What are Pages in Xamarin.Forms?

In Xamarin.Forms, Pages are the primary building blocks for creating the user interface of a cross-platform mobile application. Each Page represents a screen in the application and can contain various UI elements and layouts. Pages in Xamarin.Forms derive from the Page class and are designed to occupy most or all of the screen space. They are analogous to ViewController in iOS, Page in the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and Activity in Android, although Xamarin.Forms Pages are not Activity objects on Android[1][2][5].

Types of Pages in Xamarin.Forms

Xamarin.Forms supports several types of Pages, each serving different purposes and providing different navigation and layout capabilities:

1. ContentPage:

   • The simplest and most common type of page.
   • Contains a single View object, which is often a layout such as StackLayout, Grid, or ScrollView.
   • Used for displaying a single screen of content[1][2][7].

2. FlyoutPage (formerly known as MasterDetailPage):

   • Manages two panes of information: a flyout (menu) and a detail page.
   • The Flyout property is typically set to a page showing a list or menu, while the Detail property shows the selected item from the flyout.
   • The IsPresented property controls whether the flyout or detail page is visible[1][2][5].

3. NavigationPage:

   • Manages navigation among other pages using a stack-based architecture.
   • Allows for pushing and popping pages onto and off the navigation stack.
   • Typically used for applications that require hierarchical navigation[1][2][5].

4. TabbedPage:

   • Allows navigation among child pages using tabs.
   • The Children property is set to a collection of pages, or the ItemsSource property is set to a collection of data objects with an ItemTemplate describing how each object is visually represented.
   • Useful for applications that need to organize content into different categories accessible via tabs[1][2][5].

5. CarouselPage:

   • Allows navigation among child pages through finger swiping.
   • Similar to TabbedPage, but uses a swipe gesture for navigation.
   • The Children property is set to a collection of ContentPage objects, or the ItemsSource property is set to a collection of data objects with an ItemTemplate[1][2][5].

6. TemplatedPage:

   • Displays full-screen content with a control template.
   • Serves as the base class for ContentPage and allows for more advanced templating and styling[1][2].

Example Usage

Here is a simple example o...