Layouts

Cross-platform layouts for MAUI applications to simplify dealing with templates and BindinginContext in XAML.

Can be added to your project using .UseNaluLayouts() on your app builder.

ViewBox

ViewBox is a lightweight replacement for ContentView class which is still based on the legacy Xamarin Compatibility.Layout. You can simply use ViewBox as base class of your custom views instead of using ContentView.

This class also provides a ContentBindingContext property that allows you to bind the content to a property of the ViewBox’s binding context. This helps to fulfill interface segregation principle.

<nalu:ViewBox ContentBindingContext="{Binding SelectedAnimal}"
              IsVisible="{Binding IsSelected}">
    <views:AnimalView x:DataType="models:Animal" />
</nalu:ViewBox>

TemplateBox

Similarly to ViewBox this component holds a view based on DataTemplate or DataTemplateSelector.

<nalu:TemplateBox ContentTemplate="{StaticResource AnimalTemplate}" ContentBindingContext="{Binding CurrentAnimal}" />

<nalu:TemplateBox ContentTemplate="{StaticResource AnimalTemplateSelector}" ContentBindingContext="{Binding CurrentAnimal}" />

You can also project the content into the template (like you usually do with ContentPresenter).

The following example will display Projected => I'm here!.

<nalu:TemplateBox>

    <nalu:TemplateBox.ContentTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
            <HorizontalStackLayout>
                <Label Text="Projected => " />
                <nalu:TemplateContentPresenter />
            </HorizontalStackLayout>
        </DataTemplate>
    </nalu:TemplateBox.ContentTemplate>

    <Label Text="I'm here!" />

</nalu:TemplateBox>

ToggleTemplate

Usually to switch between views we use IsVisible property, but this is not always the best solution. Using IsVisible still creates the view in the visual tree applying all the bindings (performance impact). ToggleTemplate is a TemplateBox that generates a content view based on a boolean value and a corresponding DataTemplate (or even DataTemplateSelector).

<nalu:ToggleTemplate Value="{Binding HasPermission}"
                     WhenTrue="{StaticResource AdminFormTemplate}"
                     WhenFalse="{StaticResource PermissionRequestTemplate}" />

This can also be used with one single expensive template:

<nalu:ToggleTemplate Value="{Binding ShowExpensiveTemplate}"
                     WhenTrue="{StaticResource ExpensiveTemplate}" />