Android9 Flexlayout bug? - xaml

Question

I have a flexlayout inside of a frame, a grid and a stacklayout:
<CollectionView x:Name="collectionView"
Margin="20"
SelectionMode="Single"
SelectionChanged="OnSelectionChanged">
<CollectionView.ItemsLayout>
<LinearItemsLayout Orientation="Vertical"
ItemSpacing="10" />
</CollectionView.ItemsLayout>
<!-- Define the appearance of each item in the list -->
<CollectionView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackLayout Margin="0,10,0,0" Spacing="0">
<StackLayout Orientation="Horizontal" Margin="0">
<Label FontSize="Medium" FontAttributes="Bold" Text="{Binding Name, Mode=OneWay}" />
<Label Text="{Binding Bottle.ID, Mode=OneWay}" FontSize="Medium"
FontAttributes="Italic" VerticalTextAlignment="Center"
Margin="20,0,0,0"/>
</StackLayout>
<Frame CornerRadius="10" BorderColor="Black" IsVisible="{Binding IsConnected, Converter={StaticResource InverseBooleanConverter}, Mode=OneWay}" Padding="10">
<Label Text="not connected" FontSize="Small"/>
</Frame>
<Frame CornerRadius="10" BorderColor="Black" IsVisible="{Binding IsConnected, Mode=OneWay}" Padding="10">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="40" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<StackLayout Grid.Column="0">
<FlexLayout BindableLayout.ItemsSource="{Binding Bottle.Components, Mode=OneWay}"
Direction="Row" JustifyContent="Start" Wrap="Wrap"
AlignItems="Center" AlignContent="Start"
>
<BindableLayout.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Label FontSize="Small" Text="{Binding DisplayString}" VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" Margin="0,0,10,0" Padding="0"/>
</DataTemplate>
</BindableLayout.ItemTemplate>
</FlexLayout>
<StackLayout Orientation="Horizontal" IsVisible="{Binding IsConnected, Mode=OneWay}" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand">
<Label FontSize="Small" Text="in " IsVisible="{Binding Bottle.IsCarrier, Converter={StaticResource InverseBooleanConverter}, Mode=OneWay}"/>
<Label FontSize="Small" Text="{Binding Bottle.CarrierGas, Mode=OneWay}"/>
<Label FontSize="Small" Text=" 100%" IsVisible="{Binding Bottle.IsCarrier, Mode=OneWay}" />
</StackLayout>
</StackLayout>
<Label FontSize="Small" Text="(ISO)" FontAttributes="Italic" Grid.Column="1" IsVisible="False">
<Label.Triggers>
<MultiTrigger TargetType="Label">
<MultiTrigger.Conditions>
<BindingCondition Binding="{Binding Bottle.IsISOCertified, Mode=OneWay}" Value="True" />
<BindingCondition Binding="{Binding IsConnected, Mode=OneWay}" Value="True" />
</MultiTrigger.Conditions>
<Setter Property="IsVisible" Value="True" />
</MultiTrigger>
</Label.Triggers>
</Label>
</Grid>
</Frame>
</StackLayout>
</DataTemplate>
</CollectionView.ItemTemplate>
</CollectionView>
At a specific input data, the flexlayout is not displayed correctly (see first element in the list):
If I remove the frame, the texts are displayed correctly:
If I keep the frame and increase the margin or the padding of the flexlayout elements by one, the text is displayed correctly in 2 lines.
<DataTemplate>
<Label FontSize="Small" Text="{Binding DisplayString}" VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" Margin="0,0,11,0"/>
</DataTemplate>
Also if I increase the fontsize to medium, it is displayed correctly. Plus, if I do not restart the application but let visual studio automatically update the form, after decreasing the font size, the display is correct. However, if I restart the Android Emulator, the problem is there again.
With font size medium:
<DataTemplate>
<Label FontSize="Medium" Text="{Binding DisplayString}" VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" Margin="0,0,10,0"/>
</DataTemplate>
After resetting it to small, but not restarting the app:
I guess, increasing the Margin/Padding or increasing the font size or removing the frame would not work correctly on the long run, because there's always going to be some data/screen size combination which breaks the layout.
It seems to me, that the layout only fails in some corner cases. However, when the element widths (+margins) are over some limit, the flexlayout recognizes that the elements have to be displayed in 2 lines, and after that the layout is ok.
Is this a bug of xamarin/android, or is there a problem in my code? Could anyone suggest a workaround, solution, that works reliably?
Some extra information, not sure what is necessary:
Target Android Version: Android 9.0 (API Level 28 - Pie)
emulator: Pixel 2 Pie 9.0 - API28 1080x1920 420dpi
Edit: I also tested with 1020x1920, 1000x1920, 800x1920, 1200x1920 display size, all of them showed the same problem. So either the setting in Android Device Manager was not taken over (hw.lcd.width), or the problem is independent of the display size.
Edit2: changing the display size in Settings/Display affects the layout, and fixes it, if I set it to lower or larger. But I guess it is only changing the FontSize parameter of the labels.
While testing #ToolmakerSteve's solution, I found out, that the children bound.Width-s are higher if I remove the last item in the list (NO 2100ppm). Then I called measure for each children, and I saw, that the widths match those bound.Width-s when the last item was missing. So I ended up with this code:
//https://stackoverflow.com/a/70526712/9963147
class FlexLayoutImproveMeasure : FlexLayout
{
protected override void LayoutChildren(double x, double y, double width, double height)
{
base.LayoutChildren(x, y, width, height);
foreach (var child in Children)
{
Rectangle cb = child.Bounds;
Size s = child.Measure(double.PositiveInfinity, cb.Height).Request;
double newW = s.Width;
var childBounds2 = new Rectangle(cb.X, cb.Y, newW, cb.Height);
child.Layout(childBounds2);
}
}
}

Answer 1

I discovered that FlexLayout sometimes doesn't give each label quite enough room; the labels get truncated.
Here is a subclass of FlexLayout, that adds a small amount of width to each Label.
FlexLayoutImproveMeasure.cs:
using Xamarin.Forms;
namespace XFSOAnswers
{
class FlexLayoutImproveMeasure : FlexLayout
{
protected override void LayoutChildren(double x, double y, double width, double height)
{
base.LayoutChildren(x, y, width, height);
//var childBoundss = new List<Rectangle>();
foreach (var child in Children)
{
Rectangle cb = child.Bounds;
// Make each child slightly wider: labels were being truncated.
// Less than 2 didn't always work. Increase as needed, up to right margin.
const int extraW = 2;
double newX = cb.X;
// TBD whether part of the problem is label that isn't pixel-aligned.
// (So far, seems more reliable to increase extraW instead.)
//MAYBE double newX = Math.Floor(cb.X);
double newW = cb.Width + extraW;
// TBD whether it helps to ensure width extends to next pixel.
// (So far, seems more reliable to increase extraW instead.)
//MAYBE double newW = Math.Ceiling(cb.Width) + extraW;
//double ceilingRight = Math.Ceiling(cb.X + cb.Width);
//MAYBE double newW = ceilingRight - Math.Floor(cb.X) + extraW;
var childBounds2 = new Rectangle(newX, cb.Y, newW, cb.Height);
child.Layout(childBounds2);
//childBoundss.Add(child.Bounds);
//childBoundss.Add(cb);
}
}
}
}
Use this in place of FlexLayout. This is done by adding to a page an xmlns: declaration to access a namespace in your project. Here the namespace is XFSOAnswers. Change xmlns:local line to refer to whatever namespace you put the above class in.
XAML of a page:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:XFSOAnswers"
x:Class="XFSOAnswers.FlexLayoutInItemTemplatePage">
<ContentPage.Content>
<StackLayout>
<!-- labels truncated at width in range 188-194 -->
<CollectionView ItemsSource="{Binding Items}"
WidthRequest="190" HorizontalOptions="Center"
Margin="20" >
<CollectionView.ItemsLayout>
<LinearItemsLayout Orientation="Vertical" ItemSpacing="10" />
</CollectionView.ItemsLayout>
<CollectionView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Frame CornerRadius="10" BorderColor="Black"
BackgroundColor="LightBlue" Padding="10">
<local:FlexLayoutImproveMeasure
Wrap="Wrap"
BindableLayout.ItemsSource="{Binding Items2}"
BackgroundColor="LightGray" >
<BindableLayout.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Label FontSize="Small" Text="{Binding .}"
VerticalOptions="Start" HorizontalOptions="Start" Margin="0,0,10,0" Padding="0"/>
</DataTemplate>
</BindableLayout.ItemTemplate>
</local:FlexLayoutImproveMeasure>
</Frame>
</DataTemplate>
</CollectionView.ItemTemplate>
</CollectionView>
</StackLayout>
</ContentPage.Content>
</ContentPage>
page's code behind has the bindings:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Xamarin.Forms;
using Xamarin.Forms.Xaml;
namespace XFSOAnswers
{
[XamlCompilation(XamlCompilationOptions.Compile)]
public partial class FlexLayoutInItemTemplatePage : ContentPage
{
public FlexLayoutInItemTemplatePage()
{
InitializeComponent();
BindingContext = this;
}
public List<ListModel> Items { get; } = new List<ListModel> {
new ListModel(),
new ListModel(),
};
}
public class ListModel
{
public List<string> Items2 { get; } = new List<string> {
"aaa", "bbbbbbbbb", "cc", "dddd", "e",
};
}
}
Items2 strings chosen such that at WidthRequest=190, "dddd" barely fit on first line. Tests were done with and without the final "e", to see what FlexLayout did in both cases.
Original FlexLayout, truncating labels:
Using FlexLayoutImproveMeasure with extraW = 2: