Issue 252 27th March 2020

KYM PHILLPOTTS

Happy Friday

Hey everyone,

Another Friday and another bunch of great links. Also this week we have a link to the recording of the amazing .NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin sessions. I haven't seen all the sessions, but what I have seen has been amazing. Hopefully, that'll help you get through self-isolation.

As always thanks to our contributors and you the reader.

Stay Safe

♥

Kym

DEVOPS

Create your own bank of templates for Azure DevOps

Damien draws his excellent DevOps series to a close by showing you how to reuse templates for all your new projects so you can leverage your hard work.

Create your own bank of templates for Azure DevOps by Damien Aicheh

XAMARIN FORMS

Improving the UX when requesting runtime permissions

Many apps need to obtain additional permissions from users (like Camera, Geolocation, etc). However, if you just flood the user with a bunch of permission requests they are likely to reject them which will limit the functionality of your application. This is actually an underrated UX consideration. In this article Charlin shows you how to improve the whole experience.

Improving the UX when requesting runtime permissions by Charlin Agramonte

Generating your own custom icon font made easy

Using an icon font in your app has been all the rage for a while now, but what if the existing ones aren’t to your liking? It’s pretty easy to make your own if you have vector art available for them. Let’s take a peek!

Generating your own custom icon font made easy by Steven

[Xamarin UI Challenge] Flights UI

Javier is back for another UI challenge for Xamarin.Forms. This time, focusing on a custom Pull To Refresh effect. This is so cool and none of my Pull-To-Refreshes will ever be the same again.

Note: Post is in Spanish

[Xamarin UI Challenge] Flights UI by Javier Suárez Ruiz

Getting Started with Templated Picker for Xamarin

As part of the Telerik R1 2020 release, Telerik released a series of pickers for Xamarin.Forms. In previous blog posts, they have reviewed the DateTime Picker and List Picker controls and the features they provide. It's time to get you familiarized with our Custom (Templated) Picker control.

Getting Started with Templated Picker for Xamarin by Aleksandar Gerchev

Braintree drop in UI

Rendy continues his blog series on integrating Braintree for payments into your Xamarin.Forms application. And it turns out that Braintree provides a complete, ready-made payment UI called Drop- in UI. Rendy shows you how to use this.

Braintree integration in Xamarin Forms (Part.4 ) by Rendy

Replicating the UI of a book app in Xamarin

Jesus discusses the libraries he used in order replicate this book application in Xamarin.Forms.

Note: Post is in Spanish

Replicando la UI de una aplicación de libros en Xamarin by Jesus

Handle Back Button in Xamarin Forms for Android

After a great article from Dylan Berry about Confirm Exit from Android application with Xamarin Forms, I start thinking why can’t we do this on every screen we want? This solution prepared for Xamarin.Forms with MvvmCross v6.4.* Framework.

Handle Back Button in Xamarin Forms for Android by Bohdan Benetskyi

Increase Binding Possibilities with RelativeSource

The humble BindingContext has grown up over time and now has many great features like RelativeSource. In this article Javier gets you up and running with it.

Increase Binding Possibilities with RelativeSource by Javier Suárez

Working with Grids in Xamarin.Forms using MFractor

Matthew Robbins discusses the power of grids and some tools within MFractor to make them even easier to work with.

Working with Grids in Xamarin.Forms using MFractor by Matthew Robbins

MediaElement in Xamarin.Forms

We explore the MediaElement in Xamarin.Forms — a new way to easily include audio and video in your Xamarin.Forms apps.

How to Use the MediaElement in Xamarin.Forms by Nigel Ferrissey

Firebase Authentication in Xamarin Forms

Google’s Firebase is a fantastic platform for us developers. It provides a wide variety of services that we may need for our applications, ranging from databases and storage, all the way to machine learning services and analytics.

Eduardo Rosas - Firebase Authentication in Xamarin Forms - Defining the UI by Eduardo Rosas Osorno

Xamarin and SignalR

This is an article about how to build SignalR powered real-time Xamarin mobile apps.

Real-Time Xamarin Apps by Sam Basu

CAREER

Staying Motivated as a Work From Home Developer

A lot of us are now working from home these days. It can be very liberating, but it can also be very challenging. The Ray Wenderlich site has an article with some good advice.

Staying Motivated as a Work From Home Developer by Antonio Bello

PODCASTS & VIDEOS

.NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin - Live Stream

.NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin was on during the week. It featured amazing speakers (including Luce Carter from WeeklyXamarin) from the community. If you didn't get an opportunity to tune in, or like me it was on at an undesirable timezone - don't fret... here is the full 9 hours worth of content.

.NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin - Live Stream by Xamarin Developers