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.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development - Third Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Using preprocessor statements


When using shared projects, one of your most powerful tools is the use of preprocessor statements. If you are unfamiliar with them, C# has the ability to define preprocessor variables such as #define IPHONE, and then using #if IPHONE or #if !IPHONE.

The following is a simple example of using the technique:

#if IPHONE 
  Console.WriteLine("I am running on iOS"); 
#elif ANDROID 
  Console.WriteLine("I am running on Android"); 
#else 
  Console.WriteLine("I am running on ???"); 
#endif 

In Xamarin Studio, you can define preprocessor variables in your project's options under Build | Compiler | Define Symbols, delimited with semicolons. These will be applied to the entire project. Be warned that you must set up these variables for each configuration setting in your solution (Debug and Release); it can be an easy step to miss. You can also define these variables at the top of any C# file by declaring #define IPHONE, but they will only...