Xamarin Forms View only renders when Added as a child in the codebehind - mvvm

Question

I have a custom View that I am trying to pass as List<T> to. For some reason when trying to load the page the app throws a System.ArrayTypeMismatchException.
Here is the class:
public class DiaryCalendarCustomView : View
{
MiscFunctions misctools = new MiscFunctions();
private List<DiaryNextContactEventModel> _eventList = new List<DiaryNextContactEventModel>();
public List<DiaryNextContactEventModel> EventList
{
get { return _eventList; }
set { _eventList = value; }
}
public void SetSelectedDate (DateTime selectedDate)
{
SelectedDate = selectedDate;
Settings.Current.NextContactContactDate = selectedDate.ToLocalTime();
}
public DateTime SelectedDate { get; set; }
public DiaryCalendarCustomView()
{
}
}
View Model:
private List<DiaryNextContactEventModel> _eventList = new List<DiaryNextContactEventModel>();
public List<DiaryNextContactEventModel> EventList
{
get { return _eventList; }
set { SetProperty(ref _eventList, value); }
}
When I add static data to the EventList object it works fine and when I remove the Binding from the XAML view it works as well. So the issue appears to be that xamarin is trying to convert my list into another type of enumerable and that's where it is failing.
XAML:
<Grid VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand">
<Grid.Children>
<partials:DiaryCalendarCustomView EventList="{Binding EventList}"/>
</Grid.Children>
</Grid>
Debugging and searching around hasn't really offered anything useful. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

If you want to use custom property in XAML, you need to declare it in your view. Your code seems fine, just follow some tutorial like this: Creating Custom Controls with Bindable Properties in Xamarin.Forms and add the missing pieces, so the property definiton and propertyChanged method:
public static readonly BindableProperty EventListProperty = BindableProperty.Create(
propertyName: "EventList",
returnType: typeof(List<DiaryNextContactEventModel>),
declaringType: typeof(DiaryCalendarCustomView),
defaultValue: "",
defaultBindingMode: BindingMode.TwoWay,
propertyChanged: EventListPropertyChanged);
and also:
private static void EventListPropertyChanged(BindableObject bindable, object oldValue, object newValue)
{
var view = (DiaryCalendarCustomView) bindable;
view.EventList = (List<DiaryNextContactEventModel>) newValue;
}
Also make sure that your class implements INotifyPropertyChanged interface, so when you change EventList in EventListPropertyChanged, the view will get reloaded