Prism for Xamarin.Forms 6.2

In early December, Brian Lagunas announced a pre-release of Prism for Xamarin.Forms 6.2.0. Over Christmas I checked it out and here’s what I found out.

The big changes are around bootstrapping and navigation, with simplification and new features being the order of the day. There are also some breaking changes, in that INavigationPageProvider and NavigationPageProviderAttribute have both been removed as they are no longer needed due to the INavigationService handling the majority of navigation scenarios now.

Bootstrapping

The CreateMainPage and InitializeShell methods are now deprecated, with the OnInitialized override now being used to navigate to the initial page of the app:

 1 public class Bootstrapper : UnityBootstrapper
 2 {
 3     protected override void RegisterTypes()
 4     {
 5         Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<HomePage>();
 6     }
 7     
 8     protected override void OnInitialized()
 9     {
10         NavigationService.Navigate("HomePage");
11     }
12 }

The page being navigated to is registered in the RegisterTypes override, with navigation then being invoked from the OnInitialized override. As well as being a simpler app bootstrapping process, it also removes the problems with some navigation scenarios on startup, such as navigating to a MasterDetailPage and then changing the Detail page,.

Navigation

The INavigationService now supports a number of new features, including passing parameters via the GoBack method, support for URI-based navigation, and deep linking. For information about the new navigation features see Brian’s blog post.

The INavigationService now detects the type type of page being navigated from, and handles the navigation for you. For example, it will detect that navigation is originating from a MasterDetailPage and will set the MasterDetailPage.Detail property to the navigation target, instead of pushing a new page onto the navigation stack.

In addition, the INavigationService supports more complex navigation scenarios. For example, imagine that you want your app to navigate to a MasterDetailPage that sets the Detail page to a NavigationPage, and then displays a ContentPage. As with all Prism-based apps, the pages must first be registered with the navigation service:

1 protected override void RegisterTypes()
2 {
3     Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<HomePage>();
4     Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<MyNavigationPage>();
5     Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<MyMasterDetailPage>();
6     Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<WeekPage>();
7     Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<MonthPage>();
8     Container.RegisterTypeForNavigation<YearPage>();
9 }

After registering the pages, it then becomes possible to perform the required navigation in one call:

1 NavigationService.Navigate("MyMasterDetailPage/MyNavigationPage/MonthPage");

The result of the navigation will show a MasterDetailPage whose Detail page is a NavigationPage, with the MonthPage being pushed onto the navigation stack for display. In addition, the navigation stack will be as expected, and so backwards navigation will return down the stack.

For me this is the killer feature in this release of Prism for Xamarin.Forms, as when combined with the URI-based navigation support and parameter passing, it becomes possible to launch a Xamarin.Forms app from a website and deep link to content within the app, while maintaining the correct navigation stack.

Summary

The original release of Prism for Xamarin.Forms was a welcome addition to the Prism family, and simplified the development of Xamarin.Forms apps. However, it was slightly restrictive in some areas, but with the preview release of Prism for Xamarin.Forms 6.2.0 the majority of these restrictions no longer exist.

While not everyone is a believer in using such libraries in mobile app development, Prism for Xamarin.Forms offers a clear productivity boost and simplifies the development of fully unit testable Xamarin.Forms apps that have a clean separation of concerns. Going forward I’ll certainly be using it for my own app development efforts, and I look forward to it moving from a pre-release to a stable release.

Accessing Image Pixel Data in a Xamarin.Forms App – WinRT

Previously, I’ve described the basic architecture for accessing and manipulating pixel data from a Xamarin.Forms project. A Xamarin.Forms PCL project defines the IBitmap interface, which specifies the operations that must be implemented in each platform-specific project to access and manipulate pixel data. I then explained the operation of the Bitmap class in the Xamarin.Forms iOS project, and the Xamarin.Forms Android project, which both implement the IBitmap interface.

In this blog post I’ll explain the operation of the Bitmap class in the Xamarin.Forms WinRT project, which also implements the IBitmap interface. The DependencyService can be used to invoke a method from the Xamarin.Forms.PCL project, which in turn invokes IBitmap operations.

Note that this WinRT pixel access implementation differs from that in a previous blog post about Accessing Image Pixel Data in a C# Windows Store App.

Disclaimer: The code featured here is alpha code, so all the usual caveats apply.

Implementation

The following code shows the Bitmap class implemented in WinRT:

 1 public class Bitmap : IBitmap<Task<Stream>>
 2 {
 3     const byte bytesPerPixel = 4;
 4     int width;
 5     int height;
 6     double dpiX, dpiY;
 7     StorageFile photoFile;
 8     byte[] pixelData;
 9 
10     public Bitmap(StorageFile file)
11     {
12         photoFile = file;
13     }
14 
15     public void ToPixelArray()
16     {
17         throw new NotImplementedException();
18     }
19 
20     public async Task ToPixelArrayAsync()
21     {
22         var imageDataStream = await photoFile.OpenReadAsync();
23         var decoder = await BitmapDecoder.CreateAsync(imageDataStream);
24         var frame = await decoder.GetFrameAsync(0);
25         var dataProvider = await frame.GetPixelDataAsync(BitmapPixelFormat.Bgra8, BitmapAlphaMode.Straight, new BitmapTransform(), ExifOrientationMode.RespectExifOrientation, ColorManagementMode.DoNotColorManage);
26        
27         width = Convert.ToInt32(decoder.PixelWidth);
28         height = Convert.ToInt32(decoder.PixelHeight);
29         dpiX = decoder.DpiX;
30         dpiY = decoder.DpiY;
31 
32         pixelData = new byte[width * height * bytesPerPixel];
33         pixelData = dataProvider.DetachPixelData();
34 
35         imageDataStream.Dispose();
36     }
37 
38     public void TransformImage(Func<byte, byte, byte, double> pixelOperation)
39     {
40         byte r, g, b;
41 
42         try
43         {
44             // Pixel data order is BGRA
45             for (int i = 0; i < pixelData.Length; i += bytesPerPixel)
46             {
47                 b = pixelData[i];
48                 g = pixelData[i + 1];
49                 r = pixelData[i + 2];
50 
51                 // Leave alpha value intact
52                 pixelData[i] = pixelData[i + 1] = pixelData[i + 2] = (byte)pixelOperation(r, g, b);
53             }
54         }
55         catch (Exception ex)
56         {
57             Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
58         }
59     }
60 
61     public async Task<Stream> ToImage()
62     {
63         var ras = new InMemoryRandomAccessStream();
64         var encoder = await BitmapEncoder.CreateAsync(BitmapEncoder.JpegEncoderId, ras);
65         encoder.SetPixelData(BitmapPixelFormat.Bgra8, BitmapAlphaMode.Straight, (uint)width, (uint)height, dpiX, dpiY, pixelData);
66         await encoder.FlushAsync();
67         pixelData = null;
68         return ras.AsStream();
69     }
70 }

The ToPixelArrayAsync method is used to read and decode the photo, get the pixel data, and convert it to a byte array of raw pixel data. The image’s pixel data is formatted as 32 bits per pixel, with each pixel being composed of a Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha channel. Therefore, the pixelData array stores each pixel over four array elements (B, G, R, A).

The TransformImage method is used to perform an imaging operation on the pixel data, such as convert to greyscale. The method specifies a Func parameter that’s used to perform a per-pixel operation. The Func is passed from the Xamarin.Forms PCL project into the method, and operates on each pixel component. At the moment the TransformImage method is hard-coded to place the result of the Func into each pixel component. This is purely for my own test purposes, for implementing a ConvertToGreyscale Func. It can easily be modified to not duplicate the result of the Func across all four colour components.

The ToImage method is then used to place the transformed pixel data into an InMemoryRandomAccessStream that contains a JPEG encoded image.

The Bitmap class can then be invoked as follows:

 1 public async Task<Stream> TransformPhotoAsync(Func<byte, byte, byte, double> pixelOperation)
 2 {
 3     ...
 4 
 5     return await Task.Run(async () =>
 6     {
 7         var bitmap = new Bitmap(PhotoFile);
 8         await bitmap.ToPixelArrayAsync();
 9         bitmap.TransformImage(pixelOperation);
10         stream = await bitmap.ToImage();
11         return stream;
12     });
13 }

A new Bitmap instance is created, with a StorageFile being passed into the constructor. The photo is read and converted to an array of pixels, transformed by the pixelOperation Func, and then converted into JPEG image that’s returned as a Stream for display by a Xamarin.Forms Image control. All of this work is wrapped in a Task.Run in order for it to be executed on a background thread.

Summary

This blog post has described how to access and manipulate pixel data in a Xamarin.Forms WinRT project, by implementing the Bitmap class. The Bitmap class implements the IBitmap interface that’s provided by the Xamarin.Forms PCL project.

Accessing Image Pixel Data in a Xamarin.Forms App – Android

Previously, I’ve described a basic architecture for accessing and manipulating pixel data from a Xamarin.Forms project. A Xamarin.Forms PCL project defines the IBitmap interface, which specifies the operations that must be implemented in each platform-specific project to access and manipulate pixel data. I then explained the operation of the Bitmap class in the Xamarin.Forms.iOS project, which implements the IBitmap interface.

In this blog post I’ll explain the operation of the Bitmap class in the Xamarin.Forms Android project, which implements the IBitmap interface. The DependencyService can be used to invoke a method from the Xamarin.Forms PCL project, which in turn invokes IBitmap operations.

Disclaimer: The code featured here is alpha code, so all the usual caveats apply.

Implementation

The following code shows the Bitmap class implemented on Android:

 1 public class Bitmap : IBitmap<Android.Graphics.Bitmap>
 2 {
 3     const byte bytesPerPixel = 4;
 4     readonly int height;
 5     readonly int width;
 6     byte[] pixelData;
 7     Android.Graphics.Bitmap bitmap;
 8     string photoFile;
 9 
10     public Bitmap (string photo)
11     {
12         photoFile = photo;
13         var options = new BitmapFactory.Options {
14             InJustDecodeBounds = true
15         };
16 
17         // Bitmap will be null because InJustDecodeBounds = true
18         bitmap = BitmapFactory.DecodeFile (photoFile, options);
19         width = options.OutWidth;
20         height = options.OutHeight;
21     }
22 
23     public void ToPixelArray ()
24     {
25         bitmap = BitmapFactory.DecodeFile (photoFile);
26 
27         int size = width * height * bytesPerPixel;
28         pixelData = new byte[size];
29         var byteBuffer = Java.Nio.ByteBuffer.AllocateDirect (size);
30         bitmap.CopyPixelsToBuffer (byteBuffer);
31         Marshal.Copy (byteBuffer.GetDirectBufferAddress (), pixelData, 0, size);
32         byteBuffer.Dispose ();
33     }
34 
35     public void TransformImage (Func<byte, byte, byte, double> pixelOperation)
36     {
37         byte r, g, b;
38 
39         try {
40             // Pixel data order is RGBA
41             for (int i = 0; i < pixelData.Length; i += bytesPerPixel) {
42                 r = pixelData [i];
43                 g = pixelData [i + 1];
44                 b = pixelData [i + 2];
45 
46                 // Leave alpha value intact
47                 pixelData [i] = pixelData [i + 1] = pixelData [i + 2] = (byte)pixelOperation (r, g, b);
48             }
49         } catch (Exception ex) {
50             Console.WriteLine (ex.Message);
51         }
52     }
53 
54     public Android.Graphics.Bitmap ToImage ()
55     {
56         var byteBuffer = Java.Nio.ByteBuffer.AllocateDirect (width * height * bytesPerPixel);
57         Marshal.Copy (pixelData, 0, byteBuffer.GetDirectBufferAddress (), width * height * bytesPerPixel);
58         bitmap.CopyPixelsFromBuffer (byteBuffer);
59         byteBuffer.Dispose ();
60         return bitmap;
61     }
62 
63     public void Dispose ()
64     {
65         if (bitmap != null) {
66             bitmap.Recycle ();
67             bitmap.Dispose ();
68             bitmap = null;
69         }
70         pixelData = null;
71     }
72 }

The constructor reads and decodes the photo. Setting the InJustDecodeBounds property to true while decoding avoids allocating memory for the bitmap and hence returns null for the bitmap object, but does set the OutWidth, and OutHeight properties. This technique allows you to read the dimensions and type of the image data prior to construction (and memory allocation) of the bitmap.

The ToPixelArray method is used to read the photo to a Android.Graphics.Bitmap and convert it to a byte array of raw pixel data. The image’s pixel data is placed into a continuous sequence of bytes. It’s formatted as 32 bits per pixel, with each pixel being composed of a Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha channel. It’s then copied to the pixelData array. Therefore, the pixelData array stores each pixel over four array elements (R, G, B, A). It’s likely that the pixelData array is not required, and that the pixel data can be accessed directly through the ByteBuffer instance. I’ll be exploring this performance optimization at a later date.

The TransformImage method is used to perform an imaging operation on the pixel data, such as convert to greyscale. The method specifies a Func parameter that’s used to perform a per-pixel operation. The Func is passed from the Xamarin.Forms PCL project into the method, and operates on each pixel component. At the moment the TransformImage method is hard-coded to place the result of the Func into each pixel component. This is purely for my own test purposes, for implementing a ConvertToGreyscale Func. It can easily be modified to not duplicate the result of the Func across all four colour components.

The ToImage method is then used to place the transformed pixel data back into the Android.Graphics.Bitmap. Note that the ToImage method creates a 32 bit image. An overload could be provided to create a 8 bit image.

A Dispose method is also provided to clean up the Android.Graphics.Bitmap instance and byte array of pixels.

The Bitmap class can then be invoked as follows:

 1 public Task<Stream> TransformPhotoAsync (Func<byte, byte, byte, double> pixelOperation)
 2 {
 3     return Task.Run (() => {
 4         var bitmap = new Bitmap (photoPath);
 5         bitmap.ToPixelArray ();
 6         bitmap.TransformImage (pixelOperation);
 7         var androidBitmap = bitmap.ToImage ();
 8 
 9         var memoryStream = new MemoryStream ();
10         androidBitmap.Compress (Android.Graphics.Bitmap.CompressFormat.Jpeg, 80, memoryStream);
11         memoryStream.Seek (0L, SeekOrigin.Begin);
12         bitmap.Dispose ();
13 
14         return (Stream)memoryStream;
15     });
16 }

A new Bitmap instance is created, with the path to the photo being passed into the constructor. The photo is read and converted to an array of pixels, transformed by the pixelOperation Func, and then converted into a new Android.Graphics.Bitmap before being returned for display by a Xamarin.Forms Image control. All of this work is wrapped in a Task.Run in order for it to be executed on a background thread.

Summary

This blog post has described how to access and manipulate pixel data in a Xamarin.Forms Android project, by implementing the Bitmap class. The Bitmap class implements the IBitmap interface that’s provided by the Xamarin.Forms PCL project. My next blog post will explain the implementation of the IBitmap interface in WinRT.

Accessing Image Pixel Data in a Xamarin.Forms App – iOS

Previously, I’ve described a basic architecture for accessing and manipulating pixel data from a Xamarin.Forms project. A Xamarin.Forms PCL project defines the IBitmap interface, which specifies the operations that must be implemented in each platform-specific project to access and manipulate pixel data.

In this blog post I’ll explain the operation of the Bitmap class in the Xamarin.Forms iOS project, which implements the IBitmap interface. The DependencyService can be used to invoke a method from the Xamarin.Forms PCL project, which in turn invokes IBitmap operations.

Disclaimer: The code featured here is alpha code, so all the usual caveats apply.

Implementation

The following code shows the Bitmap class implementation on iOS:

 1     public class Bitmap : IBitmap<UIImage>
 2     {
 3         const byte bitsPerComponent = 8;
 4         const byte bytesPerPixel = 4;
 5         UIImage image;
 6         readonly int width;
 7         readonly int height;
 8         IntPtr rawData;
 9         byte[] pixelData;
10         UIImageOrientation orientation;
11 
12         public Bitmap (UIImage uiImage)
13         {
14             image = uiImage;
15             orientation = image.Orientation;
16             width = (int)image.CGImage.Width;
17             height = (int)image.CGImage.Height;
18         }
19 
20         public void ToPixelArray ()
21         {
22             using (var colourSpace = CGColorSpace.CreateDeviceRGB ()) {
23                 rawData = Marshal.AllocHGlobal (width * height * 4);
24                 using (var context = new CGBitmapContext (rawData, width, height, bitsPerComponent, bytesPerPixel * width, colourSpace, CGImageAlphaInfo.PremultipliedLast)) {
25                     context.DrawImage (new CGRect (0, 0, width, height), image.CGImage);
26                     pixelData = new byte[width * height * bytesPerPixel];
27                     Marshal.Copy (rawData, pixelData, 0, pixelData.Length);
28                     Marshal.FreeHGlobal (rawData);
29                 }
30             }
31         }
32 
33         public void TransformImage (Func<byte, byte, byte, double> pixelOperation)
34         {
35             byte r, g, b;
36 
37             // Pixel data order is RGBA
38             try {
39                 for (int i = 0; i < pixelData.Length; i += bytesPerPixel) {
40                     r = pixelData [i];
41                     g = pixelData [i + 1];
42                     b = pixelData [i + 2];
43 
44                     // Leave alpha value intact
45                     pixelData [i] = pixelData [i + 1] = pixelData [i + 2] = (byte)pixelOperation (r, g, b);
46                 }
47             } catch (Exception ex) {
48                 Console.WriteLine (ex.Message);
49             }
50         }
51 
52         public UIImage ToImage ()
53         {
54             using (var dataProvider = new CGDataProvider (pixelData, 0, pixelData.Length)) {
55                 using (var colourSpace = CGColorSpace.CreateDeviceRGB ()) {
56                     using (var cgImage = new CGImage (width, height, bitsPerComponent, bitsPerComponent * bytesPerPixel, bytesPerPixel * width, colourSpace, CGBitmapFlags.ByteOrderDefault, dataProvider, null, false, CGColorRenderingIntent.Default)) {
57                         image.Dispose ();
58                         image = null;
59                         pixelData = null;
60                         return UIImage.FromImage (cgImage, 0, orientation);
61                     }
62                 }
63             }
64         }
65     }

The ToPixelArray method is used to convert the UIImage to a byte array of raw pixel data. The image’s pixel data is placed into unmanaged memory through the DrawImage method, and is referenced through the rawData IntPtr. It’s formatted as 32 bits per pixel, with each pixel being composed of a Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha channel. It’s then copied to the managed pixelData array, before the unmanaged memory is freed. Therefore, the pixelData array stores each pixel over four array elements (R, G, B, A).

The TransformImage method is used to perform an imaging operation on the pixel data, such as convert to greyscale. The method specifies a Func parameter that’s used to perform a per-pixel operation. The Func is passed from the Xamarin.Forms PCL project into the method, and operates on each pixel component. At the moment the TransformImage method is hard-coded to place the result of the Func into each pixel component. This is purely for my own test purposes, for implementing a ConvertToGreyscale Func (see previous blog post). It can easily be modified to not duplicate the result of the Func across all four colour components.

The ToImage method is then used to place the transformed pixel data in a new UIImage, before performing some cleanup to allow managed memory to be reclaimed. Note that the ToImage method creates a 32 bit image. An overload could be provided to create a 8 bit image.

The Bitmap class can then be invoked as follows:

1 public Task<Stream> TransformPhotoAsync (Func<byte, byte, byte, double> pixelOperation)
2 {
3     return Task.Run (() => {
4         var bitmap = new Bitmap (image);
5         bitmap.ToPixelArray ();
6         bitmap.TransformImage (pixelOperation);
7         return bitmap.ToImage ().AsJPEG ().AsStream ();
8     });
9 }

A new Bitmap instance is created, with a UIImage instance being passed into the constructor. The UIImage is converted to an array of pixels, transformed by the pixelOperation Func, and then converted into a new UIImage before being returned for display by a Xamarin.Forms Image control. All of this work is wrapped in a Task.Run in order for it to be executed on a background thread.

Summary

This blog post has described how to access and manipulate pixel data in a Xamarin.Forms iOS project, by implementing the Bitmap class. The Bitmap class implements the IBitmap interface that’s provided by the Xamarin.Forms PCL project. My next blog post will explain the implementation of the IBitmap interface on Android.