I have a Xamarin.Forms application that I would like to enable as a text and/or URL share target. I've done this in a Windows UWP app by handling OnShareTargetActivated, but I don't see an equivalent in Xamarin.Forms. I am willing to use compiler directives if needed; I would prefer that to doing iOS/Android/Windows specific things in the corresponding projects themselves. Right now all my code is in the Xamarin.Forms project and I'd like to keep it that way.
Unfortunately Android and Ios do not have a similar share event so there is no equivalent event in xamarin forms.
Related
Xamarin.forms provides the ListView control. I followed the implementation of #jamesmotemagno for grouped list view. The application works fine. But the only problem is with sticky group header which comes default in ios and windows but not in android. This is very irritating just because of android I need to implement the custom rendering which led to render on ios and windows, which is not required. Is there any way to solve this problem of sticky header in android without disturbing ios and windows. Please suggest any solution for android.
We've begun evaluating Xamarin for a up and coming project involving both iOS and Android, with the overriding intention to produce a single UI layer (and some share code, obviously) (I'm also new to C#)
TL;DR
I've begun exploring Xamarin on iOS. I started with the Phoneword example and it worked well enough.
The first issue I found was running the code on the iPhone X, which I was able to solve by using MainPage.On<Xamarin.Forms.PlatformConfiguration.iOS>().SetUseSafeArea(true); in the platform App class
While testing this, I noticed some issues with the ListView not scrolling properly (the core issue was actually with the platform padding).
I then used (MainPage as Xamarin.Forms.NavigationPage).On<iOS>().EnableTranslucentNavigationBar(); to enable translucent navigation bars (as we're targeting iOS 11+) and now everything appears under the navigation bar.
This is easily fixed in xCode and after some research I've found that I need to be using UIKit.UIViewController.EdgesForExtendedLayout Property, the immediate problem I'm facing is, the only "snippets" of code I can find are from the View is displayed under status bar in iOS 7 and EdgesForExtendedLayout doesn't help forum post.
Issue at hand...
The example solution snippets posted seem to be making use of a platform (iOS) specific solution. The problem is, I want to keep using the "cross-platform" code in the "platform" project and simply provide some custom configuration for the iOS platform which can apply these states.
I understand it could be possible to use a renderer, but this seems to counter-interactive, as I'd need one for both iOS and Android, where the platform page is doing just fine as it.
I understand that I could setup a DependencyService, but this seems annoying to have to include a specific "configuration" service just to solve this issue for iOS
I was hoping it might be possible to setup a iOS Page which would "override" some of the functionality of the platform page and would allow me to make use of things like viewDidLoad so I can apply the iOS specific configurations on a page by pages bases, so we could keep the platform page as it, but when running under iOS, it would provide me access to iOS life cycle of the actual view...
I've been trying to search the documentation and tutorials and haven't yet come across anything which would seem to do this or something similar (not to say there isn't one, but I'm just not finding it).
Say I build a super mobile friendly web application that I want in the Play Store for Android users to be able to download.
Could I use Xamarin to:
Wrap the entire mobile app as a single WebView
Register for mobile push notifications
Essentially shortlining an MVP of an android app by using an existing web app? If so, is there any well-known process or documentation that demonstrates this?
Probably the best approach for you would be using Xamarin Forms with one or more pages containing only web views.
I don't love Xamarin Forms because usually for me Xamarin Android+iOS gives a better result in similar time, but your app would be so simple that doesn't make sense to do it with Xamarin Android.
Make sure that your web app will show only what makes sense to be shown in your app, otherwise you risk to see double header/footer, useless buttons... but if the website is yours adding a few parameters to change a bit the UI won't be a problem I guess.
Have a look at this example:
https://github.com/xamarin/xamarin-forms-samples/tree/master/WorkingWithWebview
Another approach is the use of Razor to build your pages in html directly inside your app, but if I understood well it's not what you need:
https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/advanced/razor_html_templates/
Although it is technically possible to do this as the previous answer has suggested. I would recommended firstly reviewing, the relevant stores guidelines on submissions. Apple for example will not allow a submission to their store of any application that simply mirrors the functionality of a website. I suspect Google's would likely be the same.
However that said, to answer your question, Xamarin.Forms would be appropriate for a simple application like the one you are suggesting. Or if you prefer to build to a specific OS, then in iOS with Xamarin you would use the Safari View Controller that was added in it's xcode 8.1 release. Android uses something similar as does windows.
EDIT:
You can use the Web View control in Xamarins Andorid native PCL project to encapsulate your mobile friendly website within an application here is the documentation:
Xamarin Android Developer link to Android Web View
As for push notifications, yes this is perfectly possible using Xamarin.Android. and varies on implementation depending on what you want to use as the back end to handle them, I.E. Azure's notification hub etc.
I want to develop an app for Windows surface tablet and iOS mobile and iPad.
As I am a new user to Xamarin, when I created my first project,it shows 3 projects:-
hello.driod, hello.ios and hello.winPhone.
I have 3 questions based on this:-
How will I be able to write the same code and share for windows 8.1 and iOS?
and whenever I drag and drop the elements to the UI page, will the same elements be copied to both windows and iOS simultaneously or I got to add them seperately?
Currently I dont have a MAC to connect to my PC. Can I write the code and and there while testing it, connect it to a MAC or should it be connected during the whole process?
Please Help!
Using the same code depends on how your structure your app.
You can go the native route where you can share the bulk of your logic by containing it in a shared / PCL project (more on that here), but have platform specific code for your UI.
For example, if you have a cross platform app targeting iOS and Android you would still create the UI in a storyboard for iOS and AXML files for Android. Any code you want to "connect" to your UI would be specific to that platform as you would use the platform APIs. Any code that is not platform specific (i.e., not calling iOS or Android APIs) can go in your shared / PCL project.
Or you can choose Xamarin.Forms which adds a layer of abstraction by allowing you to write the UI in XAML once and have it work on all platforms. The advantage is increased code sharing as now your UI is also shared. The downside is to utilise platform specific features you'll need to implement DependencyService or custom renderers. Read more about Xamarin.Forms here.
As above, it depends. If you are going the native route, then no. If you are going with Xamarin.Forms, then you are using the same XAML code for the UI across platforms, but there is no drag and drop designer.
To build an iOS app you need to be connected to a Mac. You will also need to be connected to a Mac to use the iOS Designer.
We have a Xamarin based app targeting iOS, Android, and Windows (not WinPhone but Windows 8.1 as a desktop app for now).
The app utilizes a few PCL's for the vast majority of all views and view models and reusable functionality. The three platform specific projects have very little custom code and, when necessary, inject in custom platform specific services. One of the PCL's also has an App.Xaml that provides the basic styles for the overall app.
The iOS and Android apps load this App.Xaml fine and honor all styles. The Windows implementation of Xamarin.Forms does not appear to load or honor the styles in the same way and our core UI appears blank.
This isn't an issue of the styles just "don't look right" on Windows compared to the other platform but more an issue of everything is invisible. We can click buttons and move around if we know where they would be in the overall UI but we don't see them. Not even an outline.
Not sure what other implementation info I can provide but I'm wondering if anyone else has had issues with Xamarin.Forms on windows and styles?