Now that you have set up and created the TrackMyWalks database within the Microsoft Azure platform, our next step is to add the Json.Net NuGet package to our TrackMyWalks Portable Class Library solution. The Json.Net package is a high-performance JSON framework for the .NET platform that allows you to serialize and deserialize any type of .NET object with help of the JSON serializer.

When we start to incorporate this framework within our TrackMyWalks solution, we will have the ability of performing LINQ to JSON capabilities that will enable us to create, parse, query, and modify the JSON structure that we receive back from our Microsoft Azure TrackMyWalks database table.

Let's look at how to add the Json.Net NuGet package to our TrackMyWalks Portable Class Library , by performing the following steps:

Now that you have added the Json.Net NuGet package, our next step is to add the HttpClient framework to our TrackMyWalks Portable Class Library, which we will be covering in the next section.

In the previous section, we added the Json.Net NuGet package to our TrackMyWalks solution. Our next step is to add the HTTP library to our TrackMyWalks solution to enable it to communicate with an API over HTTP.

Since we are using both .NET and C# to build our Xamarin.Forms application, we can leverage a library within the .NET Framework called System.Net.Http.HttpClient. This HttpClient framework provides us with a mechanism of sending and receiving data using standard HTTP methods, such as GET and POST.

Let's look at how to add the HttpClient NuGet package to our TrackMyWalks Portable Class Library, by performing the following steps:

Now that you have added both the Json.Net and System.Net.HttpNuGet packages to our solution, we can begin utilizing these framework libraries as we progress throughout this chapter.

In this section, we will begin by updating the WalkEntries data model to take advantage of our backend service calls, when we create these, and then the WalkDataService.cs and WalkWebService.cs files will communicate and interact with our Microsoft Azure TrackMyWalks database to store, delete, and retrieve walk entry information.

Let's now start to modify and implement the code required for our WalkEntries class model, by performing the following steps:

Ensure that the WalkEntries.cs file is displayed within the code editor, and enter in the following highlighted code sections:

        // 
        //  WalkEntries.cs 
        //  TrackMyWalks 
        // 
        //  Created by Steven F. Daniel on 04/08/2016. 
        //  Copyright © 2016 GENIESOFT STUDIOS. All rights reserved. 
        // 
         using System; 
         using Newtonsoft.Json;
        namespace TrackMyWalks.Models 
        { 
           public class WalkEntries 
          { 
            [JsonProperty("id")]

            public string Id { get; set; } 
            public string Title { get; set; } 
            public string Notes { get; set; } 
            public double Latitude { get; set; } 
            public double Longitude { get; set; } 
            public double Kilometers { get; set; } 
            public string Difficulty { get; set; } 
            public double Distance { get; set; } 
            public Uri ImageUrl { get; set; } 
          } 
        } 

In the preceding code snippet, we have successfully modified the database model that will be used to store walk entry information within our Microsoft Azure database. You will notice that we have defined a [JsonProperty("id")] item, as well as a string property named Id that will serve as a unique primary key for each record that we store within the database. We have also updated our ImageUrl property to include the Uri type that will be used to convert the URL entered within the walk entry page, so that it is stored correctly within the database.