Global styles from a XAML file in Xamarin.Forms

So I’m learning Xamarin.Forms and there is a simple (in Windows 8, at least) thing I want to do. I want to make a master style form in XAML for all my various styles. The thing is, as of right now Xamarin.Forms doesn’t support this. Well, I found a way to do it.

What you need to do, is create a ContentPage to hold your styles. Something like this:

  
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
             x:Class="SharedProject.Styles.GlobalStyles">

	<ContentPage.Resources>
		<ResourceDictionary>
			<Style x:Key="ContentLabelStyle" TargetType="Label">
				<Setter Property="Label.TextColor" Value="Navy"/>
        		<Setter Property="Label.LineBreakMode" Value="WordWrap"/>
        		<Setter Property="Label.FontSize" Value="25"/>
			</Style>

			<Style x:Key="HeaderLabelStyle" TargetType="Label" BasedOn="{StaticResource ContentLabelStyle}">
				<Setter Property="Label.Font" Value="Bold, Large"/>
			</Style>
		</ResourceDictionary>
	</ContentPage.Resources>
</ContentPage>		

Essentially what we’re doing is outsourcing the style holding to another page. As a result, we’ll need to apply that page’s local Resources to our App level Resources. You’ll want to add two lines to your App.cs constructor:

 
// Your file path may be different.
var globalStyles = new SharedProject.Styles.GlobalStyles ();
Resources = globalStyles.Resources;

So it’ll look like this:

 
public App ()
{
    var globalStyles = new SharedProject.Styles.GlobalStyles ();
    Resources = globalStyles.Resources;

    // The root page of your application
    MainPage = new ContentPage {
		Content = new StackLayout {
			VerticalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center,
			Children = {
				new Label {
					XAlign = TextAlignment.Center,
					Text = "Welcome to Xamarin Forms!"
				}
			}
		}
	};
}

And that’s it. Now all those styles are accessible from all your pages as a StaticResource. I haven’t tested this with templates, but I’m guessing the same will hold true. I’ll update with more as I complete those tests.