Cover
Copyright
Credits
Preface
Table of Contents
Module 1: Xamarin Cross-Platform Application Development
Chapter 1: Setting Up Xamarin
The Xamarin tools
Installing Xcode
Installing Xamarin
Choosing a Xamarin license
Setting up the Android emulator
Enrolling in the iOS Developer Program
Registering as a Google Play developer
Summary
Chapter 2: Hello, Platforms!
Building your first iOS application
Understanding Apple's MVC pattern
Using the iOS designer
Building your first Android application
Android activities
Xamarin's Android designer
Summary
Chapter 3: Code Sharing between iOS and Android
Learning the MVVM design pattern
Comparing project organization strategies
Working with Portable Class Libraries
Using preprocessor statements
Simplifying dependency injection
Implementing Inversion of Control
Summary
Chapter 4: XamChat β 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
Chapter 5: XamChat for iOS
Understanding the basics of an iOS app
Using UINavigationController
Implementing the login screen
Using segues and UITableView
Adding a friends list screen
Adding a list of messages
Composing messages
Summary
Chapter 6: XamChat for Android
Introducing Android Manifest
Adding a login screen
Using ListView and BaseAdapter
Implementing the friends list
Composing messages
Summary
Chapter 7: Deploying and Testing
on Devices
iOS provisioning
Android device settings
Understanding the linker
Understanding AOT compilation
Avoiding common memory pitfalls
Summary
Chapter 8: Web Services with Push Notifications
Learning Windows Azure
Setting up your Azure account
Exploring Azure Mobile Services
Creating tables and scripts
Adding a backend to XamChat
Using the Apple Push Notification service
Implementing Google Cloud Messaging
Summary
Chapter 9: Third-party Libraries
The Xamarin Component Store
Porting existing C# libraries
Objective-C bindings
Java bindings
Summary
Chapter 10: Contacts, Camera,
and Location
Introducing Xamarin.Mobile
Accessing contacts
Looking up GPS location
Accessing the photo library and camera
Summary
Chapter 11: 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
Chapter 12
: 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 to make a successful mobile app
Summary
Module 2: Xamarin Cross-Platform Development Cookbook
Chapter 1: One Ring to
Rule Them All
Introduction
Creating a cross-platform solution
Creating a cross-platform login screen
Using common platform features
Authenticating with Facebook and Google providers
Chapter 2: Declare Once, Visualize Everywhere
Introduction
Creating a tabbed-page cross-platform application
Adding UI behaviors and triggers
Configuring XAML with platform-specific values
Using custom renderers to change the look and feel of views
Chapter 3: Native Platform-Specific Views and Behavior
Introduction
Showing native pages with renderers
Attaching platform-specific gestures
Taking an in-app photo with the native camera page
Chapter 4: Different Cars,
Same Engine
Introduction
Sharing code between different platforms
Using the dependency locator
Adding a third-party Dependency Injection Container
Architecture design with Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern
Using the event messenger
Adding localization
Chapter 5: Dude, Where's
my Data?
Introduction
Creating a shared SQLite data access
Performing CRUD operations in SQLite
Consuming REST web services
Leveraging native REST libraries and making efficient network calls
Chapter 6: One for All and
All for One
Introduction
Creating cross-platform plugins
Taking or choosing photos
Getting the GPS location
Show and schedule local notifications
Chapter 7: Bind to the Data
Introduction
Binding data in code
Binding data in XAML
Configuring two-way data binding
Using value converters
Chapter 8: A List to View
Introduction
Displaying a collection and selecting a row
Adding, removing, and refreshing items
Customizing the row template
Adding grouping and a jump index list
Chapter 9: Gestures and Animations
Introduction
Adding gesture recognizers in XAML
Handling gestures with native platform renderers
Adding cross-platform animations
Chapter 10: Test Your Applications,
You Must
Introduction
Creating unit tests
Creating acceptance tests with Xamarin.UITest
Using the Xamarin.UITest REPL runtime shell to test the UI
Uploading and running tests in Xamarin Test Cloud
Chapter 11: Three, Two, One β Launch and Monitor
Introduction
Using Xamarin Insights
Publishing iOS applications
Publishing Android applications
Publishing Windows Phone applications
Module 3: Mastering Cross-Platform Development with Xamarin
Chapter 1: Developing with Xamarin
Cross-platform projects with Xamarin
Target platforms
Setting up the development environment
Emulator options
A typical Xamarin solution structure
Quality in cross-development
Summary
Chapter 2: Memory Management
Application Component lifecycle
Garbage collection
Platform-specific concepts
Troubleshooting and diagnosis
Patterns and best practices
Summary
Chapter 3: Asynchronous Programming
Multithreading on Xamarin
Asynchronous methods
Parallel execution
Patterns and best practices
Background tasks
Summary
Chapter 4: Local Data Management
Data in mobile applications
Application data
Local filesystem
SQLite
Patterns and best practices
Backup/Roaming
Summary
Chapter 5: Networking
Connected apps
Web services
SignalR
Patterns and best practices
Platform-specific concepts
Cloud integration
Summary
Chapter 6: Platform Extras
Content sharing
Peripherals
Location data
Native libraries
Summary
Chapter 7: View Elements
Design philosophy
Design elements
User interaction
Summary
Chapter 8: Xamarin.Forms
Under the hood
Components
Extending forms
Patterns and best practices
Summary
Chapter 9: Reusable UI Patterns
Visual assets
Localization
Architectural patterns
Summary
Chapter 10: ALM β Developers and QA
Development pipeline
Troubleshooting and diagnostics
Unit testing
UI testing
Summary
Chapter 11: ALM β Project and Release Management
Source control
Continuous integration
Automated testing
Beta deployment
Live telemetry
Summary
Chapter 12
: ALM β App Stores and Publishing
Release packages
Distribution options
Line of Business apps
Summary
Bibliography