I just wanted to know that, is it possible to get the designer view in Xamarin.Forms with Visual Studio 2015. It's very hard to compile code every time to check the simple changes.
Thank You in advance.
If you are using XAML to write the code you can use XAML Previewer for Xamarin.Forms You can see the documentation here:
https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-forms/xaml/xaml-previewer/
Few things to keep in mind:
You need to be connected to MAC Agent to make it work (I am not sure
why this is the case even for Android, For me it does not work without connecting to mac agent)
The Previewer works on any ContentPage, ContentView, or ViewCell in
a Xamarin.Forms application
To launch the Previewer in Visual Studio, select View -> Other
Windows -> Xamarin.Forms Previewer
Latest-and-greatest Xamarin.Forms NuGet is recommended; at least
2.3.2 is required
Project should be built (compiled) before attempting to preview XAML
files.
This is a "Preview" release, so it may not always work as expected.
Related
I just re-installed windows, got visual studio back on it, cloned it from my github repo. And all of a sudden I can't see my preview design screen anymore. Tried a bunch of things already.
I got the lates jdk,
got the latest xamarin nuget packages.
Restarted VS,
rebuild/ clean solution
Got into my tools > options > xamarin, did see the option for splitview, but no matter what. it didnt bring it. I can't even see the 3 buttons for preview, split vertical and split horizontal.
Screenshot of visual studio window where the buttons are missing
if anyone knows the solutions i would be very happy to know, makes the desigining way easier instead of always building the project to see the change, even with hot reload on
After set the settings in Tools > Options > Xamarin > Xamarin.Forms XAML Previewer dialog, you need to restart the Visual Studio.
If it still does not work when you create a new project, you could right click the content page, select the View Designer. It was able to open the previewer.
Updated:
The XAML Previewer has been deprecated in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 and Visual Studio for Mac version 8.8, and replaced by the XAML Hot Reload feature in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9 and Visual Studio for Mac version 8.9.
For now, I use the Hot Reload insead and provide a live visual tree to receive a real-time view of your running XAML code. It shows a tree view of the UI elements of your running Xamarin.Forms application.
When you debug you project, by default, it appears on the IDE's left. If you don't see it, use Debug > Windows > Live Visual Tree to show it.
you can choice Tools > Options > XAML Designer > General > Default document view > Split View in Visual Studio 19.9 or later.
Cross platform Missing Templates after updating Visual studio 2017,i tried looking for a solution from Xamarin forums page in vain.
Yes, some templates no longer exist in VS2017, but others it's just organized a bit differently in how you get to the specific template you want.
Example:
The Blank App and Blank XAML App templates no longer exist in VS2017. Instead, choose the "Cross Platform App (Xamarin.Forms or Native)" template. A wizard pops will appear allowing you to choose a native Xamarin app or a Xamarin Forms app, as well as choosing a Shared or PCL app, as well as selecting a XAML app.
I installed VS with Xamarin but Intellisense in XAML files is not working properly. In some parts of the code it shows the list of suggestions as shown below.
Except in other parts of the code it does not show the list with all the items (image below).
It is also opening the XAML with the XML Editor, but should it not be with XAML Designer?
Does anyone have any suggestions for resolving or circumventing this problem?
Thank you all.
Those 2 behaviors that you described are by design, you can look at the following screenshot, since you type “<” inside and outside the node , the auto complete member list is different which defined in the XML Schemas.
For the second question, Xamarin.Forms doesn't currently support visual designers for XAML files. There is not yet a visual designer for generating XAML in Xamarin.Forms applications, so all XAML must be hand-written. We can know this from Why doesn't the Visual Studio XAML designer work for Xamarin.Forms XAML files?, but we can try to use the XAML Previewer for Xamarin.Forms to help us to preview the UI.
I recently downloaded Xamarin.Forms as Microsoft made it free. I am looking around in Visual Studio for a visual designer, that is usually included in Xamarin.Droid and Xamarin.IOS. Is there no such feature for Xamarin.Forms? Surely I must be missing something ?
Xamarin does not have a designer for Xamarin.Forms at this time, but is working on the Xamarin.Forms Previewer which renders a live preview of a Xamarin.Forms page side-by-side with the XAML markup directly inside the Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio IDEs.
You can open the Xamarin.Forms Previewer by clicking on View -> Other Windows -> Xamarin.Forms Previewer in the Visual Studio menu or alternatively just searching for Xamarin.Forms in the Visual Studio quicklaunch box.
In addition to the official Xamarin.Forms Previewer, there is at least one other third party tool that exists in this space as well:
Gorilla Player by UX Divers is a real time Xamarin.Forms previewer currently in beta that runs in both a simulator and on hardware devices.
Update (2018): There is now also the Xamarin Live Player for Xamarin.Forms that allows you visualize your XAML layouts running live on a physical device as you are developing them.
No, Xamarin Forms does not have a drag and drop design surface. There is a live XAML previewer, but it is still in alpha release.
A Xamarin previewer (while not a designer, it is still VERY handy) is available in the latest version of Visual Studio. To access it go to
View > Other Windows > Xamarin.Forms Previewer.
When you open a XAML page, you can see it in the previewer (make sure your project is built first or you will get an error.)
The preview will update automagically as you edit your XAML, no save is required. When working with lists etc, you will want to create some dummy data to ensure you can see how it will work. There is an example at https://xamarinhelp.com/xamarin-forms-previewer/
There are options to view your Xamarin
Xamarin Form Previewer - you view it on visual studio
Xamarin Live Player - you can view it on the target devices
Gorilla Player - you can view it on target devices with real-time update
However all comes with limitation, if you're using third party controls than it may not be supported.
You can find a "Design" named button under your source code. Click on it and you will be able to use drag and drop from the tool box on the left.
When using Android Designer in Visual Studio I can't toggle between the source and content of my view. From some reason in the same solution in Xamarin Studio I can do that. I have looked all over the place but it is not there, also from memory I was able to do this in this solution a while back.
I had a similar problem to this before which was solved once I renamed all the folders under Resources to lower case letters.
Below is a picture of the window with a missing and another one with the toggle buttons there (in Xamarin Studio).
Cheers,