How can I obtain current Shell Content Page reference in Xamarin App Shell?

Question

I am developing a Xamarin Forms app using App Shell.

I found that I had to handle android hardware back button in AppShell.xaml.cs for a ShellContent Page, instead of ShellContent Page.

protected override bool OnBackButtonPressed()
{
  //Get currernt shell content and call its method
  //like (Shell.Current.Content as MyContentPage).MyMethod();
}

1) How can I obtain current Shell Content Page reference in AppShell.xaml.cs?

2) How can I change current Shell Content Page programmatically without routing ?

Best regards.

Answer 1

It took quite a bit of digging, but I found a public Shell interface that meets this need. If you cast your ShellSection as an IShellSectionController you can use the PresentedPage property get the current Page object. Below is a code snippet, YMMV.

(Shell.Current?.CurrentItem?.CurrentItem as IShellSectionController)?.PresentedPage

Answer 2

I know this is a bit of a late answer, but I noticed that now there is a simpler solution than the solutions presented at the moment:

Shell.Current?.CurrentPage;

Answer 3

In my case,I had bottom tabs with shell and wanted to get values from a tab when on a different tab, I modified @Nick W answer to achieve that using:

(Shell.Current.CurrentItem.Items[0] as IShellSectionController).PresentedPage

where index 0 refers to the first page in the Tabbar collection.