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SearchBar style on iOS

This iOS platform-specific controls whether a SearchBar has a background. It's consumed in XAML by setting the SearchBar.SearchBarStyle bindable property to a value of the UISearchBarStyle enumeration:

<ContentPage ...
             xmlns:ios="clr-namespace:Xamarin.Forms.PlatformConfiguration.iOSSpecific;assembly=Xamarin.Forms.Core">
    <StackLayout>
        <SearchBar ios:SearchBar.SearchBarStyle="Minimal"
                   Placeholder="Enter search term" />
        ...
    </StackLayout>
</ContentPage>

Alternatively, it can be consumed from C# using the fluent API:

using Xamarin.Forms.PlatformConfiguration;
using Xamarin.Forms.PlatformConfiguration.iOSSpecific;
...

SearchBar searchBar = new SearchBar { Placeholder = "Enter search term" };
searchBar.On<iOS>().SetSearchBarStyle(UISearchBarStyle.Minimal);

The SearchBar.On<iOS> method specifies that this platform-specific will only run on iOS. The SearchBar.SetSearchBarStyle method, in the Xamarin.Forms.PlatformConfiguration.iOSSpecific namespace, is used to control whether the SearchBar has a background. The UISearchBarStyle enumeration provides three possible values:

  • Default indicates that the SearchBar has the default style. This is the default value of the SearchBar.SearchBarStyle bindable property.
  • Prominent indicates that the SearchBar has a translucent background, and the search field is opaque.
  • Minimal indicates that the SearchBar has no background, and the search field is translucent.

In addition, the SearchBar.GetSearchBarStyle method can be used to return the UISearchBarStyle that's applied to the SearchBar.

The result is that a specified UISearchBarStyle member is applied to a SearchBar, which controls whether the SearchBar has a background:

Screenshot of SearchBar styles, on iOS

The following screenshots show the UISearchBarStyle members applied to SearchBar objects that have their BackgroundColor property set:

Screenshot of SearchBar styles with background color, on iOS