Emblazon - Home of Blaxamarin and BlinForms

What is Emblazon?

Emblazon enables using Blazor to target native UI renderers (as opposed to web/HTML renderers). This repo contains implementations that target Xamarin.Forms and Windows Forms.

Start Emblazoning!

Required software to use Emblazon and for contributors

Emblazon and its related projects require:

1. Visual Studio 2019 16.3 or newer
   • For Blaxamarin, the Xamarin workload must be enabled in Visual Studio
   • For BlinForms, you must run on Windows (that's the in of BlinForms!)
2. .NET Core 3.0 SDK

Create a Blaxamarin project

1. In Visual Studio, create a Xamarin.Forms Mobile App project

2. Select the Blank app template

3. Add the Emblazon NuGet package feed by adding a new NuGet.config file to the solution directory:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <configuration>
       <packageSources>
       <add key="Emblazon Feed" value="https://devdiv.pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/Emblazon/nuget/v3/index.json" />
       </packageSources>
   </configuration>
   

4. In the solution's shared project (the one that isn't Android or iOS), make these changes:

   1. Change the top <Project> node to use the Razor SDK <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Razor">
   2. In the <PropertyGroup> section, add this node to set the Razor language version: <RazorLangVersion>3.0</RazorLangVersion>
   3. Add a reference to Blaxamarin in the <ItemGroup> containing other package references: <PackageReference Include="Blaxamarin.Framework" Version="0.1.54-beta" /> (update to a newer build as needed)
   4. Delete MainPage.xaml and MainPage.xaml.cs
   5. Delete App.xaml and App.xaml.cs
   6. Add a new class file called App.cs to the project
   7. Add these using statements:

   using Blaxamarin.Framework;
   using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
   using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
   using Xamarin.Forms;
   

   1. Replace the app class's code with this code:

    public class App : Application
    {
        public App()
        {
            var host = Host.CreateDefaultBuilder()
                .ConfigureServices((hostContext, services) =>
                {
                    // Register app-specific services
                })
                .Build();
   
            host.Services.AddComponent<MainPage>(parent: this);
        }
   
        protected override void OnStart()
        {
            // Handle when your app starts
        }
   
        protected override void OnSleep()
        {
            // Handle when your app sleeps
        }
   
        protected override void OnResume()
        {
            // Handle when your app resumes
        }
    }
   

   1. Add a Razor Component to the project named _Imports.razor with these contents:

    @using Blaxamarin.Framework.Elements
    @using Xamarin.Forms
   

   1. Add a Razor Component to the project named MainPage.razor

    <ContentPage>
        <StackLayout>
            <Button Text="Add!" OnClick="@OnAdd" />
            <Label Text="@($"The button has been clicked {counter} times!")" />
        </StackLayout>
    </ContentPage>
   
    @code {
        int counter;
   
        void OnAdd()
        {
            counter++;
        }
    }
   

5. You're ready to go! Run the Android or iOS project to launch your new Blaxamarin-based app!

NuGet feed

Browse the latest packages here: https://devdiv.visualstudio.com/Personal/_packaging?_a=feed&feed=Emblazon

Solution structure

There are 3 main areas:

1. Emblazon - Base framework for Blazor rendering to native UI frameworks.
2. BlinForms - Blazor rendering to Windows Forms.
   • Check out the BlinForms sample app.
3. Blaxamarin - Blazor rendering to Xamarin.Forms.
   • Check out the Blaxamarin sample app.

Comparison projects

To compare Blaxamarin with Xamarin.Forms, see the Xamarin.Forms Todo XAML sample.