Action View

For iOS and Android development with Xamarin and Visual Studio

Avaialble exclusively as part of the Action Component suite.

Action ComponentsSample Apps

About Action View

Action View is a collection of custom view controls and helper methods for iOS and Android that take the grunt work out of common user interface tasks. Create stunning experiences with easy by using Action Views directly or use them as the basis of your own custom controls. If fact, Action Views form the basis of our other tools in the Action Components suite.

Reduce Repetitive Code

Creating immersive, captivating mobile user interfaces usually means writing similar, repetitive code for common interface tasks. At Appracatappra we say, “Why reinvent the wheel?” That’s why we created our Action View low-level tool suite. They encapsulate the logic to handle common tasks such as tapping, moving, rotating and dragging so you can focus on making your mobile app great and not the details of implementation.

Action View Elements

The Action View low-level tool suite is composed of the following time-saving elements:

ACImage

This static class contains several helper functions for working with UIImages including the ability to detect an iPhone 5 (or greater) images in the form name-568@2x.ext and automatically load them in the place of name.ext or name@2x.ext files and helper routines for easily dealing with rotation.

ACImage iOS Features:

  • FromFile – Returns a UIImage specified by the given filename in the form name.ext. If running on a retina based device and a file in the form name@2x.ext exists in the same path, it will be loaded instead. If running on an iPhone 5 (or greater) and a file in the form name-568@2x.ext exists, it loads automatically.
  • DegreesToRadians – Converts the given degrees to radians.
  • RotateImage – Rotates the given UIImage to the given degrees.

ACImage Android Features:

  • FromFile – Returns a Bitmap for the image specified by the given filename and optional adjusts its width and/or height.
  • ImageInfoFromFile – Returns information about the image with the given filename without loading the image into memory.
  • FromResource – Returns a Bitmap for the image specified by the given resource ID and optional adjusts its width and/or height.
  • ImageInfoFromResource – Returns information about the image with the given resource ID without loading the image into memory.
  • CalculateInSampleSize – Calculates the sampling factor for an image being loaded into memory and down-sampled at the same time.
  • RotateImage – Rotates the given image Bitmap about it center axis to the given degrees.

ACImageView

Is a custom UIImageView that contains many useful built-in features such as being draggable with optional constraints for it’s X and Y axis, user interaction events such as touched, moved and released, and provides methods to make moving, rotating and resizing easier and with less code.

ACImageView iOS features:

  • draggable – If true this Action View can be dragged around the screen by the user. Optional ACViewDragContraints can be applied to the X and/or Y axis to automatically limit movement to none, locked, or constrained to a minimum and maximum value.
  • bringToFrontOnTouched – if true this Action View will automatically become the top UIView when touched by the user.
  • Custom Constructors – Featuring shortcuts such as creating an ACImageView from an image file or placing it at a given X/Y position quickly.
  • FromFile – Loads the ACImageView with the image file specified using ACImage(with all of it’s features). If this ACImageView already contained an image, this routine ensures that all memory used by that image is released first.
  • DisposeImage – Releases any memory used by a UIImage attached to this ACImag`eView.
  • MoveToPoint – Moves this Action View to the given point.
  • Resize – Changes the size of this Action View to the given size.
  • RotateTo – Rotates this Action View to the given degrees.
  • RotateImageTo – Rotates the UIImage contained in this ACImageView to the given degrees.
  • PointInside – Tests to see if the given point is inside this Action View‘s Frame.
  • Purge – Forces this Action View to release all memory contained within it and recursively any subviews attached to it.
  • User Interaction Events – Respond to touched, moved, or released events to provide user interaction with this Action View.

ACImageView Android features are the same as iOS with the exception of:

  • TopMargin, BottomMargin, LeftMargin, RightMargin, LayoutWidth, LayoutHeight – Helper properties for working with the Android layout the ACImageView is hosted in.
  • FromBitmap – Loads the ACImageView with the given Bitmap image.
  • FromResource – Loads the ACImageView with the given image from the Resource ID.
  • Purge – Is not currently supported on Android.

ACLabel

Is a custom UILabel that contains events such and touched and released and helper methods to easily handle moving, rotating, and resizing.

ACLabel iOS features:

  • bringToFrontOnTouched – if true this Action View will automatically become the top UIView when touched by the user.
  • MoveToPoint – Moves this Action View to the given point.
  • Resize – Changes the size of this Action View to the given size.
  • RotateTo – Rotates this Action View to the given degrees.
  • User Interaction Events – Respond to touched or released events to provide user interaction with this Action View.

ACLabel Android features are the same as iOS with the exception of:

  • TopMargin, BottomMargin, LeftMargin, RightMargin, LayoutWidth, LayoutHeight – Helper properties for working with the Android layout the ACLabel is hosted in.
  • RotateTo – Is not currently supported on Android.

ACView

Is a custom UIView that contains many useful built-in features such as being draggable with optional constraints for it’s X and Y axis, user interaction events such as touched, moved and released, and provides methods to make moving, rotating and resizing easier and with less code.

ACView iOS features:

  • draggable – If true this Action View can be dragged around the screen by the user. Optional ACViewDragContraints can be applied to the X and/or Y axis to automatically limit movement to none, locked, or constrained to a minimum and maximum value.
  • bringToFrontOnTouched – if true this Action View will automatically become the top UIView when touched by the user.
  • MoveToPoint – Moves this Action View to the given point.
  • Resize – Changes the size of this Action View to the given size.
  • RotateTo – Rotates this Action View to the given degrees.
  • PointInside – Tests to see if the given point is inside this Action View‘s Frame.
  • Purge – Forces this Action View to release all memory contained within it and recursively any subviews attached to it.
  • User Interaction Events – Respond to touched, moved, or released events to provide user interaction with this Action View.

ACView Android features are the same as iOS with the exception of:

  • GetViewHeight, SetViewHeight, GetViewWidth, SetViewWidth, GetViewTopMargin, SetViewTopMargin, GetViewBottomMargin, SetViewBottomMargin, GetViewLeftMargin, SetViewLeftMargin, GetViewRightMargin, SetViewRightMargin – Static helper routines for working with Android views no matter what layout they are in.
  • TopMargin, BottomMargin, LeftMargin, RightMargin, LayoutWidth, LayoutHeight – Helper properties for working with the Android layout the ACView is hosted in.
  • RotateTo – Is not currently supported on Android.

ACViewController

Is an Android component for working with Views that have been inflated from a .axmlfile by providing a place to hold the code to handle any UI Widgets so you don’t have to put it in the Activity class that is loading the view or create a new activity to support it. Create a child of this class, override the Initialize method and place the code to handle your UI Widgets there.

ACViewController Android features:

  • LoadLayout – Inflates the given layout and calls the Initialize method to instantiate it.
  • Initialize – Override this method and put all of your initialization code here.
  • OnSaveInstanceState – Override this method to save the views state.
  • OnRestoreInstanceState – Override this method to restore the views state.

ACWebView

Is a custom UIWebView that contains many useful built-in features such as being draggable with optional constraints for it’s X and Y axis, user interaction events such as touched, moved and released, and provides methods to make moving, rotating and resizing easier and with less code. Helper methods such as LoadFile and LoadURL make working with web views easier and with less code.

ACWebView iOS features:

  • draggable – If true this Action View can be dragged around the screen by the user. Optional ACViewDragContraints can be applied to the X and/or Y axis to automatically limit movement to none, locked, or constrained to a minimum and maximum value.
  • bringToFrontOnTouched – if true this Action View will automatically become the top UIView when touched by the user.
  • displayNetworkActivityIndicator – If true, automatically display the Network Activity Indicator when loading a file or a url.
  • LoadFile – Displays the given file in this ACWebView.
  • LoadURL – Displays the given URL in this ACWebView.
  • ClearContents – Empties this ACWebView of content.
  • MoveToPoint – Moves this Action View to the given point.
  • Resize – Changes the size of this Action View to the given size.
  • RotateTo – Rotates this Action View to the given degrees.
  • PointInside – Tests to see if the given point is inside this Action View‘s Frame.
  • Purge – Forces this Action View to release all memory contained within it and recursively any subviews attached to it.
  • User Interaction Events – Respond to touched, moved, or released events to provide user interaction with this Action View.

ACWebView Android features are the same as iOS with the exception of:

  • TopMargin, BottomMargin, LeftMargin, RightMargin, LayoutWidth, LayoutHeight – Helper properties for working with the Android layout the ACWebView is hosted in.
  • LoadFile – is not supported on Android.
  • LoadAssets – Loads the given file from the Assets folder of your application.
  • RotateTo – Is not currently supported on Android.

iOSDevice

Is a static, helper class that returns information about the iOS device your Xamarin.iOS app is running on.

iOSDevice features:

  • isPhone – If true, you are running on an iPhone device.
  • isPad – If true, you are running on an iPad device.
  • is568h – If true, you are running on an iPhone 5 or greater device.
  • isRetina – If true, you are running on a retina display iOS device.
  • currentDeviceOrientation – Returns the rotation of the iOS devices as UIInterfaceOrientation.
  • RotatedScreenBounds – Returns the Bounds of the iOS devices screen adjusted for rotation.
  • AvailableScreenBounds – Returns the Bounds of the iOS devices screen adjusted for rotation minus the space taken up by the Status Bar if it is visible in the current mobile application.

Features

Action View includes a fully documented API with comments for every feature. Action View is available exclusively as part of the Action Component Suite by Appracatappra, LLC.

Trial Version

The Trial versions of Action Views are fully functional however the background of several components are watermarked. The fully licensed version removes these watermark.