In this section, we will take a look at how we can go about creating a new Xamarin.Forms solution for the first time. We will begin by developing the basic structure for our application, as well as by adding the necessary entity models and designing the user interface files.

Before we can proceed, we need to create our TrackMyWalks project. It is very simple to create this using Xamarin Studio. Simply follow the steps listed below:

Once your project has been created, you will be presented with the Xamarin development environment along with several project files that the template has created for you, as shown in the following screenshot:

As you can see from the preceding screenshot, the TrackMyWalks solution has been divided into three main areas. The following table provides a brief description of what each area is used for:

One thing you will notice is that our solution contains a file called TrackMyWalks.cs which is part of the TrackMyWalks Portable Class Library. The TrackMyWalks.cs file contains a class named App that inherits from the Xamarin.Forms.Application class hierarchy, as can be seen in the following code snippet:

    // 
    //  TrackMyWalks.cs 
    //  TrackMyWalks 
    // 
    //  Created by Steven F. Daniel on 04/08/2016. 
    //  Copyright © 2016 GENIESOFT STUDIOS. All rights reserved. 
    // 
    using Xamarin.Forms; 
 
    namespace TrackMyWalks 
    { 
        public class App : Application 
       { 
            public App() 
            {             
    // The root page of your application
                var content = new ContentPage 
                { 
                    Title = "TrackMyWalks",
                      Content = new StackLayout { 
                          VerticalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center, 
                            Children = { new Label { 
                                HorizontalTextAlignment = 
                                TextAlignment.Center, 
                                Text = "Welcome to Xamarin Forms!" 
                            } 
                        } 
                    } 
                }; 
 
                MainPage = new NavigationPage(content); 
            } 
 
            protected override void OnStart() 
           { 
                // Handle when your app starts 
            } 
            protected override void OnSleep() 
            { 
                // Handle when your app sleeps 
            } 
            protected override void OnResume() 
            { 
                // Handle when your app resumes 
            } 
         } 
       } 

The App constructor method sets up the MainPage property to a new instance of the ContentPage that will simply display some default text as created by the project wizard. Throughout this chapter, we will be building the initial user interface page views and then modifying the MainPage property for our App class, contained within the TrackMyWalks.cs file.