Custom Renderers, Effects, and Native Views

Abstract

When you’re ready to extend the capability of Xamarin.Forms views beyond their out-of-the-box functionality, then it’s time to start customizing them using custom renderers, effects, and native views. Platform-specific controls and layouts have scores of features inaccessible using only the Xamarin.Forms abstraction. There are three ways to access those features and extend the functionality of your application. The custom renderer gives full control over a Xamarin.Forms control by allowing you to gain access to all of its native functionality. It allows you to override the methods of the default renderers provided by Xamarin.Forms or even replace the platform-specific control Xamarin.Forms used with another control. Xamarin.Forms developers’ customization approach of choice is effects, a milder form of customization. Use effects if you need to change properties or use event listeners. Finally, Xamarin.Forms supports the use of the native views directly in XAML. This provides full access to the power of native controls along with the full responsibility of managing their lifecycle and behavior.