The Device.StartTimer seems to be missing features and in need of improvement, so I am using some AdvancedTimer for now but it's an old 2015 assembly. Perhaps we just need some additional abstractions put around the Device.StartTimer so it's easier to use.
@Hopin said:
The Device.StartTimer seems to be missing features and in need of improvement, so I am using some AdvancedTimer for now but it's an old 2015 assembly. Perhaps we just need some additional abstractions put around the Device.StartTimer so it's easier to use.
Device.StartTimer is there. i am using it currently and works perfectly fine
Are there rough expected release dates for XF 3.5 and 4.0? (I understand they may slip)
The next feature update to one of my apps uses Bindeable Layouts from 3.5 and I have plans for a major rewrite once 4.0 is released. I have been using the prereleases for development but regressions in 3.5pre3 mean I can't release anything until it is stable.
Hello @DavidOrtinau,
I've been an early user of Xamarin.Forms (from the times of XLabs) that has just "restarted" using it after some time doing something else.
I am actually impressed by how little the Forms components have improved in terms of usability! Still no commands in Pages or in ListView, still no horizontal ListView, still no better way to handle images than ImageSource...
How is it possible that these extremely little things that can be fixed in a few hours haven't found their way in 3 major releases of X.Forms? In every project there are tons of classes to be added only to have little stupid functionalities (like the ImageResourceExtension to handle image sources in XAML! )
I will surely push all I can to the main repo once I complete my project but I really do not understand whats the strategy here.
Why are you wasting time on Shell, why you want to attract "new developers" if every time that you need to do something a little more complex it gets a mess? Why don't you focus on polishing what you have instead of adding more (of little interest IMHO)?
@Poz1 Agreed. Unfortunately, the team is making a lot of short-sighted decisions with respect to which direction to head. Issues on Github seem to be piling up at a higher rate than they are fixed. My biggest complaints right now are ListView and lack of 3rd-party tooling. Like you mentioned, XF cannot handle images properly, and I run into critical problems with FFImageLoading. Animations aren't as smooth as I'd like. The current implementation of Span is buggy and has performance problems. Even the good, old Grid has calculation problems with Auto heights. While I can find workarounds for small issues, I can't easily circumvent these without completely changing the UI.
@AdrianKnight The saddest part is that in almost a month no one even bothered to show that we may be seeing it wrong
Seems like just no one cares.
In these few days I was also able to appreciate that the Entry Control still does not uses TextInputLayout (Android), that we still have no CheckBox, that the Grid calculation are a total mess (as you said), that we have tons of properties that are apparently ignored or simply meaningless (!) and that most of the things that one were provided by external libraries are now old, and likely to be broken (as they should be).
When it all started for me, and we are talking of when we had padding only and no margin ( ) in Forms components, Xamarin was the new solution to all problems, that was still a lot incomplete and buggy because it was new.
The community started providing the missing functionality, I did NFCForms to allow devices to use NFC directly from Forms, but it was obvious that these basic feature had to be in the XamarinCore!
How can you believe to build a framework on libraries provided by people that share a piece of code that will probably not be ever maintained or updated?
Basically right now Xamarin (at least Forms) is almost the same of 2 years ago, maybe more.
So the question is, do you really want to waste your time building your future apps with it?
As I am now creating the nth "customrenderer" say: If I had done it full native I would probably written the same code, wasted much less time against Forms bugs and got a much more speedy app.
I am afraid this may be my last project written in Xamarin. I cannot stand it anymore.
@Poz1 said: @AdrianKnight The saddest part is that in almost a month no one even bothered to show that we may be seeing it wrong
Seems like just no one cares.
In these few days I was also able to appreciate that the Entry Control still does not uses TextInputLayout (Android), that we still have no CheckBox, that the Grid calculation are a total mess (as you said), that we have tons of properties that are apparently ignored or simply meaningless (!) and that most of the things that one were provided by external libraries are now old, and likely to be broken (as they should be).
When it all started for me, and we are talking of when we had padding only and no margin ( ) in Forms components, Xamarin was the new solution to all problems, that was still a lot incomplete and buggy because it was new.
The community started providing the missing functionality, I did NFCForms to allow devices to use NFC directly from Forms, but it was obvious that these basic feature had to be in the XamarinCore!
How can you believe to build a framework on libraries provided by people that share a piece of code that will probably not be ever maintained or updated?
Basically right now Xamarin (at least Forms) is almost the same of 2 years ago, maybe more.
So the question is, do you really want to waste your time building your future apps with it?
As I am now creating the nth "customrenderer" say: If I had done it full native I would probably written the same code, wasted much less time against Forms bugs and got a much more speedy app.
I am afraid this may be my last project written in Xamarin. I cannot stand it anymore.
Dunno yet, I will finish the current app and see.
Will try Flutter (but is it better?) and QT. Or just go Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. (But I think that I would go native at that point and stop bothering Xamarin at all)
It bothers me a lot. A LOT.
Because I have invested time, I now know C# and XAML pretty well and I know Xamarin.
But they need to change their "strategy" (which is by the way?) and start building a complete and usable framework. There is no other way for it to survive.
They can fool newcomers but truth always comes out.
@Poz1:
I agree with you...
As you wrote, I also have invested a lot of time in Xamarin over the last few years and see no (or only a litte bit) progress (.forms is far away to be a complete framework right now)
I would check out flutter, if I would find the time...
The paradox here is that we (in general) are able to produce good quality apps with Xamarin.Forms - some of us seem to find endless workarounds are needed, while others don't. Is it that the former are implementing more complete solutions while the latter are not going deep enough?
I've found Forms to be very productive, and haven't found show-stopping bugs.
This isn't a criticism of those who are frustrated and considering dropping Xamarin, just an observation. I agree that it's frustrating that bugs just don't seem to get fixed!
I think I am frustrated because I've been adding the same stupid things in my apps for too many years.
I am simply tired of having to rewrite always the same renderer in every app or to change my design to use similar components.
At the beginning it was okay because it was just born, but now it's been many years that a lot of basic things have been missing.
I don't know @JamesLavery, are you not tired of adding the famous "ImageResourceExtension" in every project to use ImageSource in XAML?
There are no major show-stopping bugs, its just that you have to wast so much time to do so stupid things (change color of switch, for example) that becomes irritating. And only because no one bothered to expose the little stupid property.
And at the end of the day you think: what is the direction they are taking? Why no one improves the controls? Should I continue doing my apps in Forms?
In addition to the bugs, there are many pending PRs that don't seem to be going anywhere. I also agree that most bugs don't get fixed (including the ones tagged with /blocker, /critical, and /high-impact). This could be explained by the fact that the team is probably currently busy with the 4.0 release but more importantly they have spread themselves out too thin with many things (iOS, Android, UWP, Tizen, WPF, and MacOS in addition to XAML, CollectionView, Shell, Material, etc.)
They could probably hire 15 new devs for $2M per annum and resolve issues at a faster rate. This kind of money is insignificant for a company the size of Microsoft - not to mention the ultimate goal for them is to attract as many developers as possible to Visual Studio and Azure.
Flutter is probably the best choice right now for cross platform, but that means we give up C#/.NET.
Posts
The Device.StartTimer seems to be missing features and in need of improvement, so I am using some AdvancedTimer for now but it's an old 2015 assembly. Perhaps we just need some additional abstractions put around the Device.StartTimer so it's easier to use.
Device.StartTimer is there. i am using it currently and works perfectly fine
https://github.com/xamarin/Xamarin.Forms/wiki/Feature-Roadmap
The next feature update to one of my apps uses Bindeable Layouts from 3.5 and I have plans for a major rewrite once 4.0 is released. I have been using the prereleases for development but regressions in 3.5pre3 mean I can't release anything until it is stable.
v3.5 was released a few hours after I posted that question. Now that's what I call service!
Hello @DavidOrtinau,
I've been an early user of Xamarin.Forms (from the times of XLabs) that has just "restarted" using it after some time doing something else.
I am actually impressed by how little the Forms components have improved in terms of usability! Still no commands in Pages or in ListView, still no horizontal ListView, still no better way to handle images than ImageSource...
How is it possible that these extremely little things that can be fixed in a few hours haven't found their way in 3 major releases of X.Forms? In every project there are tons of classes to be added only to have little stupid functionalities (like the ImageResourceExtension to handle image sources in XAML! )
I will surely push all I can to the main repo once I complete my project but I really do not understand whats the strategy here.
Why are you wasting time on Shell, why you want to attract "new developers" if every time that you need to do something a little more complex it gets a mess? Why don't you focus on polishing what you have instead of adding more (of little interest IMHO)?
Bentornato Alessandro!
Grazie
@Poz1 Agreed. Unfortunately, the team is making a lot of short-sighted decisions with respect to which direction to head. Issues on Github seem to be piling up at a higher rate than they are fixed. My biggest complaints right now are
ListViewand lack of 3rd-party tooling. Like you mentioned, XF cannot handle images properly, and I run into critical problems withFFImageLoading. Animations aren't as smooth as I'd like. The current implementation ofSpanis buggy and has performance problems. Even the good, oldGridhas calculation problems withAutoheights. While I can find workarounds for small issues, I can't easily circumvent these without completely changing the UI.@AdrianKnight The saddest part is that in almost a month no one even bothered to show that we may be seeing it wrong
Seems like just no one cares.
In these few days I was also able to appreciate that the Entry Control still does not uses TextInputLayout (Android), that we still have no CheckBox, that the Grid calculation are a total mess (as you said), that we have tons of properties that are apparently ignored or simply meaningless (!) and that most of the things that one were provided by external libraries are now old, and likely to be broken (as they should be).
When it all started for me, and we are talking of when we had padding only and no margin (
) in Forms components, Xamarin was the new solution to all problems, that was still a lot incomplete and buggy because it was new.
The community started providing the missing functionality, I did NFCForms to allow devices to use NFC directly from Forms, but it was obvious that these basic feature had to be in the XamarinCore!
How can you believe to build a framework on libraries provided by people that share a piece of code that will probably not be ever maintained or updated?
Basically right now Xamarin (at least Forms) is almost the same of 2 years ago, maybe more.
So the question is, do you really want to waste your time building your future apps with it?
As I am now creating the nth "customrenderer" say: If I had done it full native I would probably written the same code, wasted much less time against Forms bugs and got a much more speedy app.
I am afraid this may be my last project written in Xamarin. I cannot stand it anymore.
Which is the second choice?
@AlessandroCaliaro
Dunno yet, I will finish the current app and see.
Will try Flutter (but is it better?) and QT. Or just go Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. (But I think that I would go native at that point and stop bothering Xamarin at all)
It bothers me a lot. A LOT.
Because I have invested time, I now know C# and XAML pretty well and I know Xamarin.
But they need to change their "strategy" (which is by the way?) and start building a complete and usable framework. There is no other way for it to survive.
They can fool newcomers but truth always comes out.
@Poz1:
I agree with you...
As you wrote, I also have invested a lot of time in Xamarin over the last few years and see no (or only a litte bit) progress (.forms is far away to be a complete framework right now)
I would check out flutter, if I would find the time...
The paradox here is that we (in general) are able to produce good quality apps with Xamarin.Forms - some of us seem to find endless workarounds are needed, while others don't. Is it that the former are implementing more complete solutions while the latter are not going deep enough?
I've found Forms to be very productive, and haven't found show-stopping bugs.
This isn't a criticism of those who are frustrated and considering dropping Xamarin, just an observation. I agree that it's frustrating that bugs just don't seem to get fixed!
I think I am frustrated because I've been adding the same stupid things in my apps for too many years.
I am simply tired of having to rewrite always the same renderer in every app or to change my design to use similar components.
At the beginning it was okay because it was just born, but now it's been many years that a lot of basic things have been missing.
I don't know @JamesLavery, are you not tired of adding the famous "ImageResourceExtension" in every project to use ImageSource in XAML?
There are no major show-stopping bugs, its just that you have to wast so much time to do so stupid things (change color of switch, for example) that becomes irritating. And only because no one bothered to expose the little stupid property.
And at the end of the day you think: what is the direction they are taking? Why no one improves the controls? Should I continue doing my apps in Forms?
In addition to the bugs, there are many pending PRs that don't seem to be going anywhere. I also agree that most bugs don't get fixed (including the ones tagged with /blocker, /critical, and /high-impact). This could be explained by the fact that the team is probably currently busy with the 4.0 release but more importantly they have spread themselves out too thin with many things (iOS, Android, UWP, Tizen, WPF, and MacOS in addition to XAML, CollectionView, Shell, Material, etc.)
They could probably hire 15 new devs for $2M per annum and resolve issues at a faster rate. This kind of money is insignificant for a company the size of Microsoft - not to mention the ultimate goal for them is to attract as many developers as possible to Visual Studio and Azure.
Flutter is probably the best choice right now for cross platform, but that means we give up C#/.NET.