I have done a Xamarin(.Forms)-trial (started about 40 day’s ago) and have bought Xamarin now.
The only reason to go with Xamarin was… Xamarin.Forms!
In the short time, I work now with Xamarin, I have fed bugzilla with 12 bugs (some of them with additional descriptions / screenshots in .pdf = greater effort…)
I wan’t to go productive in the next month’s with a multiplatform-app (iOS, Android and WP).
Inter alia, I have filled bugs to:
- “Phantom-Rows“ in Listview under iOS
- HasUnevenRows don’t work in iOS
Further, a bug / problem for me (and many others, if I have a look at the forum) is, that on iOS + IPad + Landscape, the master-page of a master-detail-page is showed always (and take more then 1/3 of the whole screen for nothing), so I want to deactivate that.
To this bugs/problems Xamarin say’s:
“That’s not a bug, that’s the normal behavior of iOS…”?!?
“To try solving this problem, you can write your own custom renderer.”
“To try solving that problem, you can create an own class and the try to set the Height as needed...”
Under WP and Android, I have no “Phantom-Rows” and HasUnevenRows works (so that the needed space of the content is calculated correct if a variable content is showed).
On Android, the master-page is not showed automatically on my Android-tab, although it has a higher resolution as my iPad.
Maybe, that’s “the normal behavior of iOS” (I don’t know), but if so… it’s not usable for a productive app.
With this base-problems (related mainly to iOS), I can’t create a productive app.
And hey… I don’t want to write custom-renderers to reach the correct behavior with iOS like on the other platforms!
And I also don’t want to implement platform-specific workaround’s here and there, that “bite me” later, it Xamarin have solved bugs / enhanced Xamarin.Forms. I want to use my time to implement my business-code
The credo (and reason for me) of .Forms is: write the app once, run it on any platform.
This is simply not true yet!
It can’t be, that every developer has to implement a lot of (different) workaround’s to fix base-problems instead of Xamarin provide a real platform-compatible framework, that can be used to create productive multiplatform app’s.
Specially for the HasUnevenRows-bug in iOS (sorry “normal behaviour”: - ), I don’t see any meaningful/in every case working solution to implement this myself. That’s exactly a bug (or "problem", I expect a solution from Xamarin.
As developer, I can live with a not yet usable Xamarin.Forms, if I see, that Xamarin works intensive at the most important base-problems. But... until now, I don’t have found a page with a roadmap, where I can see, at which problems Xamarin is working actually and when the next version will be released (maybe I’m missing some information’s?)
So, I expect (really hope!), that Xamarin:
- Implement a solution in .iOS, so that HasUnevenRows also works correct under iOS, and I don’t have to care about myself (absolutely worst problem for me)
- Find a solutions, that the “Phantom” rows in iOS (E.G. on the masterpage of a Master-Detailpage) don’t are displayed anymore (taxed as bug from every user, that see the page)
- Find a solutions, that master-page of a master-detail-page can be hided also on iPad / Landscape (e.g. by a new property or something else)
- Set the right priorities for fixing bugs in the near time (so that XF can be used productive without many own workaround's) and will open a page, on which all can see, what’s in the pipeline, what's in the next release and when is the next release expected (release-date)
That are my wishes to Xamarin… I hope I don’t have done a mistake to go with Xamarin .Forms.
@DarrilRyan, @CarawayDJ:
I can give you a + 1 vote for your postings in:
https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/comment/76954#Comment_76954