BREAKING CHANGE: UITextField now uses XAML Textbox and PasswordBox controls behind the scenes

[nicholasgerard-msft]

With this week’s release comes a change to UITextField we wanted to share some more information about. We have replaced the previous custom implementation of UITextField with one that uses the XAML TextBox and PasswordBox controls behind the scenes. This change should be fully transparent for any app that’s using the current implementation since the new implementation offers the same feature set as the previous one – as well as a few additional features.

Here is a summary of what comes with this new implementation compared to what’s available today:

Feature	Current implementation	New implementation
Text Color	Yes	Yes
Background Color	Yes	Yes
Alignment	No	Yes
Font	No	No
Text	Yes	Yes
Placeholder	Yes	Yes
TintColor	No	No
SecureMode	Yes	Yes
Border	Yes	Yes
SpellCheck	No	Yes
InputScope	No	Yes
Delegates	Yes	Yes
Notifications	Yes	Yes
ArrowKey support	No	Yes
Mouse selection	No	Yes
Copy and Paste	No	Between XAML backed controls only
Participate in iOS hit testing	Yes	No
Text input entry works on phone and tablet	No	Yes

Known issue: the one thing we lost with the new implementation is the participation of the UITextField control in the iOS hit-testing mechanism. That means, for instance, that scrolling on a UITextField embedded in a view will no longer trigger the view to scroll. The view will only scroll if the gesture is being done outside of the UITextField.