AvaloniaView in an iOS Extension

[tkefauver]

I'm making an iOS custom keyboard and can't get an AvaloniaView to load properly into the UIInputViewController.View from viewDidLoad(). It crashes unless I create the AvaloniaView in a Dispatcher.UIThread frame but doing UIInputViewController.View.AddSubView inside Dispatcher.UIThread appears to have no affect when showing the keyboard.

Also should mention I implemented IAvaloniaViewController and call AvaloniaView.InitWithController but that doesn't change anything either.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[tkefauver]

Maybe actual code might help.

This crashes the extension (log says Connection to plugin interrupted while in use):

public class KeyboardViewController : UIInputViewController {
...
     public override void ViewDidLoad() {
         base.ViewDidLoad();
         InputView.AddSubview(new AvaloniaView());
     }
}

This has no affect:

public class KeyboardViewController : UIInputViewController {
...
     public override void ViewDidLoad() {
         base.ViewDidLoad();
         Dispatcher.UIThread.Post(()=>{
                InputView.AddSubview(new AvaloniaView());
         });
     }
}

Is there someway to associate Avalonia w/ an existing ViewController? Keyboard extensions aren't normal apps (no AppDelegate or Application) so I think I maybe out of luck here.

[tkefauver]

@maxkatz6 from Instruments the keyboard's memory use is like ~70mb. I tried both OpenGL and Metal they're basically the same. I know on windows software rendering lowers the footprint. Is there any way to trim it down?

[maxkatz6]

You can try to publish app with NativeAOT https://github.com/xamarin/xamarin-macios/blob/main/docs/nativeaot.md

[tkefauver]

70mb is running on the device so AOT is already enabled.

[tkefauver]

Oh duh I didn't realize aot/nativeAot are different, I'll try that tomorrow!

[maxkatz6]

Yeah, it's different. Binary size might be bigger, but it should consume less memory as well - since there is no JIT and in-memory code compilation.

[maxkatz6]

You likely can skip IAvaloniaViewController/InitWithController part, as it's only used for insets manager.