How can I use Xamarin's Storyboard and F#

Question

since its not (yet) possible to use the Storyboard for generating classes and glue code. I had the idea to write the F# classes on my own and do the glueing myself.

So I written this loading of the Storyboard namespace

open System
open MonoTouch.UIKit
open MonoTouch.Foundation

[<Register("AppDelegate")>]
type AppDelegate() = 
    inherit UIApplicationDelegate()

    member val window = null with get, set

    override this.FinishedLaunching(app, options) = 
        this.window <- new UIWindow(UIScreen.MainScreen.Bounds)
        let Storyboard = UIStoryboard.FromName("MainStoryboard", null)
        this.window.RootViewController <- Storyboard.InstantiateInitialViewController() :?> UIViewController
        this.window.MakeKeyAndVisible()
        true

module Main = 
    [<EntryPoint>]
    let main args = 
        UIApplication.Main(args, null, "AppDelegate")
        0

and the following controller class

open System
open System.Drawing
open MonoTouch.UIKit
open MonoTouch.Foundation

[<Register("HomeController")>]
type HomeController() = 
    inherit UIViewController()

    override this.ViewDidLoad() = 
        base.ViewDidLoad()
        System.Console.WriteLine("FOO!")

Then I created the Storyboard (see attached pictures).

AND - everything gets loaded and the storyboard works fine - One exception: ViewDidLoadnever gets called. Obviously I was not successful in attaching my hand coded controller.

Does anybody have an idea how do accomplish this?

Answer 1

I found the answer. Instead of creating a Controller without parameters

[<Register("HomeController")>]
type HomeController() = 
    inherit UIViewController()

One must create a controller with an pointer and init the base controller with that pointer too.

[<Register("HomeController")>]
type HomeController(handle:IntPtr) = 
    inherit UIViewController(handle)

To attach the controls on the view with the view controller (eg attach the button named "Clicker")

one has to add the following code to your view controller

[<Register("HomeController")>]
type HomeController(handle:IntPtr) = 
    inherit UIViewController(handle)

    let mutable _Clicker = new UIButton()

    [<Outlet>]
    member this.Clicker 
           with get() = _Clicker
           and set value = _Clicker <- value

Answer 2

There's also an iOS type provider that's still considered experimental. You can try the template here https://github.com/nosami/ios-type-provider-template but this only works with the built in storyboard designer.

The myButton identifier here is provided by the type provider based on the controls in the storyboard.