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

Jonathan Peppers

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781786469915
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming
• Index: Computer Science

Develop powerful cross-platform applications with XamarinAbout This Book• Write native cross-platform applications with Xamarin• Design user interfaces that can be shared across Android, iOS, and Windows Phone using Xamarin.Forms• Practical cross-platform development strategiesWho This Book Is ForIf you are a developer with experience in C# and are just getting into mobile development, this is the book for you. This book will give you a head start with cross-platform development and will be the most useful to developers who have experience with desktop applications or the web.What You Will Learn• Apple's MVC design pattern• The Android activity lifecycle• Share C# code across platforms and call native Objective-C or Java libraries from C#• Create a real web service back end in Windows Azure using SQL Azure as database storage• Set up third-party libraries such as NuGet and Objective Sharpie in many different ways, and port a desktop.NET library to Xamarin• Use Xamarin.Mobile for camera, contacts, and locationIn DetailXamarin 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. Style and approachThis book offers a tutorial style approach to teach you the skills required to develop end-to-end cross-platform solutions with Xamarin.

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

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

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

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Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: February 2014

Second edition: February 2015

Third edition: December 2016

Production reference: 1201216

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78646-541-2

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author Jonathan Peppers	Copy Editor Safis Editing
Reviewer Esteban Solano Granados	Project Coordinator Devanshi Doshi
Commissioning Editor Ashwin Nair	Proofreader Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor Reshma Raman	Indexer Tejal Daruwale Soni
Content Development Editor Narendrakumar Tripathi	Graphics Jason Monteiro
Technical Editor Anushree Arun Tendulkar	Production Coordinator Aparna Bhagat

About the Author

Jonathan Peppers is a Xamarin MVP and lead developer on popular apps and games at Hitcents such as the Hanx Writer (for Tom Hanks) and the Draw a Stickman franchise. Jon has been working with C# for over 10 years working on a wide range of projects at Hitcents. Jon began his career working Self-Checkout software written in WinForms and later migrated to WPF. Over his career, he has worked with many .NET-centric technologies such as ASP.Net WebForms, MVC, Windows Azure, WinRT/UWP, F#, and Unity3D.

In recent years, Hitcents has been heavily investing in mobile development with Xamarin, and has development over 50 mobile applications across multiple platforms.

I would like to thank my wife, Amy Kate, and my son, Levi, for giving me the free time to write this book. You are both my inspiration and "why I do what I do".

About the Reviewer

Esteban Solano Granados is a senior software engineer, Microsoft and Xamarin MVP from Cartago, Costa Rica and he enjoys learning, talk, and help others to learn about software development for the web and mobile by using his knowledge of JavaScript and C# with Xamarin, Asp.Net, NodeJS and other technologies.

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Preface

Xamarin has built great products for developing iOS and Android applications in C#: Xamarin Studio, an addin for Visual Studio, Xamarin.iOS, and Xamarin.Android. Xamarin gives you direct access to the native APIs on each platform and the flexibility of sharing C# code. Using Xamarin and C#, you get better productivity when compared to Java or Objective-C, and still retain great performance compared to an HTML or JavaScript solution.

In this book, we will develop a real-world sample application to demonstrate what you can do with Xamarin technologies, and build on core platform concepts for iOS and Android. We will also cover advanced topics such as push notifications, retrieving contacts, using the camera, and GPS location. With Xamarin 3, a new framework was introduced called Xamarin.Forms. We will cover the basics of Xamarin.Forms and how you can apply it to cross-platform development. Finally, we will walkthrough what it takes to submit your application to the Apple App Store and Google Play.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Xamarin Setup, is a guide for installing the appropriate Xamarin software and native SDKs for doing cross-platform development. Directs Windows users on how to connect to a Mac on their local network for doing iOS development in Visual Studio.

Chapter 2, Hello, Platforms!, is a walkthrough of creating a simple calculator application on iOS and Android, which also covers some basic concepts on each platform.

Chapter 3, Code Sharing between iOS and Android, is an introduction of code sharing techniques and project setup strategies that can be used with Xamarin.

Chapter 4, XamSnap - A Cross-Platform App, is an introduction to a sample application we will be building throughout the book. In this chapter we will write all the shared code for the application complete with unit tests.

Chapter 5, XamSnap for iOS, shows us how to implement the iOS user interface for XamSnap and cover various iOS development concepts.

Chapter6, XamSnap for Android, shows us how to implement the Android version of XamSnap and introduce Android-specific development concepts.

Chapter 7, Deploying and Testing on Devices, is a walkthrough the painful process of deploying your first application to a device. We also cover why it is important to always test your application on real devices.

Chapter 8, Contacts, Camera, and Location, introduces the library, Xamarin.Mobile, as a cross-platform way to access users’ contacts, camera, and GPS location and add these features to our XamSnap application.

Chapter 9, Web Services with Push Notifications, shows us how to implement a real backend web service for XamSnap using Windows Azure leveraging Azure Functions and Azure Notification Hubs.

Chapter 10, Third-Party Libraries, covers the various options of using third party libraries with Xamarin and how you can even leverage native Java and Objective-C libraries.

Chapter 11, Xamarin.Forms, helps us discover Xamarin's latest framework, Xamarin.Forms, and how you can leverage it to build cross-platform applications.

Chapter 12, App Store Submission, will walk us thr...

Table of contents

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