Xamarin CollectionViewCell not instantiating from storyboard - xamarin.ios

Question

I am collaborating with a designer who styles elements on my Xamarin project storyboard. I have trouble referencing his carefully placed elements in code. All the outlets are created, but in a UICollectionViewCell the UILabels etc are not instantiated. Here is code from a simple test app to demonstrate the problem.
The Xamarin generated code-behind:
[Register ("CardCell")]
partial class CardCell
{
[Outlet]
[GeneratedCode ("iOS Designer", "1.0")]
UILabel txtName { get; set; }
void ReleaseDesignerOutlets ()
{
if (txtName != null) {
txtName.Dispose ();
txtName = null;
}
}
}
My attempt to set the UI properties which causes the crash:
public partial class CardCell : UICollectionViewCell
{
public CardCell (IntPtr handle) : base (handle)
{
}
public void Update(string name)
{
txtName.Text = name; // throws exception here, because textName is null
}
}
The view controller with delegate methods:
public partial class TestCollectionController : UICollectionViewController
{
static NSString cardCellId = new NSString ("cardcell");
string[] cards = new string[] {"Red", "Green", "White", "Blue", "Pink", "Yellow"};
public TestCollectionController (IntPtr handle) : base (handle)
{
}
public override void ViewDidLoad ()
{
base.ViewDidLoad ();
CollectionView.RegisterClassForCell (typeof(CardCell), cardCellId);
}
public override nint NumberOfSections (UICollectionView collectionView)
{
return 1;
}
public override nint GetItemsCount (UICollectionView collectionView, nint section)
{
return (nint)cards.Length;
}
public override UICollectionViewCell GetCell (UICollectionView collectionView, NSIndexPath indexPath)
{
CardCell cell = (CardCell)collectionView.DequeueReusableCell (cardCellId, indexPath);
var card = cards [indexPath.Row];
cell.Update(card);
return cell;
}
}
I have tried both the Xamarin iOS Designer and Xcode's Interface Builder, but it does not make a difference. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Examples of collection views driven by a storyboard are quite scarce, but I found this one and teased through it meticulously till I discovered that it did not include the call to register a class for the cell. So, remove this line:
CollectionView.RegisterClassForCell (typeof(CardCell), cardCellId);
and suddenly everything works as expected.
I was following this recipe and other examples, which all had the call included, which is only needed when you don't use a storyboard.