Xamarin Forms Force view to bind values - xamarin

Question

I have a view. I have a bindable property there.
public partial class OrderCard : ContentView
{
public static readonly BindableProperty OrderProperty = BindableProperty.Create(nameof(Order), typeof(Order), typeof(OrderCard), null);
public Order Order
{
get { return (Order)GetValue(OrderProperty); }
set { SetValue(OrderProperty, value); }
}
public OrderCard()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
}
In the xaml of this view I'm binding to Order property like this:
Text="{Binding Order.Name, Source={x:Reference Root}}"
Root is a name in the xaml of a view OrderCard
When I use this view in the page everything works ok.
But I want to measure it's size even before adding it to the page.
var orderCard = new OrderCard { Order = order};
SizeRequest sizeRequest = orderCard.Measure(OrdersContainer.Width/5, OrdersContainer.Height);
But it gives me wrong numbers because bindings isn't applied.
How to force to apply bindings when view isn't attached to the page?

Answer 1

Bindings do not require being attached to a Page or anything else to be applied.
You might think they're not applied if your method for figuring out is to set a breakpoint on get_Order because that is never used, the Xaml loader uses GetValue directly. The usual way of figuring out if a Binding is correctly applied, is to add a PassthroughConverter (don't look for it, you have to write it yourself) to the Binding and put the breakpoint in the Convert method.
That being said, you can't Measure anything unless it's added to a page that is rendered on screen. If you try to Measure before that, you indeed get dummy values.

Answer 2

I was able to solve this problem by not doing a property Order but passing an order as BindingContext. Then I can measure the size of a view without attaching it to a page like this:
var orderCard = new OrderCard { BindingContext = order};
SizeRequest sizeRequest = orderCard.Measure(widthToTryToFitInTheView,heightToTryToFitInTheView);