Book Image

Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development - Third Edition

By : Jonathan Peppers
Book Image

Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development - Third Edition

By: Jonathan Peppers

Overview of this book

Xamarin is a leading cross-platform application development tool used by top companies such as Coca-Cola, Honeywell, and Alaska Airlines to build apps. Version 4 features significant updates to the platform including the release of Xamarin.Forms 2.0 and improvements have been made to the iOS and Android designers. Xamarin was acquired by Microsoft so it is now a part of the Visual Studio family. This book will show you how to build applications for iOS, Android, and Windows. You will be walked through the process of creating an application that comes complete with a back-end web service and native features such as GPS location, camera, push notifications, and other core features. Additionally, you’ll learn how to use external libraries with Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms to create user interfaces. This book also provides instructions for Visual Studio and Windows. This edition has been updated with new screenshots and detailed steps to provide you with a holistic overview of the new features in Xamarin 4.

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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development - Third Edition
Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development - Third Edition
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Customer Feedback
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Xamarin Setup
Xamarin Setup
Understanding Xamarin
Installing Xcode
Installing Xamarin on Mac OS X
Setting up the Android emulator
Installing Xamarin on Windows
Connecting Visual Studio to a Mac for iOS development
Enrolling in the iOS developer program
Registering as a Google Play developer
Summary
2
Hello, Platforms!
Hello, Platforms!
Building your first iOS application
Understanding Apple's MVC pattern
Using the iOS designer
Building your first Android application
Understanding Android activities
Xamarin's Android designer
Summary
3
Code Sharing Between iOS and Android
Code Sharing Between iOS and Android
Learning the MVVM design pattern
Comparing project organization strategies
Setting up a shared project
Working with portable class libraries
Using preprocessor statements
Simplifying dependency injection
Implementing Inversion of Control
Summary
4
XamSnap - A Cross-Platform App
XamSnap - A Cross-Platform App
Starting our sample application concept
Developing our model layer
Writing a mock web service
Writing the ViewModel layer
Writing unit tests
Summary
5
XamSnap for iOS
XamSnap for iOS
Understanding the basics of an iOS app
Xamarin.iOS Build Options
Using UINavigationController
Implementing the login screen
Using segues for navigation
Setting up UITableView
Adding a friends list screen
Adding a list of messages
Composing messages
Summary
6
XamSnap for Android
XamSnap for Android
Introducing the Android Manifest
Setting up Material Design
Adding a login screen
Using ListView and BaseAdapter
Implementing the friends list
Composing messages
Summary
7
Deploying and Testing on Devices
Deploying and Testing on Devices
iOS provisioning
Android device settings
Understanding the linker
Understanding AOT compilation
Avoiding common memory pitfalls
Summary
8
Contacts, Camera, and Location
Contacts, Camera, and Location
Introducing Xamarin.Mobile
Accessing contacts
Looking up GPS location
Accessing the photo library and camera
Summary
9
Web Services with Push Notifications
Web Services with Push Notifications
Learning Windows Azure
Exploring Azure Functions
Using the Apple Push Notification service
Implementing Google Cloud Messaging
Summary
10
Third-Party Libraries
Third-Party Libraries
The Xamarin Component Store
Porting existing C# libraries
Objective-C bindings
Java bindings
Using XPath in Java bindings
Summary
11
Xamarin.Forms
Xamarin.Forms
Creating Hello World in Xamarin.Forms
Understanding the architecture behind Xamarin.Forms
Using XAML in Xamarin.Forms
Using data-binding and MVVM
Summary
12
App Store Submission
App Store Submission
Following the iOS App Store Review Guidelines
Submitting an app to the iOS App Store
Signing your Android applications
Submitting the app to Google Play
Tips for building a successful mobile app
Summary

Installing Xamarin on Windows

Since Microsoft acquired Xamarin in 2016, Xamarin is included with any edition of Visual Studio. The editions are as follows:

  • Visual Studio Community: This is a free version available to anyone. There are restrictions for using this edition for companies.

  • Visual Studio Professional: This is the general edition companies should use. On the Visual Studio side, it includes features for Team Foundation Server.

  • Visual Studio Enterprise: Contains additional features in both Visual Studio and Xamarin. Xamarin features include embedded assemblies, the live Xamarin Inspector, and the Xamarin profiler.

When first setting up a Windows PC for Xamarin development, there are two choices to consider. If you already have Visual Studio, then you can merely use the Xamarin installer to add the necessary Visual Studio extensions and item templates to your existing installation. If you do not have Visual Studio installed yet, then there is simply an option in the Visual Studio 2015 installer for installing Xamarin.

If you want to install from the Visual Studio installer:

  1. Download your desired version of Visual Studio from https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/.

  2. Run the Visual Studio installer.

  3. Under Cross Platform Mobile Development, make sure to select C#/.NET (Xamarin v4.1.0) (the version number will change according to the version you use). This should automatically select the Android SDK and other components you will need for Xamarin development.

  4. You may also choose to install other useful tools such as Microsoft Web Developer Tools or Universal Windows App Development tools for targeting Windows 10.

Your installer should look something like this before you click Next:

The second option for installing Xamarin is from Xamarin's website:

  1. Download the Xamarin installer for Windows from https://xamarin.com/download.

  2. Run XamarinInstaller.exe, which will download and install all required components on your PC.

The Xamarin installer is a very similar experience to what you see on Mac OS X, and should be very straightforward. It will add Xamarin to an existing Visual Studio installation if needed and install Xamarin Studio.

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