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Mastering Cross-Platform
Development with Xamarin
Master the skills required to steer cross-platform
applications from drawing board to app store(s)
using Xamarin
Can Bilgin
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
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Mastering Cross-Platform Development with Xamarin
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
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However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: March 2016
Production reference: 1280316
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78528-568-4
www.packtpub.com
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Can Bilgin Nidhi Joshi
Reviewers Proofreader
Engin Polat Safis Editing
Lance McCarthy
Toni Petrina Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Commissioning Editor
Veena Pagare Graphics
Kirk D'Penha
Acquisition Editors
Vinay Argekar Production Coordinator
Shantanu N. Zagade
Meeta Rajani
Cover Work
Content Development Editor
Shantanu N. Zagade
Siddhesh Salvi
Technical Editors
Pramod Kumavat
Siddhi Rane
Copy Editor
Roshni Banerjee
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About the Authors
Can Bilgin currently works for Authority Partners Inc. as a program architect. He
has been working in the software industry, primarily with Microsoft technologies,
for over a decade and has been recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
(MVP) for his technical contributions. In this period, he played key roles in projects
for high profile clients using technologies such as BizTalk, SharePoint, Dynamics
CRM, Xamarin, WCF, and other web technologies.
His main passion lies in mobile and IoT development using the modern toolset
available for developers.
He tries to share his experience on his blog (http://canbilgin.wordpress.com),
social media (@can_bilgin), and through speaking engagements at both local and
international conferences and community events in the Balkans region.
This book is dedicated to three girls who shaped my life and
still are doing so: my best friend and beloved wife, Sanja Grebovic
Bilgin, our little daughter, Dilara Bilgin, and my loving mother,
Turkan Bilgin.
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About the Reviewers
Engin Polat has been involved in many large and medium-scale projects on .NET
technologies as a developer, architect, and consultant, and has won many awards
since 1999.
Since 2008, he has been giving training to many large enterprises in Turkey about
Windows development, web development, distributed application development,
software architecture, mobile development, cloud development, and so on.
Apart from this, he organizes seminars and events in many universities in Turkey
about .NET technologies, Windows platform development, cloud development,
web development, game development, and so on.
He shares his experiences on his personal blog (http://www.enginpolat.com).
He has MCP, MCAD, MCSD, MCDBA, and MCT certifications.
In 2012, he was recognized as a Windows Platform Development MVP (Most
Valuable Professional) by Microsoft.
Between 2013 and 2015, he was recognized as a Nokia Developer Champion; very
few people in the world are given this award. In 2015, he was recognized as the
Regional Director by Microsoft.
I'd like to thank my dear wife, Yeliz, and my beautiful daughter,
Melis Ada, for all the support they gave me while I was working on
this book project.
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Lance McCarthy, Microsoft MVP, is a community leader with an acute expertise
for all things, such as .NET and C#, especially on the XAML stack, including WPF,
Silverlight, Windows Phone, and Windows Store apps. He is very helpful online
and guides and answers questions from Microsoft developers on Twitter as
@lancewmccarthy. In his free time, he writes his blog at http://WinPlatform.
wordpress.com, which focuses on Windows Universal apps. He organizes and
hosts events in the Boston area, such as user group nights, mini-code camps,
and full hackathons.
During the day, he is a senior technical support engineer at Telerik where he supports
developers with their Classic Windows, Universal Windows Platform, Web and
Mobile application development (Xamarin, Android native, and iOS native). He is also
a technical consultant for the Windows Developer social media team where he helps
respond to development questions via the official @WindowsDev Twitter account.
Previously, he worked for Nokia/Microsoft as a developer ambassador where he
sought out and engaged developers through outreach programs and provided them
with technical support and resources to make them successful on the Windows
Phone and Windows 8 platforms.
He was also an assistant professor at Harvard University for a short time where he
helped students build, market, and publish successful Windows Phone apps. At
Boston University, he was a guest professor for the Cloud computing course and
would teach one class a semester.
He has also appeared on podcasts, such as the Windows Developer Show, has been
a technical editor for publications and books, has won several app building contests
and hackathons (including the first place in the Microsoft Build 2013 hackathon), and
is a published developer with over a million downloads in the Windows Store.
I'd like to thank my wife Amy for her undying patience while I did
"more work after I got home from work" and to Can Bilgin for the
opportunity to review this.
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Table of Contents
Preface ix
Chapter 1: Developing with Xamarin 1
Cross-platform projects with Xamarin 1
Xamarin as a platform 2
Xamarin as a product 3
Target platforms 3
Xamarin on Android 4
Xamarin on iOS 5
Windows Runtime apps 6
Setting up the development environment 6
Choosing the right development OS 7
Xamarin Studio setup and configuration 8
Visual Studio setup and configuration 10
Emulator options 13
Emulators for Android 13
iOS emulation 15
A typical Xamarin solution structure 15
Portable class libraries 16
Shared projects 18
Xamarin.Forms 20
NuGet packages 21
Components 23
Quality in cross-development 23
Reusability 23
Abstraction 23
Loose-coupling 24
Nativity 24
Summary 24
[ i ]
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