Buttons and effects on iOS.

OddbjornBakke

I wanted to add/test the new effects feature to a Xamarin.Forms button, but got a problem with not being able to remove the white highlight effect on iOS.

[assembly: Xamarin.Forms.ResolutionGroupName("Effects")]
[assembly: Xamarin.Forms.ExportEffect(typeof(Page3Effect), "Page3Effect")]
namespace ButtonTests.iOS
{
    public class Page3Effect : Xamarin.Forms.Platform.iOS.PlatformEffect
    {
        protected override void OnAttached()
        {
            var button = (UIButton)Control;
            //var element = (Xamarin.Forms.Button)Element;
            //var container = (Xamarin.Forms.Platform.iOS.ButtonRenderer)Container;

            button.SetBackgroundImage(UIImage.FromFile("button_normal.png"), UIControlState.Normal);
            button.SetBackgroundImage(UIImage.FromFile("button_pressed.png"), UIControlState.Highlighted);
        }

        protected override void OnDetached()
        {
            // Use this method if you wish to reset the control to original state
        }
    }
}

The problem here is that i UIButton is of type RoundedRect, and this is not changeable after the construction.

After reading the sourcecode for Xamarin.Forms, I found this:

protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Button> e)
{
    base.OnElementChanged(e);

    if (e.NewElement != null)
    {
        if (Control == null)
        {
            SetNativeControl(new UIButton(UIButtonType.RoundedRect));

            Debug.Assert(Control != null, "Control != null");

            _buttonTextColorDefaultNormal = Control.TitleColor(UIControlState.Normal);
            _buttonTextColorDefaultHighlighted = Control.TitleColor(UIControlState.Highlighted);
            _buttonTextColorDefaultDisabled = Control.TitleColor(UIControlState.Disabled);

            Control.TouchUpInside += OnButtonTouchUpInside;
        }

        UpdateText();
        UpdateFont();
        UpdateBorder();
        UpdateImage();
        UpdateTextColor();
    }
}

The problem was the SetNativeControl(new UIButton(UIButtonType.RoundedRect));

It was then easy to figure out that I could make some code like this to fix it:
(seems to work)

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(CustomButton), typeof(CustomButtonRenderer))]
namespace ButtonTests.iOS
{
    public class CustomButtonRenderer : ButtonRenderer
    {
        protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<Button> e)
        {
            SetNativeControl(new UIButton(UIButtonType.Custom));
            Control.TouchUpInside += (sender, ev) => Element?.Command?.Execute(null);
            if (Element.TextColor == Color.Default) //#00000000
                Element.TextColor = Control.TitleColor(UIControlState.Normal).ToColor(); //#FFFFFFFF

            base.OnElementChanged(e);
        }
    }
}

So thanks for opensourcing Xamarin forms.

And maybe it is possible to a way to set the UIButtonType in the future (could not figure out another way now).