xamarin.formsautoscroll

How to add auto scroll for Entry placeholder?


I am using an Entry (CustomEntry with no underline) like below:

Code:

<renderer:CustomEntry
    x:Name="search_entry"
    Placeholder="Search by request id, requester's name, title, or description"
    Style="{StaticResource SearchEntryStyle}"/>

Screenshot:

enter image description here

The placeholder text is lengthy, so it's not possible to read the complete text of it. Is there any way to add an auto scroll for the Entry placeholder?


Solution

  • I don't think there is an easy way to do this using the Entry control itself, e.g. with a custom renderer.

    However, perhaps you can fake it by binding the Placeholder to a property in the code-behind or ViewModel and then update the text and make it look like it scrolls by removing the characters at the beginning one-by-one.

    Here's a sample implementation with a timer which updates the placeholder every 200 milliseconds, but you can of course also do it differently:

    Xamarin.Forms

    public class SomeViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        private const string Placeholder = "This is a very long text for a placeholder of an Entry that seems to be animated... ";
    
        private string _placeholderText = Placeholder;
        public string PlaceholderText
        {
            get => _placeholderText;
            set
            {
                if(_placeholderText == value) return;
                _placeholderText = value;
                OnPropertyChanged();
            }
        }
    
        public SomeViewModel()
        {
            Device.StartTimer(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200), () =>
            {
                var firstChar = PlaceholderText[0];
                var sb = new StringBuilder(PlaceholderText);
                sb.Remove(0, 1);
                sb.Append(firstChar);
                PlaceholderText = sb.ToString();
    
                return true;
            });        
        }
    
        //...
    }
    

    .NET MAUI

    In .NET MAUI, the implementation is essentially the same, except that you'll need to use a DispatcherTimer instead of the deprecated DeviceTimer:

    public SomeViewModel()
    {
        var timer = Application.Current.Dispatcher.CreateTimer();
        timer.Interval = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200);
        timer.Tick += (s, e) =>
        {
            var firstChar = PlaceholderText[0];
            var sb = new StringBuilder(PlaceholderText);
            sb.Remove(0, 1);
            sb.Append(firstChar);
            PlaceholderText = sb.ToString();
        };
        timer.Start();
    }
    

    Binding the Placeholder

    Then in your View, you can bind to the PlaceholderText property:

    <renderer:CustomEntry
        x:Name="search_entry"
        Placeholder="{Binding PlaceholderText}"
        Style="{StaticResource SearchEntryStyle}"/>