How to create same UI as given UX in xamarin forms? - user-interface

I am working in xamarin forms. I have some UX given by the designer. Now I want to create exactly same UI(same height of control, width of control, colors etc) in xamarin forms. My xaml view should be exactly xame like given UX.
Is there any tool that can guide me to create same UI like UX. I mean through that tool I can get the height, widths and colors of controls of screens and then can use it.

it's not good idea to use exact length of UI since the app will run on different screen and different devices. Xamarin forms uses native views for each platform which will also change the look of basic views.
What you need to do is to use grids or other layouts for sizing and control the height and the width of your views.
I also suggested that you always use scroll view incase if a mobile has a small screen size.
Finally, regarding the actual UI components and UX interactions, there are many ready components like calendars, custom checkboxes, sliders,... . If you can't find a component that cover what you need, you have 2 options:
combine different components and try to customize them with absolute
and Relative layouts.
Create the components yourself which will require some knowledge
on each platform to create the view component by drawing it and do
all the handling for each platform.
Regarding the UX, there are many libraries for animations and most components allow customizability.
Your question was very general so this answer is general. Please try to be more specific next time.

Related

Nativescript and more complex UI

I have to create mobile application for both IOS and Android.
I'm interested in use NativeSript problem is that, UI is quite complex and I'm not sure if this framework will manage this.
For my work with Js and Java is not a problem and I already have back-end side ready.
Best Regards
Luke
NativeScript can do anything a native Java/ObjC app can do; you have full access to the actual native OS controls from inside JavaScript. And all controls that are created are actually the native controls; so if you create 20 Java/ObjC controls or 20 controls in NS, they are still all the exact same type of controls as far as the Android (or iOS) runtimes are concerned, all the screen rendering is done the exact same way since NativeScript creates Native controls.
Now as to complex UI's, I have several apps with fairly complex UI's, however one thing I do is I frequently start with a single UI screen and then once happy with it I take pieces that I can and have those pieces dynamically load in/out when they are needed to keep the UI as simple (light memory usage) as much as possible. The UI can handle complex screens, but by showing less items (and eliminating any hidden items from memory) the UI is way more responsive in any language.

Xamarin - mixing Forms and Storyboards

Is it possible to mix iOS Storyboards and Xamarin Forms within one application? I have a bunch of views that are easier to be created in Forms, but some which are heavily customized so we would need to create some of them in native code.
I would like to use Storyboards to create the native parts, but can't seem to find a way to navigate from a Forms page to a Storyboard and vice versa.
I don't mind doing it from code, just need to know the direction to look into and if it's even possible.
You can create native views using the concept of Custom Renderers (see links below). The idea is that you create a Xamarin Forms Control that's shared between all platforms and which old common properties (like colors, general data etc), and do the native rendering on the iOS/Android/WP projects.
So, for your storyboard, you can create it usign Xamarin.iOS, and render using a Custom Renderer. The link posted by #GSerg in the comments have some information and examples, but you can take a closer look at the oficial documentation as well:
Introduction to Custom Renderers
Customizing Controls on Each Platform
Customizing Control Rendering in Xamarin.Forms (video)
Also, for more real world examples you can take a look at the Xamarin Forms XLabs project.
Thanks to Rafael Steil's answer. I looked at the links and a few more samples.
Notably:
Custom Renderer Map
Using Xamarin Forms alongside Storyboard
And I created a sample project to show the back-and-forth navigation between Xamarin Forms and pages created in Storyboards. You can find it over here:
Xamarin Forms Mixed with Native

Windows 10 app - SplitView or Pivot?

I create my first app for Windows 10. I will use the app for Windows 10 desktop and phone. Great that one code will run on desktop and phone. In my old application for Windows Phone 8 I use Panorama control with three tabs. But I can not decide which component to use - SplitView or Pivot? For desktop better suited SplitView . For phone better suited - Pivot. Need to choose one solution. What do you advise?
First, your following statement is incorrect.
For desktop better suited SplitView. For phone better suited - Pivot.
SplitView and Pivot are for different purposes -
SplitView consists of two parts - Pane and Content. The Content is where the main content goes. The Pane is really just a drawer. This control is meant to provide a very common drawer navigation pattern to the new UWP apps, similar to many iOS and Android apps.
Note that this control is also very flexible, you can use AdaptiveTrigger to customize its DisplayMode to completely hide the Pane when it's on a phone, and make it always visible when on a desktop machine.
Prior to UWP, the original Metro Design heavily relied on the Panorama control (i.e. the Hub control in UWP) for menu navigation and this later becomes a bit boring since almost all the apps that need a menu, use a Pano. So having a new SplitView will definitely help developers be a bit more creative on the main layout design. And besides, the drawer navigation is so widely used across other platforms and users generally know how to interact with it.
Pivot on the other hand, is simply a swipe-enabled tab control. It's meant to display information at the same level and should never be used like a navigation frame. Leave the navigation bit to the SplitView or the old panorama style Hub control, or whatever creative ways you can come up with.
So to answer your question, you don't have to choose one between them, these two controls can co-exist since one does the navigation and the other shows the information, just like what's in the picture below -

Backbone Marionette iOS style page transitions

I'm making a single page mobile app with Backbone.Marionette and would like to implement page slide transitions. I know how to achieve this via adding and removing the proper css classes for the animation but I'm having trouble with Marionette regions and managing when these classes are being added. I would like the current view in the region to slide out and the next view slide in. how can I accomplish this with regions or layouts in marionette? P.S i'm a newbie with marionette.
You'll need to write a custom Region implementation to facilitate the transition. There's an open ticket on Marionette that has the core code for making this work: https://github.com/marionettejs/backbone.marionette/issues/320#issuecomment-9746319
But you'll need to adjust this code for your specific needs. Be sure to read the comments and discussion around it. I've used this core code for similar needs many times, but haven't found the optimal way of integrating it in to marionette, yet.
Here is a custom region demonstrating view transitions: http://codepen.io/somethingkindawierd/pen/cpiEw

WP7 alternative to tabs

I have a mobile app. On the two major smartphone platforms, I employ tabbed UI - there are 3-4 screens with pretty much independent functionality, they exchange info very occasionally, most of the time screen switching is performed by the user, in arbitrary order.
Windows Phone 7 does not have a tab control, and page navigation assumes a stack model (you go back to where you came from). What would be a sensible WP7 alternative to that kind of UI?
The general Phone-7 replacement for the tab paradigm would be either a Pivot or a Panorama. Which you choose depends a lot on exactly on what you're showing, but generally speaking the Pivot is probably what you're after.
I would recomend a pivot control
WP7 UI is built around the metro style and it was a deliberate choice to not have a tab control. (have a look at the official guidelines here) I would recommend you use a metro control like panorama or pivot.

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