Xamarin CrossPlatform Development Cookbook

A recipe-based practical guide to get you up and running with Xamarin cross-platform development

About This Book

• Gain the skills and expertise to create, test, and deploy native mobile applications in the three major mobile app stores that share up to 95% of the same code
• Learn development techniques that will allow you to use and create custom layouts for each platform, cross-platform UI
• Gain the knowledge needed to become more efficient in testing, deploying, and monitoring your applications, helping you through all stages of the software development life cycle

Who This Book Is For

This book is for mobile developers. You must have some basic experience of C# programming, but no previous experience with Xamarin is required. If you are just starting with C# and want to use Xamarin todevelop cross-platform apps effectively and efficiently, then this book is the right choice for you.

What You Will Learn

• Create and customize your cross-platform UI
• Understand and explore cross-platform patterns and practices
• Use the out-of-the-box services to support third-party libraries
• Find out how to get feedback while your application is used by your users
• Bind collections to ListView and customize its appearance with custom cells
• Create shared data access using a local SQLite database and a REST service
• Test and monitor your applications

In Detail

You can create native mobile applications using the Xamarin Forms platform for the three major platforms iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. The advantage of this is sharing as much code as you can, such as the UI, business logic, data models, SQLite data access, HTTP data access, and file storage across the three major platforms.

This book provide recipes on how to create an architecture that will be maintainable, extendable, use Xamarin Forms plugins to boost productivity, customize your views per platforms, and use platform-specific implementations at runtime.

We start with a simple creation of a Xamarin Forms solution with the three major platforms. We will then jump to XAML recipes and you will learn how to create a tabbed application page, and customize the style and behavior of views for each platform. Moving on, you will acquire more advanced knowledge and techniques while implementing views and pages for each platform and also calling native UI screens such as the native camera page.

Further on, we demonstrate the power of architecting a cross-platform solution and how to share code between platforms, create abstractions, and inject platform-specific implementations. Next, you will utilize and access hardware features that vary from platform to platform with cross-platform techniques. We'll then show you the power of databinding offered by Xamarin Forms and how you can create bindable models and use them in XAML. You will learn how to handle user interactions with the device and take actions in particular events.

With all the work done and your application ready, you will master the steps of getting the app ready and publishing it in the app store.

Style and approach

This book will serve as a quick reference with a unique recipe-based approach that will engage you like never before as you create real-world cross-platform apps on your own.

一本以食譜為基礎的實用指南，帶領您快速上手並開始使用 Xamarin 跨平台開發。

關於本書：
- 學習在三個主要的行動應用商店中創建、測試和部署原生行動應用程式的技能和專業知識，這些應用程式共享高達 95% 的相同程式碼。
- 學習開發技巧，讓您能夠為每個平台使用和創建自定義佈局，實現跨平台的使用者介面。
- 獲得在測試、部署和監控應用程式方面更高效的知識，協助您在軟體開發生命週期的各個階段中進行。

本書適合對手機應用程式開發有一定基礎經驗的開發人員。您必須具備一些 C# 程式設計的基礎知識，但不需要有 Xamarin 的先前經驗。如果您剛開始學習 C#，並希望有效且高效地使用 Xamarin 開發跨平台應用程式，那麼本書是您的不二之選。

您將學到以下內容：
- 創建和自定義跨平台使用者介面。
- 瞭解和探索跨平台的模式和實踐。
- 使用即插即用的服務來支援第三方庫。
- 在應用程式被用戶使用時獲取反饋。
- 將集合綁定到 ListView，並使用自定義單元格自訂其外觀。
- 使用本地 SQLite 資料庫和 REST 服務創建共享資料存取。
- 測試和監控您的應用程式。

詳細內容：
您可以使用 Xamarin Forms 平台為 iOS、Android 和 Windows Phone 三個主要平台創建原生行動應用程式。這樣做的好處是可以共享盡可能多的程式碼，例如使用者介面、業務邏輯、資料模型、SQLite 資料存取、HTTP 資料存取和檔案儲存等。

本書提供了一系列食譜，教您如何建立一個可維護、可擴展的架構，使用 Xamarin Forms 插件提高生產力，為每個平台自訂視圖，並在執行時使用特定於平台的實現。

我們從簡單創建 Xamarin Forms 解決方案開始，然後轉向 XAML 食譜，您將學習如何創建一個帶有選項卡的應用程式頁面，並自訂每個平台的視圖的樣式和行為。接著，您將在為每個平台實現視圖和頁面時獲得更高級的知識和技巧，並呼叫原生使用者介面畫面，如原生相機頁面。

此外，我們還展示了跨平台解決方案的架構能力，以及如何在平台之間共享程式碼、創建抽象和注入特定於平台的實現。接下來，您將使用跨平台技術利用和訪問因平台而異的硬體功能。然後，我們將向您展示 Xamarin Forms 提供的資料繫結功能的威力，以及如何創建可繫結的模型並在 XAML 中使用它們。您將學習如何處理使用者與設備的互動，以及在特定事件中執行操作。

完成所有工作並準備好應用程式後，您將掌握將應用程式準備並發佈到應用商店的步驟。

風格和方法：
本書以獨特的食譜式方法作為快速參考，讓您能夠自己創建真實的跨平台應用程式，並讓您如從未有過的參與感。