Unable to add xamarin.forms.map control to Xamarin Form

Question

I want to add a map control to my android app. To do this I have got the latest xamarin.forms and xamarin.forms.maps packages from Nuget.

My code behind logic does nothing at all, and my axml page looks like as below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:maps="clr-namespace:Xamarin.Forms.Maps;assembly=Xamarin.Forms.Maps"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    xmlns:d="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms/design"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    mc:Ignorable="d">
        <LinearLayout
            android:orientation="vertical"
            android:minWidth="25px"
            android:minHeight="25px"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:id="@+id/optionsContainerLinearLayout">
           //Other UI elements
        <maps:Map>
        </maps:Map>
        </LinearLayout>
...
</LinearLayout>

Note I've but no tags within maps:Map so as to provide minimal chance for errors. Note that when I populate this map with more properties as directly below, the code still breaks in the same way:

<map:Map
        android:minWidth="25px"
        android:minHeight="25px"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:id="@+id/mockMapView">
</map:Map>

When I run this application, it breaks on SetContentView() with the error:

Didn't find class "android.view.Map" on path: DexPathList
[[zip file "/system/framework/org.apache.http.legacy.boot.jar", zip file "/data/app/com.geosolve.pavestate2-fJtHBLcT2gY6AlUrxcOOVg==/base.apk"],
nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/com.geosolve.pavestate2-fJtHBLcT2gY6AlUrxcOOVg==/lib/x86, /data/app/com.geosolve.pavestate2-fJtHBLcT2gY6AlUrxcOOVg==/base.apk!/lib/x86, /system/lib]]

I've got another sample xamarin application I downloaded which runs fine on my emulator, so I don't think the emulator is the problem. I have my API key being used by this other application as well, so I don't think the API key is the problem either.

My androidManifest.xml looks like so:

...
    <application android:allowBackup="true" android:icon="@mipmap/icon" android:label="@string/app_name" android:roundIcon="@mipmap/icon" android:supportsRtl="true" android:theme="@style/GeosolveApp">
        <meta-data android:name="com.google.android.maps.v2.API_KEY" android:value="(My API Key)" />
    <meta-data
    android:name="com.google.android.gms.version"
    android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version" />
    </application>
...

Any help as to why this isn;'t just showing up like you would expect?

Answer 1

For Xamarin.Android,we usually install the Xamarin.GooglePlayServices.Maps package from NuGet.

And add the map in your xaml like:

Declaratively :

<fragment xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="match_parent"
   android:id="@+id/map"
   class="com.google.android.gms.maps.SupportMapFragment" /> 

Programmatically :

var mapFrag = MapFragment.NewInstance();
activity.FragmentManager.BeginTransaction()
                        .Add(Resource.Id.map_container, mapFrag, "map_fragment")
                        .Commit();

the more you could read Google Maps.