Separators in Xamarin.Forms

Question

I'd like to use horizontal separator lines in a form. As far as I found out, Xamarin.Forms doesn't provide one.

Could someone provide a snippet for separators?

UPDATE 1

According to Jason's proposal, this looks fine:

// draws a separator line and space of 5 above and below the separator    
new BoxView() { Color = Color.White, HeightRequest = 5  },
new BoxView() { Color = Color.Gray, HeightRequest = 1, Opacity = 0.5  },
new BoxView() { Color = Color.White, HeightRequest = 5  },

Renders the below separator line:

Solution 1

You might try using BoxView

// sl is a StackLayout
sl.Children.Add(new BoxView() { Color = Color.Black, WidthRequest = 100, HeightRequest = 2 });

although in my test, the width request is not being followed. This may be a bug, or other settings might be interfering with it.

Solution 2

You can define your own separator line in the app.xaml file.

<Style x:Key="Separator" TargetType="BoxView">
            <Setter Property="HeightRequest" Value="1" />
            <Setter Property="HorizontalOptions" Value="FillAndExpand" />
            <Setter Property="Color" Value="Gray" />
            <Setter Property="Margin" Value="0, 5, 0, 5" />
            <Setter Property="Opacity" Value="0.5" />
</Style>

And use it as Style.

<BoxView Style="{StaticResource Separator}" />

Solution 3

There is actually a method to display the separators in Xamarin.Forms:

myListView.SeparatorVisibility = Xamarin.Forms.SeparatorVisibility.Default;
myListView.SeparatorColor = Color.FromHex("C8C7CC");

And to hide:

myListView.SeparatorVisibility = Xamarin.Forms.SeparatorVisibility.None;

Hope it helps!

Solution 4

@Jason In addition to Jason answer you should set VerticalOptions to be able to use HeightRequest, and set HorizontalOptions to be able to use WidthRequest. default values are fill so that is why it does not respond. Example output

<BoxView   VerticalOptions="Center"
           HorizontalOptions="Center"
           HeightRequest="1"
           WidthRequest="50"  
           Color="#5b5d68"></BoxView>

Solution 5

Another way of implementing BoxView in a StackLayout using Xaml.

This should do it

<StackLayout Orientation="Vertical">
       <Label HorizontalTextAlignment="Center" Text="Header" />
       <BoxView HeightRequest="1" BackgroundColor="Black" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" />
</StackLayout>

View more solutions

Comments

[SteAp]

Thx! That did the trick. Doesn't respect the WidthRequest over here too.

[Jon]

Thanks for this, while this wasn't exactly what he wanted, it was what I was looking for!

[Rexxo]

Thanks! Width is annoying but otherwise works for me!

[Matt]

Why not use the spacing property of the stacklayout? Just have the containing control have a different background color?

[jbyrd]

I believe the width request is not being respected because it's overridden by the default HorizontalOptions, which is Fill. In order to get the desired width of 100, you'd need to set HorizontalOptions to any other value, like "Start", "Center", or "End".

[pollaris]

Excellent. WidthRequest controls line length.

[Vasil Popov]

I think this is the best and most clean solution here. Thanks.