Creating a "toast"

Question

I have been trying to get similar functionality to an Android "toast" using Xamarin forms. After looking around, I found what I think is a good solution. The general approach appears to be to make a new Absolute layout, and make it appear for a set time, then disappear. While I think I generally understand what is being done, I can't seem to get it to work. Can anyone suggest how I would use this class if I want to make a toast appear in my MainPage? Should I be adding an AbsoluteLayout in the XAML file? Sorry, I'm sure this is a simple question, but I can't really figure out what to do...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

public static class Popper
{
    public async static Task Pop (string message, AbsoluteLayout attachLayout, int showforMilliseconds = 1500)
    {
        var container = new StackLayout
        {
            HorizontalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center,
            VerticalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center,
            BackgroundColor = Color.FromHex ("#DDEFEFEF"),
            Padding = 10
        };

        var label = new Label
        {
            Text = message,
            FontAttributes = FontAttributes.Bold,
            Style = (Style)Application.Current.Resources["PopupText"]
        };

        container.Children.Add (label);

        container.Scale = 0;
        container.Opacity = 0;

        attachLayout.Children.Add (container, attachLayout.Bounds, AbsoluteLayoutFlags.PositionProportional);
        container.ScaleTo (1.0f, 100);
        container.FadeTo (1.0f, 100);

        await Task.Delay (showforMilliseconds);

        container.ScaleTo (0.0f, 250);
        await container.FadeTo (0.0f, 250);
        attachLayout.Children.Remove (container);
    }
}

Answer 1

On Android you don't have to reinvent the wheel since Toast exists natively. On other platforms there is no such thing like Toast, therefor there is no silver-bullet solution here. This problem have been solved by multiple people in multiple ways, thats why I left a comment that your question might be a duplicate of existing thread with multiple examples.

Now about your idea. Your implementation is working, however it will show Toast only on an AbsoluteLayout. Why to set such a restriction? If you will recheck the link I shared in comments you will find a more appropriate and elegant solutions.

I can't seem to get it to work.

All you need is a an AbsoluteLayout on your page so you could call your method:

await Popper.Pop("Hello world", referenceToYourAbsoluteLayout, 5000);

If you still for some reason want to stick to this exact solution, maybe it will make sense to have an extension method instead. However this solution just does not make sense for the average user.

P.S: Once again, please check the existing thread for more information and details.

P.S.S: Usage example of your code snippet

<!-- XXXPage.xaml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ContentPage
    xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:XXX"
    x:Class="XXX.XXXPage">
    <AbstractLayout x:name="myLayout />
</ContentPage>

// XXXPage.xaml.cs
public partial class XXXPage : ContentPage
{
    public Test999Page()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

    }

    async protected override void OnAppearing()
    {
        base.OnAppearing();
        await Popper.Pop("Hello world", myLayout, 5000);
    }
}