DESIGN
How To Design Emotional Interfaces For Boring Apps
Not all products are inherently fun the way games, or social media apps are, but even utilities don’t have to be merely utilitarian. Apps that deal with repetitive tasks often struggle with retaining users: people abandon them because they feel bored, and boredom is simply lack of stimulation. By using positive stimuli like humor, movement, unique art, elements of game, and relatable characters we can make users feel a different way — more excited, less distracted, and ultimately happier.
How To Design Emotional Interfaces For Boring Apps by Alice Кotlyarenko
Designing UIs for modern screens
Screen form factors are changing. We see new trends like "the notch", but how do you design intelligently for new screen paradigms? In this article, Samuele explores how new hardware trends will shape the way we design UIs.
Designing UIs with ultra-wide screens and notches in mind by Samuele Dassatti
BUSINESS & MARKETING
App Store Subscriptions And You
Get to know what App Store Subscriptions are and what you need to know.
PERFORMANCE
Efficient api calls
Write better Http calls... including cancellation, error handling and better performance.
DEVOPS
Release Notes using Fastlane
Fastlane is awesome. In this article, Tom Wilson talks about how BlueApron uses Fastlane to automate their release notes!
TOOLS
ConvertAppIcon - a tool for generating icons
Convertappicon converts a pdf into multiple app icons. It is a macOS tool written in Swift and currently supports generating iOS icons (iPhone, iPad and watch).
Docs Markdown Extension for Visual Studio Code
Docs are open source now and you should help out by contributing. Here is a VSCode extension that will make your life easier.
Announcing the Docs Markdown Extension for Visual Studio Code
ANDROID
Get to know and love ADB Commands
The Android Debug Bridge also known as adb is powerful tool for the developers. Besides being the basic tool to deploy the Android applications that you develop it also provides several commands that can be very useful.
ADB Commands — Part I by Filipe Batista
This is a three part blog series, make sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3
IOS
What is a provisioning profile in iOS?
Getting started with Provisioning Profiles, here is a good primer.
Turn Off the iOS Simulator 'Accept Incoming Network Connections' Pop-up
Tom investigtes an annoying popup he gets every time he deploys to an iOS Simulator - and more importantly how to get rid of it.
Turn Off the iOS Simulator 'Accept Incoming Network Connections' Pop-up by Tom Soderling
XAMARIN FORMS
How to build a "Lights Out" puzzle clone with Xamarin.Forms
A great tutorial on how Marco built a Lights out game in Xamarin Forms.
How to build a "Lights Out" puzzle clone with Xamarin.Forms by Marco
Expanding ViewCells
Here’s another helpful Xamarin tip to allow you to expand your ViewCells – for example when the user taps a ViewCell, expand it to reveal more information.
Xamarin.Tip – Expanding ViewCells by Alex Dunn
Right-To-Left Localization in Xamarin.Forms
If you’re making apps that support right-to-left languages, we have great news for you: Xamarin.Forms 3.0 makes it easier than ever to flip layouts to match language direction!
Right-To-Left Localization in Xamarin.Forms by Samantha Houts
The ultimate guide to Emojis ?
All the cool kids love Emojis... let Evgeny tell you all about them with his ultimate guide!
Build Your Own CheckBox in Xamarin.Forms
Alex Dunn shows you how to build your own Checkbox control for Xamarin.Forms
Xamarin.Tip – Build Your Own CheckBox in Xamarin.Forms by Alex Dunn
Creating a Walkthrough with Lottie
More awesome UI Goodness, this time creating a walkthrough type screen in your application using Lottie.
[Xamarin.Forms] Creando un Walkthrough usando Lottie by Javier Suárez Ruiz
Xamarin.Forms ListView Advanced Guide With MVVM
Listviews are everywhere. In this blog post Damien, covers a lot of ground for common things that will challenge you implementing ListViews.
Xamarin.Forms ListView Advanced Guide With MVVM by Damien Doumer
Xamarin.Forms Styling with CSS
Like it or not, CSS styling is coming to Xamarin.Forms. This article discusses how to style Xamarin.Forms with CSS, covering the benefits you can get from doing so and including examples.
MVVMCROSS
MVX=0 : A first MvvmCross Application (MVX+1 days of MvvmCross)
Nick Randolph is reworking the infamous N+1 series that Stuart Lodge did on getting started with MvvmCross. If you want to get into MvvmCross you should start following this series.
MVX=0 : A first MvvmCross Application (MVX+1 days of MvvmCross) by Nick Randolph
AZURE
Explore CosmosDB with .NET Core and MongoDB
If you are an old school SQL type of person... learn something new about some other database topologies.
Explore CosmosDB with .NET Core and MongoDB by Jeremy Likness
B2C + ZUMO = ❤️
Everything you need to know about how to use Azure AD B2C with Azure Mobile App Service
CAREER
Company Values
We should all care about company culture. It's what can make or break an organisation. I came across the excellent Handbook over at GitLab. Check it out, and feel warm inside.
Keep on learning - even if you're old
Here are some tips to keep on learning even if you are "an old dog"
How To Keep Learning After 50 and Other Ways to Hack Your Brain at any Age by Tim Mitra
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
.NET Standard Revisited
There has been a lot of talk lately about .NET Standard, both in the community and on Channel 9. But there is also still confusion about it. In this episode, Kathleen Dollard clears up some of this confusion. She and Robert chat about why .
Azure Active Directory B2C Authentication For Mobile with Matthew Soucoup
This week, James is joined yet again by friend of the show Sr Cloud Developer Advocate Matt Soucoup, who shows us how to take the pain out of adding user accounts to your apps with Azure AD B2C.
Azure Active Directory B2C Authentication For Mobile with Matthew Soucoup
Common design patterns with Azure Cosmos DB
Aravind Krishna stops by to chat with Scott Hanselman and take a look at common design patterns for building highly scalable solutions with Azure Cosmos DB.
Merge Conflict 92: Writable Contiguous Memories
Frank and James get hard core. They chat about the new Span and Memory value types in C# 7.2 and all the optimized goodness that they bring to .NET applications!
RELEASES
Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.7 Preview 3
Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 3 was released and includes many improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio. Check out whats in there.
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.7 Preview 3 by Pierce Boggan