Table of Contents

Copyright

Brief Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About this book

About the cover illustration

1. Getting started with Xamarin

Chapter 1. Introducing native cross-platform applications with Xamarin

1.1. Introducing Xamarin mobile apps

1.1.1. Vendor-specific native apps

1.1.2. Cordova

1.1.3. Xamarin native apps

1.1.4. Xamarin.Forms

1.1.5. Xamarin developer tools

1.1.6. Mobile-optimized development lifecycle

1.2. Creating production-quality mobile apps

1.2.1. Design

1.2.2. Develop

1.2.3. Test

1.2.4. Build

1.2.5. Distribute

1.2.6. Monitor

1.3. Rinse and repeat...

Summary

Chapter 2. Hello MVVM—creating a simple cross-platform app using MVVM

2.1. What are UI design patterns?

2.2. MVVM—the design pattern for Xamarin apps

2.3. What is cross-platform code?

2.3.1. .NET Standard class libraries

2.4. Getting started—creating your first solution

2.4.1. Requirements—what hardware or software do you need for each mobile platform?

2.4.2. Creating the solution

2.4.3. What have we just created?

2.4.4. Building and running the apps

2.5. Is this really a cross-platform app?

Summary

Chapter 3. MVVM—the model-view–view model design pattern

3.1. The model layer

3.2. The view-model layer

3.2.1. State and behavior

3.2.2. Value conversion

3.2.3. Testability

3.3. The view layer

3.4. Binding

3.4.1. Source and target

3.4.2. Binding mode

3.4.3. Binding is not cross-platform

3.4.4. Value converters

3.5. The application layer

3.6. Navigation

3.6.1. View-first

3.6.2. View-model–first

3.6.3. Which one to use?

3.7. Revisiting the square-root calculator app

Summary

Chapter 4. Hello again, MVVM—understanding and enhancing our simple MVVM app

4.1. A deeper dive into our Hello Cross-Platform World app

4.1.1. The model

4.1.2. The view model

4.1.3. The application layer

4.1.4. The view

4.2. Expanding on our Hello World app

4.2.1. Using .NET Standard plugins to access device-specific code

4.2.2. Installing the Xamarin text-to-speech plugin

4.2.3. Adding the cross-platform code

4.2.4. Inversion of control

4.2.5. Wiring up the Android UI

4.2.6. Wiring up the iOS UI

Summary

Chapter 5. What are we (a)waiting for? An introduction to multithreading for Xamarin apps

5.1. Why do we need multithreaded code?

5.2. What are threads?

5.2.1. Buying coffee

5.2.2. So what is a thread?

5.2.3. A quick roundup

5.3. UI thread and background threads

5.3.1. The UI thread

5.3.2. Background threads

5.4. Using tasks to run code in the background

5.4.1. Task and Task<T>

5.4.2. Chaining tasks

5.5. Task results

5.5.1. Polling to see if the task has finished

5.5.2. Waiting on the task

5.5.3. Getting the result from a continuation

5.5.4. Task exceptions

5.6. Updating the UI

5.6.1. The UI task scheduler

5.6.2. Using the power of MVVM

5.7. Async and await

5.7.1. The async and await keywords

5.7.2. Writing your own async methods

5.7.3. Async commands

5.8. Make your app feel responsive

5.9. It’s time to start building things

Summary

2. Building apps

Chapter 6. Designing MVVM cross-platform apps

6.1. Introduction to designing a cross-platform app

6.2. Designing the UI and user flows

6.2.1. SquareRt—a simple app for calculating square roots

6.2.2. Countr—an app for counting multiple things

6.2.3. Defining user flows and UIs

6.3. Architecting the app

6.3.1. Which layer?

6.3.2. Which thread?

6.3.3. Mapping code to layers and threads

6.4. Creating the solutions

6.5. Application properties

6.5.1. Android manifest

6.5.2. iOS info.plist

6.6. SDK versions

6.6.1. Android SDK versions and the SDK manager

6.6.2. iOS SDK versions

6.7. Linking

6.7.1. Linking the apps

6.7.2. Linker options

6.7.3. Stopping the linker from doing too much

Summary

Chapter 7. Building cross-platform models

7.1. Building simple model layers

7.2. Unit testing

7.2.1. Creating a unit-test project

7.2.2. Creating your first test

7.2.3. What do these tests tell you?

7.3. Building more complex model layers

7.3.1. Services, data models, and repositories

7.3.2. Accessing databases

7.3.3. Adding a service layer

7.3.4. Accessing web services

7.4. A quick recap

Summary

Chapter 8. Building cross-platform view models

8.1. The view-model layer

8.1.1. The view-model layer inside SquareRt

8.1.2. The view-model layer inside Countr

8.2. Adding state and behavior to SquareRt

8.2.1. State inside SquareRt

8.2.2. Exposing behavior via property changes

8.3. Adding state and behavior to Countr

8.3.1. Single-value properties

8.3.2. Collections

8.3.3. Exposing behavior using commands

8.3.4. Messaging

8.3.5. Navigation

8.4. A quick roundup

Summary

Chapter 9. Building simple Android views

9.1. Building Android UIs

9.1.1. Material design

9.1.2. Layout files

9.1.3. Resources

9.1.4. Resource locations

9.1.5. Editing layout files

9.1.6. Layout inflation

9.2. Creating the layout file for the SquareRt UI

9.2.1. Adding a toolbar

9.2.2. Adding an image

9.2.3. Adding an EditText control

9.2.4. Adding a result TextView control

9.3. Building the SquareRt view

9.3.1. What is an activity?

9.3.2. The activity lifecycle

9.3.3. Creating an activity for the view

9.3.4. Running the app

Summary

Chapter 10. Building more advanced Android views

10.1. Building the UI for Countr

10.1.1. Creating the UI for the master view

10.1.2. Recycler views

10.1.3. Creating the UI for the recycler view items

10.1.4. Floating action buttons

10.1.5. Creating the UI for the detail view

10.1.6. Menu items

10.2. Building the Countr activities

10.2.1. Setting up master recycler views

10.2.2. The detail view

10.2.3. Running the app

10.3. App icons and launch screens

10.3.1. App icons

10.3.2. Launch screens

Summary

Chapter 11. Building simple iOS views

11.1. Building iOS UIs

11.1.1. iOS human interface guidelines

11.1.2. Storyboards

11.1.3. Controls

11.1.4. Different screen resolutions

11.1.5. Auto layout with constraints

11.1.6. Image resources and asset catalogs

11.1.7. A quick recap

11.2. Creating the SquareRt storyboard

11.2.1. Adding our first view controller

11.2.2. Adding an image

11.2.3. Adding a text field

11.2.4. Adding the result label

11.2.5. Seeing the layout on different devices

11.2.6. Size classes

11.2.7. A quick recap

11.3. Building the SquareRt view

11.3.1. What is a view controller?

11.3.2. View lifecycle

11.3.3. Creating the view controller

11.3.4. Wiring up controls to the view controller

11.3.5. Binding the view controller

11.3.6. Another quick recap

11.3.7. Running the app

Summary

Chapter 12. Building more advanced iOS views

12.1. Building the UI and view controllers for Countr

12.1.1. Creating the UI for the master view

12.1.2. Navigation bars and buttons

12.1.3. Creating the UI for the detail view

12.1.4. A quick recap

12.1.5. Running the app

12.2. App icons and launch screens

12.2.1. App icons

12.2.2. Launch screens

12.3. Making the apps production-ready

Summary

3. From working code to the store

Chapter 13. Running mobile apps on physical devices

13.1. Running Android apps on a real device

13.2. Signing Android apps for publishing

13.2.1. Setting the package name

13.2.2. Keystores

13.2.3. Creating keystores and signing builds

13.3. Running iOS apps on a real device

13.3.1. What is a provisioning profile?

13.3.2. Bundle identifiers

13.3.3. Creating a dummy app in Xcode

13.3.4. Running your app on a physical device

13.4. Creating iOS provisioning profiles

13.4.1. Certificates

13.4.2. App IDs

13.4.3. Devices

13.4.4. Provisioning profiles

13.4.5. Running your app using the new provisioning profile

13.4.6. Troubleshooting

Summary

Chapter 14. Testing mobile apps using Xamarin UITest

14.1. Introduction to UI testing

14.1.1. Writing UI tests using Xamarin UITest

14.1.2. Setting up your app for UI testing

14.1.3. Running the auto-generated tests

14.2. Writing tests

14.2.1. The visual tree

14.2.2. The REPL

14.2.3. Identifying controls

14.2.4. Tapping the Add button

14.2.5. Entering text

14.2.6. Finding controls based on their text

14.2.7. Assertions

14.2.8. Proving your test by breaking things

14.3. Testing incrementing a counter

14.4. The app interface and app queries

14.4.1. The IApp interface

14.4.2. Queries

Summary

Chapter 15. Using App Center to build, test, and monitor apps

15.1. Introducing Visual Studio App Center

15.1.1. Apps

15.1.2. Users and organizations

15.1.3. API

15.1.4. CLI

15.1.5. Getting help

15.2. Setting up builds

15.2.1. Creating your first App Center app

15.2.2. Configuring the Android build

15.2.3. Configuring the iOS build

15.3. Testing your apps using Test Cloud

15.3.1. What is Test Cloud?

15.3.2. Preparing your apps to be tested

15.3.3. Creating a test run configuration

15.3.4. Running tests from the command line

15.3.5. Viewing the test results on App Center

15.4. Analytics and crash reporting

15.4.1. Adding the App Center SDKs

15.4.2. Understanding your audience

15.4.3. Adding event tracking

15.4.4. Crash reporting

Summary

Chapter 16. Deploying apps to beta testers and the stores

16.1. Distributing Android apps to beta testers

16.1.1. Enabling app distribution

16.1.2. Auto updates

16.2. Publishing Android apps on the Google Play store

16.2.1. Setting up your account

16.2.2. Creating your app

16.2.3. Alternative stores

16.3. Distributing iOS apps to beta testers

16.3.1. Enabling app distribution

16.3.2. Auto updates

16.4. Publishing iOS apps on the Apple App store

16.4.1. Provisioning your app for publishing

16.4.2. Setting up your app

Summary

Where to next?

Appendix A. UI flows and threads for SquareRt and Countr

A.1. SquareRt

A.2. Countr

A.2.1. Loading counters

A.2.2. Adding a counter

A.2.3. Deleting a counter

A.2.4. Incrementing a counter

Appendix B. Using MVVM Light instead of MvvmCross

B.1. MVVM Light

B.2. Installing MVVM Light

B.3. The model layer

B.4. The view model layer

B.5. The view layer

B.5.1. The Android view and application layer

B.5.2. The iOS view and application layer

Summary

Appendix C.

A sneak peak...

Picking the right thread...

Appendix D.

From idea to store

Index

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Listings