KYM PHILLPOTTS
An interesting week indeed...
It's been an interesting week with lots happening around the mobile community. AirBnb has decided to move on from React Native, meanwhile, Flutter has moved to Release Preview 1.
As for the Xamarin Community, as always there is lots going on and we have some great links for you this week.
Have a great weekend, and enjoy the links.
DESIGN
The power of good UI and how it enhances engagement
Digital products with a good user interface give you a competitive edge in a constantly growing world where companies are starting to realize the importance of good user experience. As a result, they are creating solutions that are functional and elegant while enhancing people’s everyday lives.
The power of good UI and how it enhances engagement by Tiffany W. Eaton
Tab Bars are the new Hamburger Menus
Are tab bars the new hamburger menus? In a way they are. If used correctly they both are a powerful navigation element (Yes, there are cases in which hamburger menus do make sense). But once you start using tab bars for the sake of using tab bars (because everybody does), you are losing sight of the most important goals of every navigation. The same thing happened with hamburger menus 4 years ago. So, don’t stop thinking about the “why?”.
BUSINESS & MARKETING
Airbnb moving away from React Native
This article saw quite a bit of traffic over the past week. Airbnb are moving away from React Native. It's worth a read and it's also a good reminder that different projects and teams use different mobile development platforms. And that is ok.
This is the first in a series of blog posts in which we outline our experience with React Native and what is next for mobile at Airbnb.
OPEN SOURCE
A Bitter Guide To Open Source
Want some advice on working in Open Source, then look no further. Be warned, the author isn't joking when he describes himself as "Bitter" and he throws in a few cuss words. But it's a fun and educational read.
ANDROID
Getting Android Apps Ready for Google Play's Target API Level Requirements
Developing Android applications is a unique experience as it often involves taking advantage of the latest capabilities of Android. All while still providing backward compatibility to older Android devices to reach all potential users. There are changes coming to applications being submitted to the Play Store. Make sure you are ready.
Getting Android Apps Ready for Google Play's Target API Level Requirements by James Montemagno
Android P: Priority Buckets
Android P has a concept of Priority Buckets — a battery management update to Android where the system will prioritize resources based on both how recently, and how frequently, the application in question is used.
This article provides a quick dive into what these buckets are and how they will affect the behavior of our applications.
IOS
Supporting iOS 11 and iPhone X in Xamarin.iOS Apps
Apple has indicated that starting in July 2018 all new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 11 SDK and support the iPhone X Super Retina display. Brad Umbaugh has put together a list of resources which will help you get there.
Supporting iOS 11 and iPhone X in Xamarin.iOS Apps by Brad Umbaugh
App Store Review Guideline Changes
After the keynote of the World Wide Developers Conference 2018, Apple updated the App Store Review Guidelines with a bunch of changes and new rules. It is clear that the theme of this update is user privacy and data protection. This page gives you a delta of the changes to the review guidelines.
Spoiler: Emojis are back!
XAMARIN FORMS
Binding a FlexLayout to a Collection II
Previously, David explained how to extend the FlexLayout class with ItemsSource and ItemTemplate properties, so that it can bind to data stored in a collection. In this article, he takes it further by supporting DataTemplateSelector.
Template Studio & Developer Toolkit
An amazing set of tools in the Prism Template Studio & Developer Toolkit. Whether you use vanilla Xamarin Forms or Prism you'll want to install the Prism Template Studio and Developer Toolkit.
Developer Toolkit for Visual Studio Mac by Dan Siegel
Xamarin.Essential’s SecureStorage
If you are serious about mobile development with Xamarin/.NET or code sharing in general and have not heard or read about Xamarin.Essentials, you have definitely missed out on a great Nuget package. Xamarin. Part of Essentials is SecureStorage. This blog post by René Ruppert looks a little deeper inside the SecureStorage component.
A closer look at Xamarin.Essential’s SecureStorage by René Ruppert
Triggers in Xamarin Forms
When using Xamarin Forms sometimes we have a control in our XAML that changes according to the value of a property in our model. For example, if we have a Label which property Text has a binding to a string property that represents a Name in a model that we want to be visible only if isn’t empty. One way we could achieve this is through using Triggers. What's a Trigger you ask, well let XamGirl tell you all about them in this article.
Understanding Triggers in Xamarin Forms by Charlin Agramonte
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
Top 10 WWDC 2018 Videos in Review
Now that the annual migration of the “Developer Triceraptus” is over and the WWDC 2018 wrappings have come off the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, we are left with another slew of compelling session videos.
Mobilizing Existing .NET LOB Apps
In this episode, Robert is joined by Nish Anil, who shows us how he took an existing WPF line of business app and built a mobile front end for it with Xamarin.Forms. Nish shows how he was able to reuse the existing C# business logic with minimal changes.
Merge Conflict 102: Mono.Cecil, Linker, and Unity Updates with Jb Evain
At Microsoft Build 2018 James and Frank sat down with the legendary Jb Evain. The man behind libraries and technologies we use every day including Mono.Cecil and the Mono linker itself. They discuss all this and his passion for creating the Visual Studio tools for Unity and everything new that Unity has to offer.
Snack Pack: Simplified iOS Provisioning in Visual Studio with fastlane
Move your iOS app provisioning up a gear into the fastlane, in just a few minutes, with this Snack Pack Edition of the Xamarin Show. James takes a look at how the new simplified iOS device and app provisioning work inside of Visual Studio.
Snack Pack: Simplified iOS Provisioning in Visual Studio with fastlane by James Montemagno
Designing Fluid Interfaces
A really interesting WWDC video on designing fluid interfaces. Lots of food for thought in this video on how to deal with interactions.
RELEASES
New Release - Xamarin.Forms 3.1.0
Xamarin.Forms 3.1 is now in Stable release. Lots of amazing new features in here including a lot the community contributed too. Check out the link for a full list of features.