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Mastering Xamarin UI Development - Second Edition

By : Steven F. Daniel

5 (1)

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Mastering Xamarin UI Development

5 (1)

By: Steven F. Daniel

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

This book will provide you with the knowledge and practical skills that are required to develop real-world Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms applications. You’ll learn how to create native Android app that will interact with the device camera and photo gallery, and then create a native iOS sliding tiles game. You will learn how to implement complex UI layouts and create customizable control elements based on the platform, using XAML and C# 7 code to interact with control elements within your XAML ContentPages. You’ll learn how to add location-based features by to your apps by creating a LocationService class and using the Xam.Plugin.Geolocator cross-platform library, that will be used to obtain the current device location. Next, you’ll learn how to work with and implement animations and visual effects within your UI using the PlatformEffects API, using C# code. At the end of this book, you’ll learn how to integrate Microsoft Azure App Services and use the Twitter APIs within your app. You will work with the Razor Templating Engine to build a book library HTML5 solution that will use a SQLite.net library to store, update, retrieve, and delete information within a local SQLite database. Finally, you will learn how to write unit tests using the NUnit and UITest frameworks.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Conventions used

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Free Chapter

Setting Up Visual Studio for Mac

Downloading and installing Visual Studio for Mac

Exploring the Microsoft Visual Studio for Mac IDE

Understanding the Xamarin mobile platform

Creating a Xamarin project for both iOS and Android

Using and setting Breakpoints in your code

Using the Visual Studio for Mac built-in debugger

Summary

Building a PhotoLibrary App Using Android

Creating a native Android app using Visual Studio for Mac

Creating and implementing the PhotoLibrary Activity class

Implementing Material Design in the PhotoLibrary app

Setting up camera and photo album permissions

Launching the Photo Library app using the Android emulator

Summary

Building a SlidingTiles Game Using Xamarin.iOS

Creating a native iOS app using Visual Studio for Mac

Creating the SlidingTiles user interface using Storyboards

Implementing the game logic for our SlidingTiles Game

Working with and applying animations to your app

Launching the SlidingTiles game using the iOS simulator

Summary

Creating the TrackMyWalks Native App

Creating the TrackMyWalks project solution

Creating and implementing our data model

Creating the WalksMainPage interface using XAML

Implementing the WalksMainPage code using C#

Creating the WalkEntryPage interface using XAML

Implementing the WalkEntryPage code using C#

Creating the WalkTrailInfoPage interface using XAML

Implementing the WalkTrailInfoPage code using C#

Creating the WalkDistancePage interface using XAML

Implementing the WalkDistancePage code using C#

Updating the TrackMyWalks.iOS AppDelegate

Updating the TrackMyWalks.Android MainActivity

Creating the SplashPage interface using XAML

Implementing the SplashPage code using C#

Launching TrackMyWalks using the iOS simulator

Summary

MVVM and Data Binding

Understanding the MVVM architectural pattern

Creating and implementing the BaseViewModel

Creating the WalksMainPageViewModel using C#

Creating the WalkEntryPageViewModel using C#

Creating the WalkTrailInfoPageViewModel using C#

Creating the WalkDistancePageViewModel using C#

Launching the TrackMyWalks app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Navigating Within the Mvvm Model

Understanding the Xamarin.Forms Navigation API

Differences between the Navigation and ViewModel approaches

Creating and implementing the NavigationService interface

Creating and implementing the NavigationService class

Updating the BaseViewModel to use the navigation service

Updating the WalksMainPageViewModel using C#

Updating the WalksMainPage code-behind using C#

Updating the WalkEntryPageViewModel using C#

Updating the WalkEntryPage code-behind using C#

Updating the WalkTrailInfoPageViewModel using C#

Updating the WalkTrailInfoPage code-behind using C#

Updating the WalkDistancePageViewModel using C#

Updating the WalkDistancePage code-behind using C#

Updating the SplashPage code-behind using C#

Updating the App.xaml class to use the navigation service

Summary

Adding Location-based Features Within Your App

Creating and using platform-specific services within your app

Creating and implementing the ILocationService interface

Creating and implementing the LocationService class

Updating the WalkEntryPageViewModel using C#

Updating the WalkDistancePageViewModel using C#

Creating the CustomMapOverlay class using C#

Updating the WalkDistancePage user interface using XAML

Updating the WalkDistancePage code-behind using C#

Creating and implementing the CustomMapRenderer (iOS)

Creating and implementing the CustomMapRenderer (Android)

Enabling background location updates and permissions

Launching the TrackMyWalks app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Customizing the User Interface

Customizing the DataTemplate in the WalksMainPage

Applying padding and margins to XAML layouts

Creating and implementing Styles in your App

Creating and using PlatformEffects in your app

Creating and implementing ValueConverters in your app

Launching the TrackMyWalks app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Working with Animations in Xamarin.Forms

Creating and using Simple Animations in Xamarin.Forms

Creating and using Easing Functions in Xamarin.Forms

Creating and implementing your own Custom Animations

Creating and implementing Entrance Animations

Launching the TrackMyWalks app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Working with the Razor Templating Engine

Understanding the Razor templating engine

Building a BookLibrary app using the Razor templating engine

Adding the SQLite-net NuGet package to our solution

Creating and implementing the BookLibraryListing page

Creating and implementing the BookLibraryAddEdit page

Updating the Book Library cascading style sheet (CSS)

Updating the WebViewController class using C#

Launching the BookLibrary app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Incorporating Microsoft Azure App Services

Understanding the Microsoft Azure App services platform

Setting up and configuring Microsoft Azure App services

Adding the Newtonsoft.Json NuGet package to our solution

Updating the WalkDataModel for our TrackMyWalks app

Creating and implementing the RestWebService interface

Creating and implementing the RestWebService class

Updating the BaseViewModel class to include our RestWebService

Updating the WalksMainPage code-behind using C#

Updating the WalkEntryPage user interface using XAML

Launching the TrackMyWalks app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Making Our App Social Using the Twitter API

Creating and registering the TrackMyWalks app with the Twitter Developer Portal

Creating and implementing the TwitterAuthDetails class

Creating and implementing the TwitterWebService interface

Creating and implementing the TwitterWebService class

Creating and implementing the TwitterSignInPageViewModel using C#

Creating and implementing the user interface for the TwitterSignInPage

Creating and implementing the TwitterSignInPageRenderer (iOS)

Updating the WalksMainPage code-behind using C#

Updating the WalkDistancePage user unterface using XAML

Registering the TwitterSignInPage within the App.xaml class

Launching the TrackMyWalks app using the iOS simulator

Summary

Unit Testing Your Xamarin.Forms Apps

Creating the Unit Testing project within the TrackMyWalks solution

Running unit tests within the Visual Studio for Mac IDE

Creating a UITest project within the TrackMyWalks solution

Updating the WalksMainPage code-behind using C#

Adding the Xamarin.Test Cloud.Agent NuGet package

Running UITests within the Visual Studio for Mac IDE

Summary

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Creating and implementing the CustomMapRenderer (iOS)

In this section, we will begin by creating the CustomMapRenderer class for the iOS section of our TrackMyWalks solution, which will essentially contain various instance methods that will be used by our LocationService class. The advantage of creating a CustomMapRenderer class is that it's much easier to add additional class instance methods that will be used by those ViewModels that utilize this interface.

Let's start by creating the CustomMapRenderer class for our TrackMyWalks app by performing the following steps:

Ensure that the TrackMyWalks solution is open within the Visual Studio for Mac IDE.
Next, right-click on the TrackMyWalks.iOS project and choose Add|New Folder from the pop-up menu. Then, enter CustomRenderers for the name of the new folder to be created.
Afterwards, right-click on the CustomRenderers...