10 Awesome Xamarin.Forms Tips & Tricks

www.xam-consulting.com www.michaelridland.com
10 Awesome Xamarin.Forms

Tips & Tricks

Michael Ridland
www.michaelridland.com

Xamarin Specialists - We work with Xamarin
all day and night.

Developed Apps WITHOUT Xamarin.Forms

Developed Apps WITH Xamarin.Forms

I hate Xamarin.Forms
because of this, this, this and that

OK, Xamarin.Forms is not perfect
but it’s a trade off !

The 10 Tips and Tricks
Goal - Get at least 1 tip for everyone in the room!

Goal - Tips for both beginners and gurus

Tip #1 - Learn from github seriously
▪Download the apps and run them
▪github.com/conceptdev
▪github.com/xamarin

Tip #2 - Use the Source
Xamarin.Forms Source (Can use Assembly browser in XS)
XLabs Source
* The #1 documentation for Custom Renderers & Native Code!

Tip #3 - Be Patient
▪ Mobile is hard, expect to encounter issues and
frustrations
▪ Estimate accordingly, if you’re used to estimating
web projects multiple it by 3-5
▪ Xamarin dev is not a walk in the park, but it has
good outcomes, eg Fast Native App

Tip #4 - Don’t fight the Framework
▪ ‘I want Cancel here because that’s how I do it in iOS’…
▪ ‘I want swipe cell because that’s how I do it in iOS’…
▪ You can build nice UI’s with Xamarin.Forms but you just
need to be within it’s constraints.
▪ You can change your UI to match what’s ‘In the box’

Tip #4 - Don’t fight the Framework
It’s 3-10 times more expensive
but you can still do anything that you can do in Native
Once you break-out (custom renderer)

Tip #5 - Grid can be Awesome
▪ Not difficult to use (nearly as easy as
StackLayout)
▪ Works well with XAML (unlike relative)
▪ Faster than StackLayout
▪ Can be used to create overlays/
advanced UIs

Tip #6 - ListView Performance Tips
▪ Step 1 - Use CS over XAML
▪ Step 2 - Use Grid/Absolute Layout
▪ Step 3 - Try FastCell Implementation (link?)
▪ Step 4 - Create a Custom Native Cell
▪ Step 5 - Any tips from the crowd?

Tip #7 - TaskCompletionSource
▪ Many NativeAPIs are based on events/callbacks
▪ Use TaskCompletionSource to support async
▪ http://www.michaelridland.com/xamarin/
taskcompletionsource-xamarin-beautiful-async/

Tip #7 - TaskCompletionSource

Tip #8 - Bindable Property Template

Tip #9 - Forms->Native->Forms - The Xamarin.Forms Holy Grail
▪Take a Xamarin.Forms Views and Convert into
a Native View to use
▪Great for using with Custom Renderers
▪Great for using with Native Components
▪Demo!

Tip #10 - Add Xamarin.Forms to your MvvmCross App
▪ https://github.com/rid00z/
MvvmCrossNavigationDemo
▪ Perfect if you already have a MvvmCross
application and would like a few Xamarin.Form
pages
▪ Demo!

Bonus Tip - MessagingCentreitis Anti-Pattern
•MessageCentre is Great!
•Use it and love it
•But don’t overdo it

Bonus Tip - App Statics Anti-Pattern
• Using global statics for Navigation in your App
• It’s a recipe for a big ball of mud
• It’s easy to begin with - but in the end all your code becomes tightly
coupled
Bad - Don’t do this!

Bonus Tip - App Statics Anti-Pattern
• The solution! - Use a MvvmFramework with a Navigation Service
Good - Do this!

Bonus Tip - Run Sync
• Once in a while you might need to run a async function
synchronously. (For a Native API/Component)

Bonus Tip - Easy dialogs with Acr-Userdialogs
Easily add Alerts/Prompts/Loading Dialogs using Acr
UserDialogs (https://github.com/aritchie/acr-xamarin-
forms)
- It’s in nuget

All Code and Links will be put into a Blog post on
If you want it today please ask me for it!

Q & A
Michael Ridland
michael@xam-consulting.com

10 Awesome Xamarin.Forms Tips & Tricks

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