How can I customize the appearence of xamarin.forms components?
I want each button to have the same image, for instance. Or for all systems to share the same login screen with the same background image.
I know I can do that by adding one specific screen to each platform project. But I want to be able to customize the component itself. Example: All buttons will have the same background image no matter which platform is running.
I've read these:
http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/xamarin-forms/custom-renderer/
http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/xamarin-forms/working-with/styles/
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/getting-started-with-xamarinforms-customizing-user-interface--cms-22144
The most promising one seems to be the last one. Is a custom renderer the only way to accomplish this? Can't I just add an image at the shared project and it automagicaly works for all platforms?
Thanks.
It's not absolutely clear, what exactly you want to reach... but I try to answer you.
If you use a shared project (based on template "Blank App (Xamarin.Forms shared)", you can use the same page / page-definition in all of your platforms.
You can add - e.g. a login-form in the shared-folder and then call it from code (e.g. from another page in the shared folder).
If you want to create your own controls, you can create "user-controls" and use it everywhere you want (what I recommend to every user).
You do this, by create a own class (e.g. with an Entry and a Label), implement the events and then instantiate it where you want to use it. E.G.
var OeFirma = new EntryErfassung(cDefaultText: "Firma", iMaximalLaenge: 45);
where OeFirma is the name of the object-instance on the page (to access it), EntryErfassung is my own class (that contains a description-label, an Entry an error-label and more) and cDefaultText is a parameter, that overtakes and set the default-text to the Entry and iMaximalaenge is a further parameter that is overtaken whereby my class then take care, that not more then 45 Characters are accepted for this Entry).
I have e.g. created a class with a description-label, a delete-button, an Entry and a error-label ad use it on all data-entry-forms.
If you want to change the look-and-feel of a specific control for a specific platform, you can create a "custom-render" (I have done this e.g. to change the font-size to the edit specific for iOS, as the font-sinze cannot be set in the XF-Entry control).
Hope this answers your question...
To do this, you can just specific a style in the App class, (you will need to change the app class to be made up of 2 partials: App.xaml & App.xaml.cs, and then create a ResourceDictionary to hold your customisations.
<Style TargetType="Button">
<Setter Property="Image" Value="MyImage.png"/>
</Style>
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Tristan
Related
I am using Xamarin.Forms, shared project template.
Here, I add controls to the content page such as a Label through say framework provided StackLayout.
Now in target apps - say for iOS/Andriod, I just need to set some text for this label. I have some platform specific code where I want to change the text value for the Label created in Shared Project.
How to do that?
I understand, Custom Renderers could be used. Is there any straight forward way that I am missing here?
You can, of course, use custom renderers... but imho it would be an overkill.
I'd use OnPlatform method - something like:
myLabel.Text = Device.OnPlatform<string>("text for iOS", "text for Android", "text for Windows Phone");
You can also do the same from XAML if you wish, like shown in this article (search "OnPlatform" there):
http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/xamarin-forms/xaml-for-xamarin-forms/essential_xaml_syntax/
If the text you need is dynamic and you need to set it at run time from platform-specific project, than you need to assign your Label to some variable in the shared project and then reference this variable from platform projects.
I'm attempting to localize my WinRT app. I don't need anything too fancy, so I've been using x:Uid on XAML elements in conjunction with resource files that have properties such as "PageTitleTextBox.Text" set. This method was working great until I ran into an issue with attached properties.
I've defined a few app bar buttons using similar markup to what I've seen in other examples:
<Button x:Name="AddFolderButton" Click="AddFolderButton_Tapped" x:Uid="FoldersPageAppBarAddFolderButton" AutomationProperties.Name="Test" Style="{StaticResource AppBarButtonStyle}">
<Button.Content></Button.Content>
</Button >
In this case, I'd like to localize AddFolderButton's label, currently defined by AutomationProperties.Name. I tried setting a key in my resource file to FoldersPageAppBarAddFolderButton.AutomationProperties.Name, but this fails on runtime.
Is it possible to localize this label using XAML, or do I need to do this programatically in the code-behind file?
You need to handle attached properties a bit differently, i.e. their namespace must be included in the reource key like this:
FoldersPageAppBarAddFolderButton.[using:Windows.UI.Xaml.Automation]AutomationProperties.Name
You can read more about it here.
I have a Page in a Windows Phone class library. This page has an appbar. I would prefer everything this page needs to be included within the class library so the setup list for consumers of this page / assembly is minimal.
However, When I set ApplicationBar icons, they get added to the class library project under the folder 'icons' just like normal, they show up fine in Blend, but at runtime they are no where to be found!
When I put the icons in the Windows Phone Application project all is well. However this is not my desired scenario as it is additional configuration / setup by the application author to use my pages.
I tried using the resource pathing using /{AssemblyName};component/icons/{IconName} but of course the AppBar needs them to be of type "Content" not "Resource". So I am thinking this is impossible but I wanted to know if anybody out there figured out how to do this.
Sorry guys. I just figured it out. I changed the newly added icons from "Resource" to "Content" but I forgot to set "Copy if newer" so they weren't getting outputted to the Bin\Debug\icons folder of the windows Phone Application. something to keep an eye on I guess.
I want to know where I can get access to the NinePatch images specifically for Monodroid. I want to change the default coloring from blue to orange (if I was doing this in Java it would already be orange).
All I need is to change an edittext so that it's default colors are different. I have seen
http://www.androidworks.com/changing-the-android-edittext-ui-widget
which is really helpful but only as far as vanilla Android is concerned. I tried following the instructions, but I found the standard orange java images, not the Mono ones, which are blue.
Minimum framework is 2.2. I know that I am getting the java images because when I go to C:\Android\android-sdk\platforms there is no android-2.2 folder.
I'm not really sure what you are referring to. Mono for Android does not ship any NinePatch images. Mono for Android simply provides a thin binding over the Java API, it does not do anything custom.
Maybe it is triggered by changing your Android target framework?
I found my answer - and thank goodnesss it did not involve changing the 9Patches!
You can make an xml in the drawable folder which describes your button, textbox, etc. and make a selector with a solid tag, pressed event, etc. (http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/drawable-resource.html)
Then you can set up the colors as a constant set in the Values folder and boom! Solution!
I have made a custom control (round button with a fixed image) and tested that it works. However, I would like to reuse this particular control in other projects and hence thought of making a class library out of it. However, when I try to get the custom control to show in my other applications, the icons does not show even though the button responds to clicks.
I have tried to build the icon in the class library projects as Content and Resources and test but to no avail. (of course, I change the addressing of the icon in the code when I updated its build icon). At the moment, i have decided to leave the icon /icons/myimage.png to be built as Content. And, in the class library code (XAML), i am accessing it as "/icons/myimage.png".
So, would anyone have an idea on how I could get the round button to render properly in my projects? How should I build the class library project?
I would't make a graphics part of my class library, because most likely in the future you will need to customize it, so what I suggest is to make the following property in your custom module and set the image where you use it:
public ImageSource ButtonImage {get { return <button image>; } set { <set button image>; } }
I experimented a bit and found the solution. The idea is to use embedded resource to store the image in the dll. And then for loading it by the CustomControl, one can use constructs like this:
BitmapImage img = new BitmapImage();
img.SetSource(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("MyLib.icons.my_icon.png"));
MyLib here is the name of the assembly for the class library. icons is the folder where the resource is kept in the assembly.