OnDetaching();
        AssociatedObject.Loaded -= OnAssociatedObjectLoaded;
        AssociatedObject.LayoutUpdated -= OnAssociatedObjectLayoutUpdated;
    }
 
    private void OnAssociatedObjectLayoutUpdated(object sender, object o)
    {
        UpdateText();
    }
 
    private void OnAssociatedObjectLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs routedEventArgs)
    {
        UpdateText();
        AssociatedObject.Loaded -= OnAssociatedObjectLoaded;
    }
 
    private void UpdateText()
    {
        if (AssociatedObject == null) return;
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(AssociatedObject.Text)) return;

        string text = AssociatedObject.Text;

        // Just incase we are not given text with elements.
        string modifiedText = string.Format("<div>{0}</div>", text);

        // reset the text because we will add to it.
        AssociatedObject.Inlines.Clear();
        try
        {
            var element = XElement.Parse(modifiedText);
            ParseText(element, AssociatedObject.Inlines);
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            // if anything goes wrong just show the html
            AssociatedObject.Text = text;
        }
        AssociatedObject.LayoutUpdated -= OnAssociatedObjectLayoutUpdated;
        AssociatedObject.Loaded -= OnAssociatedObjectLoaded;
    }
    
    /// <summary>
    /// Traverses the XElement and adds text to the InlineCollection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="element"></param>
    /// <param name="inlines"></param>
    private static void ParseText(XElement element, InlineCollection inlines)
    {
        if (element == null) return;

        InlineCollection currentInlines = inlines;
        var elementName = element.Name.ToString().ToUpper();
        switch (elementName)
        {
            case ElementA:
                var link = new Hyperlink();
                var href = element.Attribute("href");
                if(href != null)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        link.NavigateUri = new Uri(href.Value);
                    }
                    catch (System.FormatException) { /* href is not valid */ }
                }
                inlines.Add(link);
                currentInlines = link.Inlines;
                break;
            case ElementB:
            case ElementStrong:
                var bold = new Bold();
                inlines.Add(bold);
                currentInlines = bold.Inlines;
                break;
            case ElementI:
            case ElementEm:
                var italic = new Italic();
                inlines.Add(italic);
                currentInlines = italic.Inlines;
                break;
            case ElementU:
                var underline = new Underline();
                inlines.Add(underline);
                currentInlines = underline.Inlines;
                break;
            case ElementBr:
                inlines.Add(new LineBreak());
                break;
            case ElementP:
                // Add two line breaks, one for the current text and the second for the gap.
                if (AddLineBreakIfNeeded(inlines))
                {
                    inlines.Add(new LineBreak());
                }

                Span paragraphSpan = new Span();
                inlines.Add(paragraphSpan);
                currentInlines = paragraphSpan.Inlines;
                break;
            // TODO: Add ElementH1 - ElementH6 handlers here. They should behave the same way as ElementP with increased font size.
            case ElementLi:
                inlines.Add(new LineBreak());
                inlines.Add(new Run { Text = " • " });
                break;
            case ElementUl:
            case ElementDiv:
                AddLineBreakIfNeeded(inlines);
                Span divSpan = new Span();
                inlines.Add(divSpan);
                currentInlines = divSpan.Inlines;
                break;
        }
        foreach (var node in element.Nodes())
        {
            XText textElement = node as XText;
            if (textElement != null)
            {
                currentInlines.Add(new Run { Text = textElement.Value });
            }
            else
            {
                ParseText(node as XElement, currentInlines);
            }
        }
        // Add newlines for paragraph tags
        if (elementName == ElementP)
        {
            currentInlines.Add(new LineBreak());
        }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Check if the InlineCollection contains a LineBreak as the last item.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="inlines"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    private static bool AddLineBreakIfNeeded(InlineCollection inlines)
    {
        if (inlines.Count > 0)
        {
            var lastInline = inlines[inlines.Count - 1];
            while ((lastInline is Span))
            {
                var span = (Span)lastInline;
                if (span.Inlines.Count > 0)
                {
                    lastInline = span.Inlines[span.Inlines.Count - 1];
                }
            }
            if (!(lastInline is LineBreak))
            {
                inlines.Add(new LineBreak());
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
}

That’s a lot of stuff to look at. Let’s break it down. The core of the processing is in the UpdateText and ParseText methods.

Essentially what we are doing here is some layout management, and then parsing the html (parsed into an XElement). It’s different from the approaches we took in Android and iOS where there are native APIs that can parse HTML automatically. But if you looked at the Android post I made before, you’ll remember the extra TagHandler we created that took unsupported html element types and parsed them into Spans for proper formatting. What we did in that situation is a simplified version of what we accomplish here. We take relevant html tags, and create Spans, Bolds, HyperLinks and other relevant types in order to be able to render it within our final TextBlock.

There are a few element types in the parsing that are not included, but can be pretty easily added. For example, code, pre, h1–h6, etc. However, these can be easily added to the switch statement! Most of these are going to be handled the same way that ElementP does. So you can add them, and adjust the FontSize or FontFamily of your Span!

Applying the Behavior

Now that we have our HtmlTextBehavior built out, we can apply it to our actual TextBlock!

In XAML:

<TextBlock Text="{Binding MyHtmlText}" FontSize="20" TextWrapping="Wrap">
    <Interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
        <local:HtmlTextBehavior />
    </Interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
</TextBlock>

Now we can render out MyHtmlText property from our ViewModel directly in our TextBlock!

Xamarin.Controls – MarkdownTextView

Markdown is cool, and we as developers are seeing more and more of it all around us; documentation, chat, or even just trying to store dynamic displayed strings without storing the crazy extra characters of xml or html.

Markdown is used by parsing it through a series of Regex comparisons and outputting the html equivalent of what is to be displayed. In web, that’s awesome! Parse the markdown, dump it in the DOM. Bam.

But what about native mobile development? I’ve seen solutions out there where people just create a WebView on their platform, and dump the parsed html from the markdown string into that WebView. It might get the job done in a simple scenario, but WebViews are hefty and really should be avoided.

I’ve created a free and open sourced solution to this problem – The MarkdownTextView.

Here’s the repo: https://github.com/SuavePirate/MarkdownTextView

This is a Xamarin.Forms control that renders on iOS and Android. It consumes a string through the Markdown property, and then the custom render on the respective platform renders it out via a UILabel on iOS and a TextView on Android.

Using the MarkdownTextView

To use the control, clone the repository and reference the library projects in your application. Reference the PCL in your PCL or Shared Library, and reference the native library with the renderer in your platform specific project.

In your platform projects, be sure to call:


MarkdownTextView.Init();

Then use the control in either your XAML or your C# page/view:


<ContentPage ...
xmlns:spcontrols="clr-namespace:SPControls.Forms;assembly=SPControls.MarkdownTextView"
...>
<spcontrols:MarkdownTextView Markdown="{Binding MarkdownString}" />
</ContentPage>


var mdTextView = new MarkdownTextView();
mdTextView.Markdown = "# this is my *header* tag";

How It Works

There are five core steps to how the control works:

  1. The Xamarin.Forms control takes the string value from the Markdown property
  2. The Native custom renderer gets the updated string
  3. The native control calls the PCL Markdown class to parse the string into an html string (with some extra clean up)
  4. The native library parses the html string into a platform specific attributed string that the control can render.
    1. iOS: NSAttributedString
    2. Android: ICharSequence
  5. The native renderer then renders the value from the above type into the native control.
    1. iOS: UILabel.AttributedText
    2. Android: TextView.TextFormatted

There are a few smaller steps specific to the platform to handle some tags that are not normally built in, but that’s the basics.

In a follow-up blog post, I will talk about the details of how this is accomplished for each platform, and how to take this outside Xamarin.Forms to use in your native Xamarin applications.

Xamarin.Tips – Extending Xamarin Plugins

An Introduction to Plugins

If you’re on my blog, you know I love Xamarin. Writing cross-platform applications and sharing as much code as possible is, in my opinion, the way to go. The Xamarin community has taken an awesome technology, and made it even more awesome by building tons and tons of plugins. These plugins allow us to access platform-specific functionality from shared code, which simply allows us as application developers to write even more code in our portable projects.

I ran into an interesting forum post talking about the structure of plugins made a standard by Xamarin. A lot of use these plugins, but of course, they are not made for everyone! I’ve seen many repositories riddled with issues asking for more and more features in the plugin. This post is going to show some ways to expand on those features with your own code! As well as show techniques to use these plugins with Inversion of Control and Dependency Injection, rather than through the Singleton that the standard ships with.

Suggested Resources Before Starting

It might be a good idea to read up on my blogs and watch my videos about calling platform specific code from a PCL. Check out the YouTube playlist for some different techniques. Specifically looking at the Singleton method and Dependency Injection method.

Resources for Examples

We are going to look at arguably my all time favorite plugin: UserDialogs by Allan Ritchie

If you haven’t used it yet, it’s a cool plugin that allows you to call platform specific pop ups and dialogs including alerts, toasts, prompts, action sheets, confirmation messages, and more.

We are also going to be using MvvmLight (as I tend to do) in order to use SimpleIoc for our Inversion of Control and Dependency Injection.

Let’s first look at using IoC and DI, then look at extending the functionality.

Use Dependency Injection to Call Your Plugins

If we look at Singleton of UserDialogs, we see that it simply changes the Init method based on the platform, and uses that to set the platform-specific implementation of IUserDialogs. The core of the functionality comes from that implementation of IUserDialogs. So rather than going through the Init method of the Singleton, we can instead register the implementation to an IoC container, and inject it into the constructor of our ViewModel or Service that calls it!

Let’s create a ViewModel that takes an IUserDialogs in its constructor:

public class MyViewModel : ViewModelBase
{
    ...
    private readonly IUserDialogs _userDialogs;
    public MyViewModel(IUserDialogs userDialogs)
    {
        _userDialogs = userDialogs;
    }
    ...
 }

Now that our ViewModel has a reference to an IUserDialogs, we can make calls to it from ICommands or methods.

public void ErrorToast(string message)
{
    // show a toast message with a red background
    _userDialogs.Toast(new ToastConfig(message).SetMessageTextColor(System.Drawing.Color.White).SetBackgroundColor(System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(255, 213, 0, 0)));
}

 

 

Now all we need to do is register both our IUserDialogs platform implementation and our MyViewModelto our IoC container.

In our PCL or SharedLibrary:


...
ServiceLocator.SetLocatorProvider(() =&gt; SimpleIoc.Default);
...
SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;MyViewModel&gt;();
...

Then in our Android project:


...

 ActivityLifecycleCallbacks.Register(activity);
var userDialogsImplementation = new UserDialogsImpl(() =&gt; ActivityLifecycleCallbacks.CurrentTopActivity);
SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;IUserDialogs&gt;(() =&gt; userDialogsImplementation);
...

And in iOS:

...
// note iOS doesn't require registering lifecycle callbacks like iOS does.
SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;IUserDialogs, UserDialogsImpl();
...

Now when we create our MyViewModel, we don’t do it through calling new MyViewModel(), we will call to get the instance from the ServiceLocator. For example, we can set the BindingContext of a Page:

 

...
public MyMainPage()
{
    BindingContext = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance&lt;MyViewModel&gt;();
}
...

That’s all we need to do! As long as we make those Register calls for our MyViewModel and IUserDialogs before the call to the MyMainPage constructor, everything will be wired up and Injected.

Now that we have our application using Dependency Injection instead of the Singleton, it makes it even easier to override and extend the functionality of the plugin.

Changing Features and Functionality

There are only two things we need to change to our implementation from above.

  1. Create a new platform implementation of IUserDialogs that inherits from the UserDialogsImpl.
  2. Change the IoC Registration to use our new implementation.

Let’s create a new class called MyUserDialogsImpl that will inherit from UserDialogsImpl. In this class, we will override the Alert method and do something like change the Tint color on iOS:


public class MyUserDialogsImpl : UserDialogsImpl
{
    ...
    public override IDisposable Alert(AlertConfig config)
    {
        return this.Present(() =&gt;
        {
             var alert = UIAlertController.Create(config.Title ?? String.Empty, config.Message, UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert);

            // custom piece:
            alert.View.TintColor = UIColor.Red;

             alert.AddAction(UIAlertAction.Create(config.OkText, UIAlertActionStyle.Default, x =&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; config.OnAction?.Invoke()));
             return alert;
         });
     }

 ...
}

Now where we registered the IUserDialogs before, we just substitute our new implementation!

 

...
// note iOS doesn't require registering lifecycle callbacks like iOS does.
SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;IUserDialogs, MyUserDialogsImpl&gt;();
...

So now our IoC set up will automatically set up our new implementation, so when we call the Alert method, it will show the Tint color as Red.

Adding New Features to Plugins

Similarly to how we changed functionality, we can add completely new functionality in just a few steps:

  1. Create a new Interface that inherits IUserDialogs in our shared code.
  2. Add a new method to that interface
  3. Change our new implementation to also implement that new interface
  4. Change our IoC Registration to register our implementation as our new interface instead of IUserDialogs
  5. Change our injected dependency in our MyViewModel to our new interface

In our shared code, let’s create an interface called ICustomDialogs and add a method to its definition:


public interface ICustomDialogs : IUserDialogs
{
    void SayHello();
}

 

Now, let’s update our MyUserDialogsImpl to implement our new interface:


public class MyUserDialogsImpl : UserDialogsImpl, ICustomDialogs
{
    public void SayHello()
    {
        this.Alert(&quot;Hello&quot;, &quot;World&quot;);
    }
}

Next, we need to update our IoC Register call:

 

 


...
SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;ICustomDialogs, MyUserDialogsImpl&gt;();
...

Lastly, let’s change our MyViewModel to use our new interface:

public class MyViewModel : ViewModelBase 
{ 
    ...
    private readonly ICustomDialogs _userDialogs; 
    public MyViewModel(ICustomDialogs userDialogs)
    {
        _userDialogs = userDialogs; 
    } 
    ...
}

Now we can call our SayHello method from our ViewModel too!

Recap

  1. Xamarin Plugins are awesome
  2. You don’t have to use Plugin Singletons!
  3. You can use dependency injection to inject your plugin implementations
  4. You can override methods in your platform specific implementations of your plugins
  5. You can create new functionality through another interface and updated injections!