Advanced Segmented Button Control in pure Xamarin.Forms!

Welcome to the Part 2 of my Segmented Button Control in Xamarin.Forms, in which this time we’re going to take it to the advanced level and make it even cooler and more awesome!

If you missed the Part 1 of this article, please go on there and give it a read,A Segmented Button Control in pure Xamarin.Forms! Specially since this article is going to be heavily linked to it. So there we looked into how to create a simple yet awesome Segmeneted Control in pure Xamarin.Forms without any custom renderers or native code. And in this article we’ll be looking into how to make it even more awesome with a bit more advanced implementation. Keep in mind I’m not going to explain all the concept bits which I had discussed in the Part 1 but I will be mentioning about them to be referred to. So let’s begin!

Welcome to Part 2!

A Segmented Control, or as some call it Grouped Button Control, or Tabbed Button Control or some even call the Rocker Control, is what I’m gonna share with yol today, built 100% from Xamarin.Forms! Specially in this Part 2 article, we’re including the ability to add Segmented Buttons on the go and change the Color themes at run time, making it full dynamic.

We’re going to rely on the same basic concept’s we talked about in Part 1 article, only the implementation and handling of the behavior to include the new features are going to be different in this.

Sneak Peak

Here’s a sneak peak of what I built for Part 2 article…

iOS:

  

Android:

   

that’s what we gonna build yo! 😉

FULLY DYNAMIC | ADDING/REMOVE TABS | SWITCHING COLORS  | SWITCHING TAB

Look at that awesomeness eh! Hold up, we’re about to get started…

This whole awesome project is hosted up in my Github repo:  https://github.com/UdaraAlwis/XFSegmentedControl 

Recipe time…

So this is basically going to be the same concepts we’ve used in the Part 1 therefore I’m not going to be repeating the same stuff I had explained in details in Part 1 Article. Please give a read to the “Recipe time…” section in it.

In here we’re going to separate the Tab Button element from the SegmentedControl, so that we can dynamically add the Tab Buttons dynamically at run time. We’re going to maintain an IEnumerable list in the SegmentedControl.

Also unlike last time we’re going to implement and properly handle the Color properties and SelectedTab index property, so that all those properties cab be changed dynamically as we wish.

Well that’s pretty much it, with a bit more details to be gotten into later.

Coding time…

So let’s begin with our separated TabButton element, which you could also identify as a “Segmented Button” element of our Segmented Button Control. This element includes with a simple Button, Label and BoxView inside of a Grid view, that makes it up just like the last article implementation.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Grid
   x:Class="XFSegmentedControl.Advanced.Controls.TabButton"
   xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
   xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
   IsClippedToBounds="True">
   <Button
      x:Name="TabButtonView"
      Margin="-2,-3,-2,0"
      Clicked="TabButton_OnClicked" />
   <Label
      x:Name="TabLabelView"
      FontAttributes="Bold"
      FontSize="Medium"
      HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand"
      InputTransparent="True"
      Text="Tab Text"
      VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" />
   <!--  Horizontal indicator for Android  -->
   <BoxView
      x:Name="HorizontalIndicator"
      HeightRequest="2"
      InputTransparent="True"
      IsVisible="False"
      VerticalOptions="End" />
   <!--  Vertical separator for iOS  -->
   <BoxView
      x:Name="VerticalSeparator"
      HorizontalOptions="Start"
      InputTransparent="True"
      IsVisible="False"
      VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand"
      WidthRequest="1" />
</Grid>

 

There’s the XAML with the basic Button and Label which handles the Text and click event of the TabButton and then the two BoxViews that we’re going to use to decorate for Android and iOS platform specific look and feel.

Check out the full source code here: TabButton.xaml

Next let’s take a look at the code behind awesomeness of our TabButton control.

public partial class TabButton : Grid
{
    public event EventHandler<EventArgs> TabButtonClicked;
    public string TabText { get; private set; }
    public int TabIndex { get; private set; }
    public Color PrimaryColor { get; private set; }
    public Color SecondaryColor { get; private set; }

    public TabButton(string tabText, int tabIndex, Color 
       primaryColor, Color secondaryColor, 
       bool isSelectedByDefault)
    {
        InitializeComponent ();

        // Set up default values from params
        ...
       
        // Set up default color values
        SetUpColorScheme();

        // set up selected status
        if (isSelectedByDefault)
            TabButtonView.SendClicked();
    }

    private void SetUpColorScheme()
    ...

    private void TabButton_OnClicked(
                  object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        SetSelectedTabState();

        SendTabButtonClicked();
    }

    private void SetSelectedTabState()
    ...
    private void SetUnselectedTabState()
    ...

    /// <summary>
    /// Update the Tab Button status Selected/Unselected
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="selectedTabIndex"></param>
    public void UpdateTabButtonState(int selectedTabIndex)
    {
        if (selectedTabIndex != TabIndex)
            SetUnselectedTabState();
        else
            SetSelectedTabState();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Update the Color status of the Tab Button
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="primaryColor"></param>
    /// <param name="secondaryColor"></param>
    public void UpdateTabButtonColors(
           Color primaryColor, Color secondaryColor)
    ...
}

 

So in the code behind we’re handling all the functionality and look and feel appearance of the Tab Button segment or element. In the constructor itself we’re passing in the Color properties, Text, Index of the current Tab Button and the selected Status of this Tab Button, then we’re assigning them to the visual elements of the TabButton appropriately, whilst, storing the important values locally for later use.

The SetUpColorScheme() applies to color properties of the element, and I’ve moved that to a separate methods because we’re going to be allowing the user to update the color properties on the go. If you had noticed how we’re subscribing to the TabButton_OnClicked in our XAML code, there we’re handling it by calling the SetSelectedTabState() method and SendTabButtonClicked(), which will update the appearance of the current TabButton to the Selected State and then invoke the EventHandler for whichever the entity that’s subscribed to it from the outside.

Then the an important Public method, UpdateTabButtonState() which allows an external source to update the current Visual-Selected State of the TabButton. You can see how it calls upon the SetSelectedTabState() and SetUnselectedTabState() based on the passed in parameter selectedTabIndex.

Last but not least the UpdateTabButtonColors() allows us to update the Color theme of the TabButton on the go from an external source.

Check out the full source code here: TabButton.xaml.cs

Next we’re going to create the Parent custom control elements that’s going to be holding all of the TabButton elements together. Let’s call it AdvSegmentedControl, thus interpreting Advanced Segmented Control! 😉

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<ContentView
   x:Class="XFSegmentedControl.Advanced.Controls.AdvSegmentedControl"
   xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
   xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
   xmlns:system="clr-namespace:System;assembly=netstandard">
   <ContentView.Content>
      <Frame
         x:Name="FrameView"
         Padding="0"
         IsClippedToBounds="True">
         <!--  Platform specific customization values for the border  -->
         <Frame.HasShadow>
            <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="system:Boolean">
               <On Platform="Android" Value="False" />
               <On Platform="iOS" Value="True" />
            </OnPlatform>
         </Frame.HasShadow>
         <Frame.CornerRadius>
            <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="system:Single">
               <On Platform="Android" Value="0" />
               <On Platform="iOS" Value="5" />
            </OnPlatform>
         </Frame.CornerRadius>
         <Frame.HeightRequest>
            <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="system:Double">
               <On Platform="Android" Value="50" />
               <On Platform="iOS" Value="35" />
            </OnPlatform>
         </Frame.HeightRequest>
         <!--  Platform specific customization values for the border  -->

         <!--  Holder of the Child Tab buttons  -->
         <Grid x:Name="TabButtonHolder" ColumnSpacing="0" />

      </Frame>
   </ContentView.Content>
</ContentView>

 

That’s pretty much it, I’m sure you’re already familiar with the styling of the Frame element from my previous post and the Grid named as TabButtonHolder is what we’re going to be using in the code behind to maintain the Child elements of TabButtons.

Next comes the Code behind of AdvSegmentedControl 😀

public partial class AdvSegmentedControl : ContentView
{
   BindableProperty PrimaryColorProperty
   ...
   BindableProperty SecondaryColorProperty
   ...
   BindableProperty SelectedTabIndexProperty
   ...
   BindableProperty TabButtonsSourceProperty
   ...
   static void OnTabButtonsPropertyChanged
   (BindableObject bindable, object oldValue, object newValue)
   {
      if (newValue != null)
      {
         // clear up existing childrens
         ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable)
                    .TabButtonHolder.Children?.Clear();

         int index = 0;
         foreach (var item in (IEnumerable) newValue)
         {
            // create new Tab Button
            var newTab = new TabButton(
            item.ToString(),
            index, 
            ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable).PrimaryColor, 
            ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable).SecondaryColor,
            (index == ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable)
                                       .SelectedTabIndex));

            newTab.TabButtonClicked += (sender, args) =>
            {
               ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable).SelectedTabIndex
                  = ((TabButton)sender).TabIndex;
            };
            
            Grid.SetColumn(newTab, index++);

            // add the new tab to TabButtonHolder
            ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable).
                  TabButtonHolder.Children.Add(newTab);
         }
      }
      else
      {
         // clear up existing childrens
         ((AdvSegmentedControl)bindable).
                  TabButtonHolder.Children?.Clear();
      }
   }

   public AdvSegmentedControl ()
   ...
}

 

So its all similar to the previous article’s implementation, all the properties and handling of the behavior, except now we’re maintaining a list of TabButton references in TabButtonsSource property, which is a list of strings that we could use as names for the Tabs, instead of having a hard coded static Tab buttons in our previous implementation. And we’re subscribing to it to handle the adding and removal of the Tabs or Segmented Buttons at run time on demand.

Inside the loop we’re creating new instances of TabButton and passing in the relevant properties that are assigned, then subscribing to the TabButtonClicked event, ending each loop cycle by adding the TabButton instance to the TabButtonHolder Grid.

Check out the full source code here: AdvSegmentedControl.xaml.cs

Now that’s pretty much it. Let’s consume this awesomeness of AdvSegmentedControl! 😉

Time for consumption…

Now that we are done with our awesome AdvSegmentedControl, next let’s consume it in anywhere we wish in our Xamarin.Forms app!

<controls:AdvSegmentedControl
    x:Name="segmentedControl"
    PrimaryColor="CornflowerBlue"
    SecondaryColor="White"
    SelectedTabIndex="2"       
    SelectedTabIndexChanged="OnSelectedTabIndexChanged">
    <controls:AdvSegmentedControl.Padding>
        <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="Thickness">
            <On Platform="Android" Value="0" />
            <On Platform="iOS" Value="10,0,10,10" />
        </OnPlatform>
    </controls:AdvSegmentedControl.Padding>
    <controls:AdvSegmentedControl.TabButtonsSource>
        <x:Array Type="{x:Type x:String}">
            <x:String>Monkeys</x:String>
            <x:String>Minions</x:String>
            <x:String>Penguins</x:String>
            <x:String>Foxes</x:String>
        </x:Array>
    </controls:AdvSegmentedControl.TabButtonsSource>
</controls:AdvSegmentedControl>

 

There you go a simple demonstration of how to consume this awesomeness! We’re using PrimaryColor, SecondaryColor properties to set the color theme and the SelectedTabIndex property allowing you to set the default selected Tab on appearing. We have added a list of Strings to our TabButtonsSource to populate the Tab Buttons or Segmented Buttons as we wish. Also we’re subscribing to the SelectedTabIndexChanged event to react to the changes of the selected Tab by the user (you know load some view or execute whatever the action you wish). Keeping in mind all those properties can be changed at run time and will reflect visually! how awesome is that! 😀

Let’s fire it up and see it in action! 😉

Fire it up!

Here we go…

  

There we go baby! iOS and Android running side by side…

Something more awesome…

So just to show how powerful my AdvSegmentedControl is, I cooked up bit of a cool demo right here. Oh I hope you still remember that little sneak peak I showed you at the beginning of the article! 😉

Let’s start off with iOS:

 

And Android:

 

TADAAA! 😀

FULLY DYNAMIC | ADDING/REMOVE TABS | SWITCHING COLORS  | SWITCHING TAB

Check out the awesome demo code went into this from here: MoreDemoPage.xaml

Well your imagination is the limit fellas! 😀

This whole awesome project is hosted up in my Github repo:  https://github.com/UdaraAlwis/XFSegmentedControl 

Cheers! 😀 Keep on going my fellow devs!

Spread the love…

Simple Segmented Button Control in pure Xamarin.Forms!

A Segmented Control, or as some call it Grouped Button Control, or Tabbed Button Control or some even call the Rocker Control, is what I’m gonna share with yol today, built 100% from Xamarin.Forms!

Yeah such a platform specific UI element, right out of Xamarin.Forms without a single line of native code, how’s that even? Well if you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I’m all about pushing them limits of any given platform and achieve the impossibru! 😉

Whut whut in Xamarin.Forms?

So there’s many different interpretations of this UI elements and also different use cases. Specifically you can see this in native Tabbed Page views in both Android and iOS. And in native platforms they actually have their own Segmented button controls, that allows you to have a set of buttons in a single segment, that allows you to have a selected state, which will let you perform a certain operation, change a value or load a certain View to another element.

So when it comes to Xamarin.Forms, there’s no out of the box UI element that provides this view, unless you use Xamarin.Forms TappedPage control, in which case is impractical if you’re not in need of a Tabbed Page, or worse case in a Content element area where you absolutely can’t use a Page element.

Le Solucioano!

So here’s my solution for this, a Segmented Control in pure Xamarin.Forms, that allows you to have the same exact look and feel and behavior of a native Segmented Control, or a Tabbed Button Control or a Rocker Control or whatever. Lol

Specially no custom renderers, no native code or whatever, just simple and pure Xamarin.Forms! 😉

Sneak Peak

Here’s a sneak peak of what I built, on iOS..

And on Android..

Look at the eh, just like a native control with all the looks and feels and behaviours…

This whole awesome project is hosted up in my Github repo : https://github.com/UdaraAlwis/XFSegmentedControl 

Recipe time…

Buckle up, contains a whole bunch of me hacking around pushing the limits of Xamarin.Forms to achieve some impossibru! 😉

So first thing, we need to keep in mind the aspect of having the same look and feel of a native Segmented control, in aspect of both Android and iOS, therefore we’re going to be using a lot of platform specific properties in XAML and code behind.

We are going to have two Buttons inside a Layout, to emulate the two segmented Buttons. The layout is going to be a Xamarin.Forms Frame, since it has the property CornerRadius, which is vital to gain the curved corners appearance for iOS, and Border property, which we can use to draw the border around the element for iOS. As of Android we can disregard both of those properties. Also don’t forget about the IsClippedToBounds property which all the Layout elements has in Xamarin.Forms, allowing you to crop out of bounds elements inside the layout, which will allow us to have that curved corners in iOS without the button borders popping out of it.

So you might say as of the Button we could use a Label or something and then use a Tap Gesture to handle the click event. Nope! I like the perfection of whatever I’m building! 😉 Therefore we’re going to use actual Xamarin.Forms Button control, now hold on…

Now speaking of the Buttons, we can’t use Buttons with text inside, since the default behaviour of a button restricts the visibility of Text inside it. Therefore we’re going to use a little hack I have always used, that is placing one element over another inside a Grid view. So we are going to use a Button without text inside of it, and then a Label on top of it that represents the Text of the Segmented Button. So you’re probably worries about the Button click behaviour since we’re laying out a Label on top of it, but hello don’t worry, that’s where InputTransparent comes into rescue, passing down the touch even down to the Button straight away! So on selection of the Button we shall do the necessary changes to show the IsSelected status.

We are going to assign name identifiers to our elements in this control to handle some of the code behind magic as well, in case you wondered when you see the code! 😀

Also not to mention that we’re going to maintain properties inside the custom control, like Colors, Text, Selected Button Index properties and also an EventHandler to inform the changes of the Segment button selection.

Well that’s pretty much it, with a bit more details to be gotten into later.

XAML time…

We’re going to create a custom control elements that’s going to be independent and reusable anywhere in the project. Let’s call it SimSegmentedControl, thus denoting “Simple Segmented Control”!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<ContentView
    x:Class="XFSegmentedControl.Simple.Controls.SimegmentedControl"
    xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
    xmlns:system="clr-namespace:System;assembly=netstandard">
    <ContentView.Content>
	
	<!--  Rest of content goes here (Next code snippet) -->
	
    </ContentView.Content>
</ContentView>

 

Now let’s get into the inside elements of our SimSegmentedControl, which is basically the Frame Layout that I explained before.

<Frame
    x:Name="FrameView"
    Padding="0"
    IsClippedToBounds="True">
    <!--  Platform specific customization values for the border  -->
    <Frame.HasShadow>
        <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="system:Boolean">
            <On Platform="Android" Value="False" />
            <On Platform="iOS" Value="True" />
        </OnPlatform>
    </Frame.HasShadow>
    <Frame.CornerRadius>
        <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="system:Single">
            <On Platform="Android" Value="0" />
            <On Platform="iOS" Value="5" />
        </OnPlatform>
    </Frame.CornerRadius>
    <Frame.HeightRequest>
        <OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="system:Double">
            <On Platform="Android" Value="50" />
            <On Platform="iOS" Value="35" />
        </OnPlatform>
    </Frame.HeightRequest>
    <!--  Platform specific customization values for the border  -->

    
    <!--  Segmented Buttons go in here (Next code snippet)  -->
    
</Frame>

 

As you can see I have added a whole bunch of platform specific customization values for Android and iOS to achieve the design we’re targeting for, such as CornerRadius and Height.

Then let’s add our Segmented Button elements, just to make it easier let’s identify each of them as “Tab Button” element.

<Grid ColumnSpacing="0">

    <!--  Tab button 1  -->
    <Grid Grid.Column="0" IsClippedToBounds="True">
        <Button
            x:Name="Tab1ButtonView"
            Margin="-2,-3,-2,0"
            Clicked="Tab1Button_OnClicked" />
        <Label
            x:Name="Tab1LabelView"
            FontAttributes="Bold"
            FontSize="Medium"
            HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand"
            InputTransparent="True"
            Text="Tab 1"
            VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" />
        <BoxView
            x:Name="Tab1BoxView"
            HeightRequest="2"
            InputTransparent="True"
            IsVisible="False"
            VerticalOptions="End" />
    </Grid>
    <!--  Tab button 1  -->

    <!--  Tab button 2  -->
    <Grid Grid.Column="1" IsClippedToBounds="True">
        <Button
            x:Name="Tab2ButtonView"
            Margin="-2,-3,-2,0"
            Clicked="Tab2Button_OnClicked" />
        <Label
            x:Name="Tab2LabelView"
            FontAttributes="Bold"
            FontSize="Medium"
            HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand"
            InputTransparent="True"
            Text="Tab 2"
            VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" />
        <BoxView
            x:Name="Tab2BoxView"
            HeightRequest="2"
            InputTransparent="True"
            IsVisible="False"
            VerticalOptions="End" />
    </Grid>
    <!--  Tab button 2  -->

    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
        <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
</Grid>

 

Voila! behold the two button elements, with all the platform specific customizations, just like how I explained before, Label on top of a Button inside a Grid layout. Also you may have noticed the Margin property that I have used with “-2,-3,-2,0”, which is to stretch out the empty border line of the buttons out of the Grid so it crops out with the IsClippedToBounds property.

And the BoxView is to emulate the bottom line we have in Android look and feel of the Segmented Control.

Code-behind time…

Now this is where we’re basically going to handle all the action in our SegmentedControl!

So I’m not going to spoon feed the whole code in this blog post, since its going to be a pretty lengthy one, so I’ll be cutting out most of the repetitive code which you can easily figure out yourself or just check out on my github repo where I have committed this whole project code.

So like I explained at beginning we’re going to have a bunch of properties that are going to handle all the customization values such as Color, Text, SelectedIndex, EventHandler and so on. And then apply a whole bunch of code behind customization for platform specific look and feels, along with the handling of Segment button click event behavior.

[XamlCompilation(XamlCompilationOptions.Compile)]
public partial class SimSegmentedControl : ContentView
{
    public static readonly BindableProperty PrimaryColorProperty
        = BindableProperty.Create(
            nameof(PrimaryColor),
            typeof(Color),
            typeof(SimSegmentedControl),
            Color.CornflowerBlue);

    public Color PrimaryColor
    {
        get { return (Color)GetValue(PrimaryColorProperty); }
        set { SetValue(PrimaryColorProperty, value); }
    }

    // SecondaryColorProperty

    // Tab1TextProperty

    // Tab2TextProperty

    // SelectedTabIndexProperty
    
    public event EventHandler<SelectedTabIndexEventArgs> SelectedTabIndexChanged;

    public SimSegmentedControl()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// load up the customizations and applying
    /// properties when the element has rendered
    /// </summary>
    protected override void OnParentSet()
    {
        base.OnParentSet();
        
        // Setting up platform specific properties for Android and iOS
        if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.Android)
        {
            Tab1LabelView.FontSize
                = Device.GetNamedSize(NamedSize.Medium, Tab1LabelView);
            Tab2LabelView.FontSize
                = Device.GetNamedSize(NamedSize.Medium, Tab1LabelView);

            Tab1ButtonView.BackgroundColor = PrimaryColor;
            Tab2ButtonView.BackgroundColor = PrimaryColor;

            Tab1BoxView.Color =
            Tab2BoxView.Color =
            Tab1LabelView.TextColor =
            Tab2LabelView.TextColor = SecondaryColor;
        }
        else if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.iOS)
        {
            Tab1LabelView.FontSize
                = Device.GetNamedSize(NamedSize.Small, Tab1LabelView);
            Tab2LabelView.FontSize
                = Device.GetNamedSize(NamedSize.Small, Tab1LabelView);

            Tab1ButtonView.BackgroundColor =
            Tab2ButtonView.BackgroundColor = PrimaryColor;

            FrameView.BorderColor =
            Tab1LabelView.TextColor =
            Tab2LabelView.TextColor = SecondaryColor;
        }

        Tab1LabelView.Text = Tab1Text;
        Tab2LabelView.Text = Tab2Text;

        // setting up default values
        SelectTab1();
        SelectedTabIndex = 1;
        SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent();
    }

    private void Tab1Button_OnClicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        SelectTab1();
        SelectedTabIndex = 1;
        SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent();
    }

    private void Tab2Button_OnClicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        SelectTab2();
        SelectedTabIndex = 2;
        SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent();
    }
    
    // SelectTab1()
    
    // SelectTab2()
    
    // SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent()
}

 

So we PrimaryColor and SecondaryColor which handles the two main colors that is styling our SimSegmentedControl, which is exactly how it being used in native version of this control as well, just two simple Colors styling the whole element.

Then Tab1Text and Tab2Text property to handle the Text that needs to be displayed in the Segmented buttons.

As you can see OnParentSet (this is when the View is rendered in memory and just about to be displayed on the Page) we’re applying all the platform specific customization for the elements in our SimSegmentedControl. Then you can see we’re setting the Tab1 and Tab2 text properties to our Labels, which is not actually good practice, but I was too lazy to add that in the PropertyChangedEvent handler of those respective bindable properties. After that at the end you can see we’re setting the default values.

Also the SelectedTabIndexChanged EventHandler is there to notify any outside element who wants to be aware of the selected Tab in our SimSegmentedControl, so they can perform whatever the action based on it.

Then let me get into the SelectTab1(), SelectTab2() and SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent methods.

private void SelectTab1()
{
    // set up platform specific
    // properties for SelectTab1 event
    if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.Android)
    {
        Tab1BoxView.IsVisible = true;
        Tab2BoxView.IsVisible = false;
    }
    else if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.iOS)
    {
        Tab1ButtonView.BackgroundColor = SecondaryColor;
        Tab2ButtonView.BackgroundColor = PrimaryColor;

        Tab1LabelView.TextColor = PrimaryColor;
        Tab2LabelView.TextColor = SecondaryColor;
    }
}

private void SelectTab2()
{
    // set up platform specific
    // properties for SelectTab2 event
    if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.Android)
    {
        Tab1BoxView.IsVisible = false;
        Tab2BoxView.IsVisible = true;
    }
    else if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.iOS)
    {
        Tab1ButtonView.BackgroundColor = PrimaryColor;
        Tab2ButtonView.BackgroundColor = SecondaryColor;

        Tab1LabelView.TextColor = SecondaryColor;
        Tab2LabelView.TextColor = PrimaryColor;
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// Invoke the SelectedTabIndexChanged event
/// for whoever has subscribed so they can
/// use it for any reative action
/// </summary>
private void SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent()
{
    var eventArgs = new SelectedTabIndexEventArgs();
    eventArgs.SelectedTabIndex = SelectedTabIndex;

    SelectedTabIndexChanged?.Invoke(this, eventArgs);
}

--------------

public class SelectedTabIndexEventArgs : EventArgs
{
    public int SelectedTabIndex { get; set; }
}

 

So there you can see in SelectTab1() we’re setting up the necessary customization for the Selected state of our Segmented Button for both Android and iOS, such as the BackgroundColor, TextColor and whatnot. And then in SelectTab2() we’re doing the exact opposite customization, Button 1 -> Unselected and Button 2 -> Selected appearance.

Then in the SendSelectedTabIndexChangedEvent we’re basically broadcasting the selected Tab index of our SimSegmentedControl with the SelectedTabIndex property value.

Time to consume!

Let’s use this awesome SimSegmentedControl in our Page shall we?!!! 😀

<local:SimSegmentedControl
	x:Name="SegmentedControlView"
	PrimaryColor="CornflowerBlue"
	SecondaryColor="White"
	SelectedTabIndexChanged="SegmentedControlView_SelectedTabIndexChanged"
	Tab1Text="Monkeys"
	Tab2Text="Minions">
	<local:SimSegmentedControl.Padding>
		<OnPlatform x:TypeArguments="Thickness">
			<On Platform="Android" Value="0" />
			<On Platform="iOS" Value="10,0,10,10" />
		</OnPlatform>
	</local:SimSegmentedControl.Padding>
</local:SimSegmentedControl>

 

Easy peasy, you just set the property values such as PriaryColor, SecondaryColor and so on that we created in our SimSegmentedControl and do a bit of customization if you wish to 😉 like I’ve added some padding for iOS!

In case if you’re wondering how to use the SelectedTabIndexChanged, you basically subscribe to that event and perform whatever the action you desire, whether it be changing some values, or swapping some Views or whatever your requirement is!

private void SegmentedControlView_SelectedTabIndexChanged
			(object sender, SelectedTabIndexEventArgs e)
{
	if (e.SelectedTabIndex == 1)
	{
		ContentView1.IsVisible = true;
		ContentView2.IsVisible = false;
	}
	else if (e.SelectedTabIndex == 2)
	{
		ContentView1.IsVisible = false;
		ContentView2.IsVisible = true;
	}
}

 

Just like that!

Let’s fire it up!

Let’s see this beauty in action now! 😀

Here we go baby! iOS and Android running side by side…

 

Let’s change up a bit of the colors shall we!

Woot, whatever the color combination you wish! 😉

Improvement suggestions..

Well if you ask me this is not the exact implementation I used for my actual requirement, this is more of a very simple implementation of it.

But there’s many ways to improve this. One would be adding Command for the selected Tab Index changed property handling. Also add both way handling of SelectedTabIndex so that we can set the default selected Tab on the go. Specially add dynamic Tab Buttons to the SimSegmentedControl at run time without just limiting to 2 buttons. 😉

Well your imagination is the limit fellas! 😀

This whole awesome project is hosted up in my Github repo : https://github.com/UdaraAlwis/XFSegmentedControl 

Check out the Part 2 of this article: Advanced Segmented Button Control in pure Xamarin.Forms!

Cheers! 😀 Keep on going my fellow devs!

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