Book Image

Xamarin Mobile Development for Android Cookbook

By : Matthew Leibowitz
Book Image

Xamarin Mobile Development for Android Cookbook

By: Matthew Leibowitz

Overview of this book

Xamarin is used by developers to write native iOS, Android, and Windows apps with native user interfaces and share code across multiple platforms not just on mobile devices, but on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Developing apps with Xamarin.Android allows you to use and re-use your code and your skills on different platforms, making you more productive in any development. Although it’s not a write-once-run-anywhere framework, Xamarin provides native platform integration and optimizations. There is no middleware; Xamarin.Android talks directly to the system, taking your C# and F# code directly to the low levels. This book will provide you with the necessary knowledge and skills to be part of the mobile development era using C#. Covering a wide range of recipes such as creating a simple application and using device features effectively, it will be your companion to the complete application development cycle. Starting with installing the necessary tools, you will be guided on everything you need to develop an application ready to be deployed. You will learn the best practices for interacting with the device hardware, such as GPS, NFC, and Bluetooth. Furthermore, you will be able to manage multimedia resources such as photos and videos captured with the device camera, and so much more! By the end of this book, you will be able to create Android apps as a result of learning and implementing pro-level practices, techniques, and solutions. This book will ascertain a seamless and successful app building experience.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Xamarin Mobile Development for Android Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introduction


Xamarin.Android allows us to create native Android applications using the same UI controls we would use in Java, with the flexibility of C#, the power of the .NET Base Class Library, and two first-class IDEs.

Android development with Xamarin can be done on either Mac OS X or Windows, using either Visual Studio or Xamarin Studio. This variety provides us with our choice of how we want to work to create awesome apps.

This book will enable us, as developers, to create amazing, professional apps for the Android ecosystem. This knowledge can be used on so many platforms, from TVs and smartphones to watches, wearables, and many other Android-powered devices.

This chapter covers some of the most common tasks and steps to getting our app ready for development. We will learn how to create a new app, add support for the old versions of Android, and get started with the user interface used in all Android apps. We will also look at just how powerful the Xamarin.Android platform is by looking how we can share code with many other platforms, including Windows Phone, iOS, Windows, and Mac.