Service Reference

Services act as a repository of accessible behavior and data, and can be used for a variety of purposes, from implementing commands and operations, to managing shared data, to interfacing with the REST API of an external service.

Service Registration

All services need to be registered with Geocortex Mobile. A service is created by extending the ServiceBase class and registering the service class with Autofac through an assembly attribute.

note

Geocortex Mobile uses Autofac to register, locate, and inject components, services and other classes. See dependency injection for more info.

[assembly: Service(typeof(CustomService), PropertiesAutowired = true)]
namespace App1.Services
{
    class CustomService : ServiceBase
    {
        ...
    }
}

Service Lifecycle

On application load, all services that have been registered with wih Geocortex Mobile are first created and then initialized.

Services are destroyed (i.e. the _onDestroy method is invoked) when the application is destroyed, e.g. when killing the application or switching applications in Geocortex Go.

Initialization and Teardown

Services have an initialization method, which can be used to perform asynchronous startup logic, and a teardown method, which can be used to free resources when the application is destroyed.

important

Always call base.Dispose(disposing) when overriding the Dispose method. ServiceBase already implements IDisposable and IDisposableTracker, so only override the Dispose method if you have created new managed resources which need to be cleaned up.

To learn more about memory management in Geocortex Mobile, check out this article, and the relevant SDK sample.

[assembly: Service(typeof(CustomService), PropertiesAutowired = true)]
namespace App1.Services
{
    class CustomService : ServiceBase
    {
        private bool disposed = false;

        public CustomService()
            : base()
        {
            // On creation logic here

        }
        protected override async Task DoInitialize()
        {
            // Async on initialization logic here
            return;
        }

        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposed)
            {
                return;
            }

            if (disposing)
            {
                // Clean up managed resources.
                // ...
            }

            // Clean up unmanaged resources.
            // ...

            base.Dispose(disposing);

            disposed = true;
        }


    }
}

Dependency Injection

Services interact with the larger application by injecting their dependencies. Services can inject commands and operations, other services, and any other class registered with Autofac.

The following example injects the UI operations and the dialog controller into a custom service.

note

Services are not intended to directly interact with each other. Instead, services should implement operations which can be called by other services to indirectly interact.

[assembly: Service(typeof(CustomService), PropertiesAutowired = true)]
namespace App1.Services
{
    class CustomService : ServiceBase
    {
        private UIOperations _uiOperations;
        private IDialogController _dialogController;

        public CustomService(UIOperations uiOperations, IDialogController dialogController)
            : base()
        {
            _uiOperations = uiOperations;
            _dialogController = dialogController;
        }
        ...
    }
}

Configuration Models

Like components, services can be configured through the app config. Services can participate in the app config by creating and injecting the appropriate item type.

Each item type in the application is bound to a class registered as an AppItem with autofac. This class instantiates itself with values from the app config in it's constructor, acting as a configuration model.

A service can consume configuration by injecting the AppItem class as a dependency in it's constructor.

Service Configuration Model
Service
App Config

[assembly: Service(typeof(CustomService), PropertiesAutowired = true)]
namespace App1.Services
{
    class CustomService : ServiceBase
    {
        private IAppItem<CustomServiceSettings> _appItem;

        public CustomService(IAppItem<CustomServiceSettings> appItem)
            : base()
        {
            _appItem = appItem;
        }
        protected override async Task DoInitialize()
        {
            var settings = await _appItem.ResolveAsync();
            if (settings == null)
            {
                return;
            }

            Logger.Debug($"Value of setting is '{settings.SomeSetting}'");
            return;
        }
    }
}

Relevant SDK Samples

Check out the relevant Geocortex Mobile SDK Samples:

Next Steps

Learn how to run and implement commands and operations with custom services

Learn about how services and components can interact

Follow a step by step guide to building a custom command with a custom service

Built a service that manages a dynamic data source and exposes it to components

Service Reference

Service Registration

note

Service Lifecycle

Initialization and Teardown

important

Dependency Injection

note

Configuration Models

Relevant SDK Samples

Next Steps

Learn how to use Commands and Operations with Services

Learn about Service Interactions

Build a Custom Command with a Custom Service

Build a Service that Manages Dynamic Data

Service Registration#

note

Service Lifecycle#

Initialization and Teardown#

important

Dependency Injection#

note

Configuration Models#

Relevant SDK Samples#

Next Steps#

Learn how to use Commands and Operations with Services

Learn about Service Interactions

Build a Custom Command with a Custom Service

Build a Service that Manages Dynamic Data

Service Registration

Service Lifecycle

Initialization and Teardown

Dependency Injection

Configuration Models

Relevant SDK Samples

Next Steps