Relative time formatting in Xamarin Forms

A good UX practice is to use a relative time formatting instead of showing dates using normal date formats. It helps the user to have a quick sense of the timeframe without having to calculate exactly when it happened, also provides a better look and feel to your app.

You can see this commonly used in applications like Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, etc. Because is easier to read “2 minutes ago” than “9:23 2/3/18”.

One great way to do this in Xamarin Forms is by using converters. In the following steps will show you how to get all set with relative time formatting:

Create your converter

Add the converter to your page

Use the converter

You can find the full source code of this sample here:

https://github.com/CrossGeeks/RelativeTimeSample

References:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11/calculate-relative-time-in-c-sharp
http://uxmovement.com/content/absolute-vs-relative-timestamps-when-to-use-which/

Happy date formatting!