Blur and Vibrancy effects for iOS and iPadOS with Xamarin.Forms

Installation

• Install the NuGet package Vibrancy.Forms to your projects: The shared project and the platform projects.
• Head over to your AppDelegate.cs in your iOS project and initialize Vibrancy.Forms in the method FinishedLaunching().

...

global::Xamarin.Forms.Forms.Init();

Vibrancy.Forms.iOS.VibrancyForms.Init();    <--

LoadApplication(new App());

...

• In your XAML UI, add the Vibrancy.Forms namespace.

xmlns:vf="clr-namespace:Vibrancy.Forms;assembly=Vibrancy.Forms"

• Once this is done, you can use the BlurView like any other view.

<vf:BlurView>
    <StackLayout>
        ...
    </StackLayout>
</vf:BlurView>

⚠️ The BlurView needs to have exactly one child view.

• Customize the BlurStyle and the Vibrancy effect as you like.

<vf:BlurView
    BlurStyle="Light"
    EnableVibrancy="True">
    ...
</vf:BlurView>

Note that the BlurStyles Regular and Prominent will automatically adapt to the system theme (light or dark) - this is true for the Vibrancy effect as well. If you choose another BlurStyle like ExtraLight or ExtraDark, you'll have to adjust these manually.

iOS / iPadOS only

Despite being a Xamarin.Forms plugin, Vibrancy.Forms is not cross-platform. It is designed for iOS and iPadOS only.

Why?

While blur effects can be achieved on all major platforms, vibrancy effects are "Apple-only". I started this project because I wanted to have both, blur and vibrancy effects in my iOS and iPadOS apps. However, vibrancy was not provided by any existing plugin.

This means I am done at this point. I do not plan to implement other platforms. I won't reinvent existing cross-platform plugins.

So if you want to have beautiful cross-platform blurs, I highly recommend using Sharpnado.MaterialFrame by Jean-Marie Alfonsi. But you'll have to live without vibrancy effects then.

Why Xamarin.Forms for "Apple-only"?

Xamarin.Forms really is an awesome cross-platform solution. But even if you're lucky enough to skip Android and UWP and go for iOS and iPadOS only, Xamarin.Forms is still a very attractive option, becaue you can make use of high level abstractions like the ListView or the Shell navigation without going too deep into UIKit and friends.

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Special thanks once again to our friends at Freepik from www.flaticon.com for the awesome package icon.