GETTING STARTED
The GitHub Development Workflow
If you are getting to grips with GitHub and GitHub Flow, maybe this series of blogs will help you get started.
CODE
Upsert/Replace in SQLite EF Core
If you need to update or insert lots of records in SQLite using EFCore... you need an upsert!
Note: post is in French
Upsert/Replace – Jérôme Giacomini by Jerome Giacomini
Effectively Naming Software Thingies
Naming things in your code is hard. But, naming stuff is a key part of our programming life. Here is a comprehensive summary of how to do it well.
C# Async Antipatterns
The async and await keywords have done a great job of simplifying writing asynchronous code in C#, but unfortunately they can't magically protect you from getting things wrong. Having said that, we often learn from mistakes. In this post, Mark Heath highlights a bunch of the most common async coding mistakes or antipatterns and potential solutions.
C# Async Antipatterns by Mark Heath
DESIGN
The Tried and True Laws of UX
Remember when your mother warned you not to run down the stairs because you could fall and hurt yourself? Or when you held your palm over a candle’s flame and started feeling the burn? The “laws of UX” are similar—they are cause and effect relationships where one event (the cause) makes another event happen (the effect). As mobile developers, we should have a basic understanding of these laws so we bake them into our designs.
The Tried and True Laws of UX (with Infographic) by Miklos Philips
TOOLS
JSON Generator
Here is a nifty little tool you can use to create JSON data for you.
JSON Generator by Vazha Omanashvili
Input - A font for Code
Somewhere I found a reference to this cool font for programmers. If you are looking for a new coding font (and who isn't) maybe check this out. It's heavily customizable
Input™ by David Jonathan Ross, Nick Sherman
ANDROID
Debug Local ASP.NET Core Web APIs on Android Emulators
When developing mobile applications with a web API backend there is always a need to debug locally on your development machine.
Debug Local ASP.NET Core Web APIs on Android Emulators by James Montemagno
Advanced Xamarin Bindings Case Study – Deep Dive into Android – Part 1
Delving into the black-art of creating Xamarin bindings for Android components.
Advanced Xamarin Bindings Case Study – Deep Dive into Android – Part 1 by Przemysław Raciborski
IOS
A Best in Class iOS App
Here is a fairly comprehensive list of "What makes an award winning iOS app". Maybe you don't implement all the things listed here in your app, but definitely worth having a look through the list to see if you are missing an important element.
XAMARIN FORMS
View PDF Files within Your Xamarin.Forms Apps Using the Syncfusion PDF Viewer
Probably the most popular document format used for sharing content across various applications and operating systems is a PDF (Portable Document Format). As a Xamarin developer, you may need to display PDF documents like invoices and reports within your Xamarin applications. The good news is that Syncfusion provides an awesome control to allow you to easily incorporate PDFs into your applications.
View PDF Files within Your Xamarin.Forms Apps Using the Syncfusion PDF Viewer by Suresh Mohan
Maps and Location Tracking with Xamarin Forms
Angel Garcia shows you how to combine Geolocation plugin from Xamarin.Essentials and Maps Control to make a user’s location tracker in Xamarin Forms.
Maps and Location Tracking with Xamarin Forms by Angel Garcia
Gradient button using NControl
In this post, we will build a button with a gradient background for Xamarin.Forms using the NControl library . NControl uses NGraphics to draw efficiently in cross-platform mode.
Note: Post is in Spanish
Removing Row and Column Spacing from Xamarin.Forms Grid
Xamarin.Forms Grid allows us to specify spacing between individual rows and columns using RowSpacing and ColumnSpacing properties. While this is no doubt a useful feature, the unfortunate fact is that these are not set to 0 by default.
Removing Row and Column Spacing from Xamarin.Forms Grid by Martin Zikmund
When to choose Xamarin.iOS/Xamarin.Android over Xamarin.Forms
With so much talk about Xamarin.Forms in the community, you might be tricked into thinking that it's the only way to build Xamarin Applications. Glenn Stephens is here to tell you that it's not always the right way to go and enlighten you on what you should consider when choosing between Xamarin.iOS / Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.Forms
When to choose Xamarin.iOS/Xamarin.Android over Xamarin.Forms by Glenn Stephens
Map Overlays
Rendy discusses showing an overlay with a transparent shape on top of a camera view. He discusses how he accomplished it with a sample that shows this overlay in different scenarios like when using a map or camera..
Xamarin Forms and Prism Template Pack
Elsa Bodhi and Luis Pujols post about the Prism Template Pack, why you should care and how it can make your Prism life even more awesome.
Sharing is Caring – Xamarin Forms and Prism Template Pack by Elsa Bodhi and Luis Pujols
Xamarin.Forms CollectionView Spacing
Starting in Xamarin.Forms 4.0 there is a new element called the CollectionView. According to the Xamarin team, this new element should replace the well known control ListView. If you want to adjust the spacing around elements, this may help you out.
Floating Decimal Text
Charlin has a post on the importance of sweating the small stuff, like showing decimals in a number in a pleasing way. These are exactly the sort of things that will make your application stand out.
Quick tip – Floating Decimal Text in Xamarin Forms by Charlin Agramonte
Visual: The future of Xamarin Forms
Visual is a new feature within Xamarin Forms 4.0 that allows developers to create more consistent views between platforms based on Google’s design patterns called Material Design. Learn a bit more about it here.
Xamarin.Forms Challenge - My Tasks
Javier is back with another great Xamarin.Forms Challenge. This time he implements a design found on the Dribbble website with a funky listview.
Note: Post is in Spanish, but the awesomeness speaks for itself!
Create a Custom "ActivityButton" in Xamarin.Forms
This is an interesting solution to showing an Activity Indicator. Put it right in the button that initiates the long running operation. One of the benefits of such a design, is that you don't have to free up any screen real estate to show the indicator.
Create a Custom "ActivityButton" in Xamarin.Forms by John Taubensee
NUGET OF THE WEEK
Forms9Patch
A suite of elements built to simplify image management and text formatting for your NetStandard, PCL, and Shared Library Xamarin.Forms iOS, Android and UWP applications.
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
Xamarin.Forms 101: Control Reference Binding (View-to-View)
In this weeks Xamarin.Forms 101 James shows how to use control reference binding to data bind a value of one control to another!
Xamarin.Forms 101: Control Reference Binding (View-to-View) by James Montemagno
Maps (Xamarin.Essentials API of the Week)
Xamarin.Essentials provides developers with cross-platform APIs for their mobile applications. On this week's Essential API of the week we take a look at Maps, which enables you to open the default map application on the users device to a specific location or start navigation to a location.
Maps (Xamarin.Essentials API of the Week) by James Montemagno
Gur.Codes(); MFractor episodes: Font Importer & Image Assets Manager
Gerald is back recording videos at Gur.Codes(); In this video, he talks about an amazing feature of MFractor that allows you to import and manage image assets.
Gur.Codes(); MFractor episodes: Font Importer & Image Assets Manager by Gerald
Merge Conflict 138 - Organized Productivity
When was the last time you completely tore apart your work space and optimized it for full productivity? We are talking about creating a unique, organized, and happy work office that you actually want to come to every day.
AND FINALLY...
Meetups
There has been quite a bit of discussion on twitters and slack forums about broadcasting Xamarin Meetups.
Andrew Hoefling got in contact and mentioned they stream and have recordings of their sessions at the Rochester Xamarin User Group. Check it out.
If you want to share your meetup records or live streams please let reach out to me via twitter @kphillpotts
Also for those wanting to get started, I wrote a blog post on how we stream the Melbourne Xamarin Meetup live to the Internet via Twitch.