Xamarin Forms AppShell - FlyoutItem maximum contents - xaml

I am implementing an App Shell with flyout menu as per code below
I have what appears to be a strange outcome when the contents of my FlyoutItem list get above a certain number.
In the example below, if there are five ShellContent items, it works absolutely fine.
However, any more than that, and instead of the actual target page you expect to see when you click on the FlyoutMenu page, you instead are presented with a default white list view in the main panel in which MORE is given as title and the items which "don't fit" are listed, with no way to return to the Flyout menu
Note I cannot simply have more than one FlyoutMenu grouping as I am trying to resolve a very nasty problem whereby if there is more than one, and you swap between them, you end up with a history array of pages before getting back to the index page.
<FlyoutItem FlyoutDisplayOptions="AsMultipleItems">
<ShellContent Route="routeone"
Title="PAGE ONE"
Style="{StaticResource DomesticShell}"
ContentTemplate="{DataTemplate pages:PageOne}">
</ShellContent>
<ShellContent Route="routetwo"
Title="PAGE TWO"
Style="{StaticResource DomesticShell}"
ContentTemplate="{DataTemplate pages:PageTwo}">
</ShellContent>

I dont know if I understand the problem but I have a FlyoutPage in an App Shell with 9 contents. I do see the "...More" button in the tabs and if I use it the menu with the other contents is showing up. If I click/touch on the background the menu disappears.

Related

How to use TableView in Xamarin.Forms?

I am relatively new to the world of Xamarin.Forms and have a question with regard to Xamarin TableView.
I want to create a layout similar to the one shown below.
Question is, can I use TableView for this or is there an another option for this? Can anyone show this with XAML code please?
Thanks in advance.
Edit: Tabs in the bottom are not required.
I don't mean to be rude, but this is very easy to retrieve from the documentation pages and a bit of trying yourself.
To get you started, try this:
<TableView Intent="Settings">
<TableView.Root>
<TableView.Section>
<ImageCell Text="Invoice Customization" Source="Invoice_image.png" />
<ImageCell Text="Invoice Defaults" Source="Invoice_image.png" />
</TableView.Section>
<TableView.Section Title="Security">
<SwitchCell Text="Use Touch ID" />
</TableView.Section>
... etc.
</TableView.Root>
</TableView>
The arrows at the end of the cells and the footer text underneath the Security section are not possible with Xamarin.Forms out of the box, this will probably require you to write a custom renderer.

Sub-MenuItems seem to align right by default

Every time I use a menu with MenuItems, the sub-MenuItems align right by default. They do so no matter what I put for the HorizontalAlignment property. Even when I type a relatively simple example:
<Grid>
<Menu Height="23" VerticalAlignment="Top">
<MenuItem Header="_File">
<MenuItem Header="_New" />
</MenuItem>
</Menu>
</Grid>
The "New" MenuItem aligns right relative to the "File" MenuItem. For what it's worth, it looks normal in the preview using Visual Studio, just not when I actually run it.
There is space on the left hand side of the text to accompany the IsCheckable checkbox. You can see it in action using the following code:
<MenuItem Header="_New" IsCheckable="True"/>
If you want to remove this spacing, consider using a ControlTemplate to override the default MenuItem template.
I apologize, apparently I didn't search hard enough for other posts with the same problem. This user had the same problem (and did a better job of illustrating it), and the solution posted there worked perfectly. The issue was that since my computer is optimized for touch technology, the default is to align sub-MenuItems so that right-handed users' hands won't get in the way.

How to Export SketchFlow (Blend for Visual Studio 2013) Project correctly

I have a SketchFlow Project, which is a prototype of an application that we are designing, and I am at the stage that I would like to export the project to another format for sharing.
The first thing that I tried was:
File | Export | Export as Images...
However, after this had finished running, I only had 6 screenshots. I have over 30 screens in the prototype. Does anyone have any idea why all screens are not exported?
I then tried:
File | Export | Export to Microsoft Word...
And this results in the following error:
Any thoughts on what is happening here? I have tried looking for a log file, but I couldn't find one.
The final option which I have tried is:
File | Export | Package SketchFlow Project...
Which seems to work perfectly. However, I would like to embed the images into a design document, and don't really want to have to go through taking screenshots manually, which will be the last resort.
Update 1
Ok, seems like it is certain screens that are causing the problem. When I do the "Export to Microsoft Word..." option, and choose only the first screen, the Word document exports correctly. However, when I add in another screen (one of the ones that wasn't included in the "Export as Images" method, I once again get the error that I showed the screenshot of.
Update 2
As requested in comments, the layout of the pages are as follows.
Header Component - which shows overall title of the application, and some common buttons.
Navigation Component - Menu Structure for all top level pages
All screens, with the exception of the Login/Register page, have the Header and Navigation Component added to them
Some screens are using Sample Data to populate elements on the page. Others are just simple controls, laid out on the page.
Update 3
Ok, I have just done a pretty comprehensive test, and when using "Export to Microsoft Word..." if I exclude all the screens that use Sample Data, the export completes successfully. As soon as I include any screen with sample data, it throws the exception. I can only assume that the "Export as images..." is failing silently when it hits the first screen that has Sample Data in it.
This is a bug. It's related to resource resolution. You may be able to work around by making the ItemTemplate property local instead of the default resource.
For example, with a repro built using the databinding showcase instructions - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/showcase/details.aspx?uuid=db8a7eb6-3039-4008-a9f2-f5c910bcddf3
Replacing the ItemTemplate
<ListBox HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="330" Margin="73,40,0,0" Style="{DynamicResource ListBox-Sketch}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="535" ItemsSource="{Binding Collection, Source={StaticResource snowboardData}}" DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource SampleDataSource}}" ItemTemplate="{DynamicResource ItemTemplate}"/>
With
<ListBox HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="330" Margin="73,40,0,0" Style="{DynamicResource ListBox-Sketch}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="535" ItemsSource="{Binding Collection, Source={StaticResource snowboardData}}" DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource SampleDataSource}}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel>
<Image Source="{Binding Images}" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="64" Width="511"/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Text}" Style="{DynamicResource BasicTextBlock-Sketch}"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
Allowed me to export to Word.
This has been reported to Microsoft and should be fixed in a future VS/Blend update.
After some back and forth offline with #shawty, we believe we have come up with the reason why the export is failing. It is not specifically tied to doing an export when Sample Data is being included, but more specifically when using Sample Data with a Sketch Control.
This is what I did to verify this...
Created new Sketch Flow Project
Added ComboBox control to the page
Added DataSource to the Data tab
Added Collection Property
Added Simple Property to Collection
Edited Data to include some sample data
Bound the ComboBox to the sample data
Ran the application to make sure it is working
Ran the Export to Microsoft Word...
Everything worked correctly
I then repeated the "exact" same process using the ComboBox - Sketch control, and the Export to Microsoft Word... failed to function, displaying the error message shown in question above.
The suggested workaround from #shawty is as follows:
"The sketch controls are functionally exactly the same as the OOTB ones under the hood, they just have a different dictionary of styles applied to them, my suggestion would be to take the OOTB controls, add your own set of styles to them to give them a similar look and feel. You'd only have to define the resource dictionary once at application level for each appropriate control (Button, Label, Datagrid and any others you use) , and the entire application will just maintain the same look and feel."
While this is a perfectly viable solution, it doesn't take anyway from the fact that I believe that this is a bug in the Sketch Flow application. I just don't know where to raise the bug, as there doesn't seem to be a section on Microsoft Connect to raise a bug about Blend, and/or Sketch Flow. If anyone knows where I can take this, I would love to hear about it.

Windows 8 XAML Multilingual Translations

I've used the Multilingual Toolkit to translate my app and have been testing it using pseudo-language. It works fine for strings I have translated in code (C#) but I can't work out how to make it so that the tag in XAML is automatically translated.
I've been using http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/xaml/hh965329.aspx as a tutorial but I can't figure it out. I've also searched on Google but still no luck.
For example, I created a "Watermark" text box (which inherits from TextBox which shows some text in by default it the user has not entered any text and the item does not have focus. The XAML looks like this (I replaced generic positioning stuff with '...'):
<local:WatermarkTextbox x:Name="TitleTextBox" Watermark="MainPage_EnterATitle" ... Style="{StaticResource TextBoxStyle1}" />
As you can see it is setting a property called Watermark with a 'tag' of the resource name that is being translated using the Multilingual tool. I'm not sure how to get this to automatically translate.
Another example is using the bottom app bar buttons:
<Button x:Name="bottomAppBar_unpinFromStartButton" AutomationProperties.Name="MainPage_UnpinFromStart" Style="{StaticResource UnPinAppBarButtonStyle}" Click="bottomAppBar_unpinFromStartButton_Click"/>
And I can see in the link above that it says:
MediumButton.[using:Windows.UI.Xaml.Automation]AutomationProperties.Name
But I'm not really sure where this is meant to go.
Even with a button, which seems like it would be the simplest to translate I can't get it to work. The XAML is:
<Button x:Name="RemovePhotoButton" x:Uid="MainPage_RemovePhoto" Content="" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="222,0,974,78" Grid.Row="1" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Width="170" Height="45"/>
But when ran in the app or viewed in the designed the button stays blank, with no text on it.
The Resources are set up like this:
And it is filling the translated documents fine:
I am able to translate it in C# using the code from the link above, just not using XAML.
Just wondering if anybody could help me out or point me in the right direction to solve this.
Thanks
First what i think is missing in the name of your resources is the property that you want to set. While never used it myself, i would understand it like this:
Your xaml needs to be changed to
<local:WatermarkTextbox x:Name="TitleTextBox" x:Uid="MainPage_EnterATitle" Watermark="" ... Style="{StaticResource TextBoxStyle1}" />
And your resource needs an entry with the key
MainPage_EnterATitle.Watermark
And about the part with the
MediumButton.[using:Windows.UI.Xaml.Automation]AutomationProperties.Name
This is only used if the referenced property is an attached property. Like if your Watermark property would be attached not part of the control. But in your case its not important.

Windows 8 bottom app bar

I've been trying to get an App bar implemented in a WinRT metro app (C# / XAML), but don't know where to begin. I've tried using the <ApplicationBar/> tag and I get a Type not found error.
There's no help online, could someone update this post with the answer so that it'll serve as a reference to other programmers as well?
There's only a JavaScript sample which isn't of much help.
This should work:
<AppBar
VerticalAlignment="Bottom">
<Button
AutomationProperties.Name="Play"
Style="{StaticResource PlayAppBarButtonStyle}"
Command="{Binding PlayCommand}" />
</AppBar>
– you would put that in the layout root grid of your page.
*EDIT
Note: According to documentation - you should put it in Page.BottomAppBar property, although at least in Windows 8 Consumer Preview - it works fine when used in any Grid, which is convenient if your UI isn't tightly coupled to a Page control.
*EDIT 2, response from MSFT:
The recommended approach is to use the Page.BottomAppBar/TopAppBar properties.
There are known hit-testing issues in the Consumer Preview if AppBars are added without using these properties
The AppBars do not use the proper animations if they are added without using these properties
If AppBars are added as children of arbitrary elements then it's easier for multiple controls to attempt to create/modify AppBars, resulting in an inconsistent user experience
*EDIT 3
The CustomAppBar in WinRT XAML Toolkit can be used anywhere, animates based on Vertical/Horizontal-Alignment, can have other content overlaid on top of it and also has a CanOpen property that allows to block it from opening.
<Page.TopAppBar>
<AppBar>
<TextBlock x:Name="TextBlock1" Text="Sample Text" Margin="0,0,0,0" Height="Auto" VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Left"/>
</AppBar>
</Page.TopAppBar>