Xamarin Hack Day - Sydney 2016 - Introduction to Xamarin

www.xam-consulting.com www.michaelridland.com
Welcome
Xamarin Hack Day
Sydney 2016

Agenda
9:00 - Presentations & Challenges
Michael Ridland - Introduction to Xamarin
Matthew Robbins - Costs and Benefits Compiled Xaml
Jernej Kavka - Code Sharing
10:30 - Challenges / Install-Fest / Mini-Hacks / Open Hacking
1:00 - Lunch
1:30 - Challenges / Install-Fest / Mini-Hacks / Open Hacking
4:30 - Show and Tell - Show something you’ve built or learnt

How you hack is up to you!
 Presenters will set challenges
 You can do any of the challenges
 or work on your own stuff
 mentors will be available to assist

Michael Ridland
www.michaelridland.com

Mobile Technology Specialists

Thanks to our sponsors

Thanks to our Mentors and Presenters

Introduction to Xamarin

What is native?

The Anatomy of a Native App
Native User Interfaces Native API Access Native Performance

Xamarin’s (Traditional) Approach
Native With
Code Sharing

Language Support
Functional Imperative/OOP
F#
C#

Base Class Libraries

Windows APIs

iOS APIs | 100% Coverage

Android APIs | 100% Coverage

Anything you can do in Objective-C or Java
can be done in C# or F# with Xamarin
Pro Tip

Native Performance
Xamarin.iOS does full Ahead Of Time
(AOT) compilation to produce an ARM
binary for Apple’s App Store.
Xamarin.Android takes advantage
of Just In Time (JIT) compilation on
the Android device.

Demos - Xamarin Traditional
Demos

Always Up To Date
Same day support for
iOS 5, iOS 6, iOS 6.1,
iOS 7, iOS 7.1, iOS 8…

Future Proof
Always up-to-date with the latest APIs from
Apple and Google.
Full Support for Android TV, Fire TV, Android Wear, Google Glass, etc

Rich Library EcoSystem
Json.NET Rx
…and many more!

Development Environments

Development Environment
Xamarin Studio
PC or Mac
Visual Studio Plugin
VS 2010/2012/2013

Development Environment
or even?

Visual Studio Integration

Android Designer

iOS Designer
Fully integrated into Xamarin
Studio & Visual Studio
iOS 6 & 7 Storyboard support
Intuitive event handling
Support for auto-layout
Live preview of custom controls

Component Store

Component Vendors

Xamarin.Forms

Xamarin.Forms
Xamarin.FormsTraditional Xamarin approach
Shared UI Code

Xamarin.Forms: What’s Included?
 40+ Pages, Layouts, and Controls
 Build from code or XAML
 Two-way Data Binding
 Navigation
 Animation API
 Dependency Service
 Messaging Center

Xamarin.Forms: Pages
Content MasterDetail Navigation Tabbed Carousel

Xamarin.Forms: Layouts
Stack Absolute Relative Grid ContentView ScrollView Frame

Xamarin.Forms: Controls
ActivityIndicator BoxView Button DatePicker Editor
Entry Image Label ListView Map
OpenGLView Picker ProgressBar SearchBar Slider
Stepper TableView TimePicker WebView EntryCell
ImageCell SwitchCell TextCell ViewCell

Xamarin.Forms Real World Tips

Beware……
 Forms is easy…
 Easy is also deceptively simple…..

Beware……
I hate Xamarin.Forms

Beware……
 Your still on a phone with limited resources…
 Forms Xaml is not like WPF, Xamarin don’t own the underlying platforms
 With Forms you must build pages with Performance in mind…

Performance Tips
 Reduce nesting
 StackLayouts encourage nesting
 Grid are great for reducing nesting
 Avoid relative layout
 Reduce layout cycles
 Grids with Star and Static Height avoid layout cycles

Xamarin.Forms Power Controls

Grid
Not difficult to use (nearly as easy as StackLayout)
Works well with XAML (unlike relative)
Can be used to create overlays/advanced UIs
Easy to reduce nesting
Easy to reduce layout cycles (Star and Static
Widths/Heights)

ListView with Cell Recycling
 Much faster now with Cell Recycling
 Use the DataTemplateSelector for different cell styles
 Alternative to Grid when there’s a dynamic numbers of rows
 Avoid add/remove views when binding context change

Images on Android (especially in list)
 Performance and Memory Issues
 Use FFImageLoader
 Image Caching
 Image Resizing
 If the Image is local, it can still have issues in lists. We sometimes do a
full custom renderer native cell for Android only.

Xamarin.Forms Real Apps

File -> New

Today’s Challenge
 Build a view (maybe from http://snppts.io/latest or dribble)
 It can be simplified or adapted depending on your experience
 Improve the performance
 http://kent-boogaart.com/blog/jason-smith's-xamarin-forms-performance-
tips
 https://evolve.xamarin.com/session/56e205b0bad314273ca4d817
 https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-
forms/deployment,_testing,_and_metrics/performance/

Q & A
Michael Ridland
michael@michaelridland.com
@rid00z
www.michaelridland.com

Xamarin Hack Day - Sydney 2016 - Introduction to Xamarin

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