{"id":38799,"date":"2019-02-06T12:22:16","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T17:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.xamarin.com\/?p=38799"},"modified":"2019-04-04T15:54:51","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T22:54:51","slug":"5-things-youll-love-xamarin-forms-3-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/xamarin\/5-things-youll-love-xamarin-forms-3-5\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things You’ll Love in Xamarin.Forms 3.5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tAlthough Valentine’s Day isn’t for a few more days, we just couldn’t wait to celebrate the love by sharing a new stable release of Xamarin.Forms – 3.5. Your engagement and contributions with Xamarin have been heartwarming, and we love working with you.<\/p>\n

Every month we survey Xamarin developers in Visual Studio and via Twitter while conducting dozens of interviews and listening to your firsthand stories. Why? To make Xamarin better. For you! We have learned that you are more satisfied (+8% for you fans of statistics) with Xamarin when you use our latest versions. Additionally, you have indicated that it is because you like the direction the product is taking and how we are delivering on your specific feedback. Thank you, it’s working!<\/p>\n

Let’s take a closer look at what\u00a0we at Microsoft (in collaboration with you, our fantastic contributors) are delivering in Xamarin.Forms 3.5!<\/p>\n

1. Every Layout is Bindable<\/h2>\n

Perhaps you’re one of the many developers that have been longing for a repeater control; something that can display a group of the same thing without all the overhead of a virtualized list control. Thanks to a wonderful contribution from Andrei Nitescu, we are shipping BindableLayout in 3.5.0. He gave us a thorough look at BindableLayout in an article last month<\/a>, so let’s summarize by looking at a sample from our own Javier Suarez Ruiz on the Visual Studio for Mac team. In the code below he is creating a horizontal list of friends (good choice putting Miguel first btw):<\/p>\n

<StackLayout\r\n     Orientation = \"Horizontal\"\r\n     BindableLayout.ItemsSource = \"{Binding Profile.Friends}\">\r\n     <BindableLayout.ItemTemplate>\r\n          <DataTemplate>\r\n          <Grid>\r\n               <Grid.RowDefinitions>\r\n                    <RowDefinition Height = \"*\" \/>\r\n                    <RowDefinition Height = \"Auto\" \/>\r\n               <\/ Grid.RowDefinitions>\r\n                    <imageCircle: CircleImage \r\n                         Grid.Row = \"0\"\r\n                         Source = \"{Binding Picture}\"\r\n                         Aspect = \"AspectFit\"\r\n                         Style = \"{StaticResource FriendImageStyle}\" \/>\r\n                    <Label \r\n                    Grid.Row = \"1\"\r\n                         Text = \"{Binding Name}\"\r\n                         Style = \"{StaticResource FriendNameStyle}\" \/>\r\n               <\/ Grid>\r\n          <\/ DataTemplate>\r\n     <\/BindableLayout.ItemTemplate>\r\n<\/ StackLayout><\/pre>\n
Breaking down what you see in the XAML above, BindableLayout.ItemsSource<\/code> and its siblings are attached properties on StackLayout<\/code>, and that could be any Layout<T><\/code>\u00a0you choose. Set your source to an\u00a0IEnumerable<\/code>, define your template, and you’ve got a repeater! Read more about Javier’s blog example here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\"image\"<\/p>\n
2. Toolbar Accessibility<\/h2>\n
When you application is accessible, everyone wins, especially your users. The latest version of Xamarin.Forms aims to make application accessibility easier to implement. Three controls that have been notoriously problematic to set up for screen readers are:<\/p>\n