Issue 163

KYM PHILLPOTTS

We hit 3000 🎉

Another great week of blog posts and community information. So much good stuff.

We also hit a little milestone of having 3000 subscribers. As Luce said in a tweet: "Thanks to all of you for being part of something we really love putting together for you."

Luce Carter, Geoffrey Huntley and I thank you for your support.

Enjoy the links and have a great weekend.

DESIGN

3 Common Ways To Use Illustrations in UI Design

A picture is worth a thousand words, and we are definitely starting to see more and more illustrations making their way into mobile designs. Check out some great ways you can incorporate them effectively.

3 Common Ways To Use Illustrations in UI Design by Nick Babich

5 Most Used Mobile Form Design Principles

Make sure you are creating the best mobile input forms you can. Here are some great design principles to set you straight.

5 Most Used Mobile Form Design Princeples and Examples for Learning by Sam Atmore

BUSINESS & MARKETING

The State of Mobile

The mobile landscape is continuously evolving and bringing forth new opportunities for mobile users. In his 2h-long presentation, Luke Wroblewski walks us through not only some market fundamentals and statistics but also how to find the core values of your app and to increase sign-up conversions and make app-onboarding more convenient.

You can also download Luke’s slides

A goldmine of knowledge.

Luke Wroblewski - Conversions@Google 2018 by Luke Wroblewski

OPEN SOURCE

Google Client Plugin For Xamarin

Luis Pujols just released the Google Client Plugin, it makes the process of authenticating a user across Xamarin Forms, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS with Google Sign In easier.

Google Client Plugin For Xamarin by Luis Pujols

ANDROID

Xamarin.Android Startup Sequence

This video contains a dive into Xamarin.Android and what happens when it starts up on your device.

Xamarin.Android Startup Sequence by Adam Pedley

Xamarin and Java Processes (root)

The Cheesebaron show you how to start a Java process from your Xamarin App... What could possibly go wrong? ;-)

Xamarin and Java Processes (root) by Tomasz Cielecki

IOS

Setting iOS permission descriptions in Visual Studio 2017

Where do you go to set all those properties in your info.plist file that aren't displayed in the default editor? Jim Bennett shows a nice little trick on how to get to them.

Setting iOS permission descriptions in Visual Studio 2017 by Jim Bennett

XAMARIN FORMS

Binding a Collection to a FlexLayout III

David Britch continues his series on binding a collection to the new Flex Layout. Previously, he explained how to extend the ExtendedFlexLayout class so that it allows a DataTemplateSelector to choose a DataTemplate at runtime. This time he covers adding CollectionChanged support.

Binding a Collection to a FlexLayout III by David Britch

Check internet connection in Xamarin Forms

Does your app need to constantly check it’s internet connectivity? Do you want to inform your user that he/she is disconnected from the net? Devlin shows you how you can do this.

How to continuously check internet connection in Xamarin Forms by Devlin

MongoDB with Xamarin

When you think of MongoDB, the NoSQL database that provides an agile development experience typically associated with NodeJS development, do you think of Xamarin? Up until a couple weeks ago, my answer was no. Turns out though we can add MongoDB to the ever growing list of database platform choices when building Xamarin apps!

MongoDB with Xamarin? It's True!! by Matthew Soucoup

Interfaces for Xamarin.Essentials

Xamarin Essentials is a great recent initiative from the Xamarin team to provide an endorsed, comprehensive cross-platform set of APIs in a single package.

One interesting aspect of the library is the lack of interfaces; all APIs provided by Essentials are exposed through static methods, members and events. This is a deliberate design decision - there are size, performance, simplicity and maintenance considerations that the team made for this - but if you use dependency injection you'll probably want some interfaces. In this blog post, Ryan Davis shows you how to go about it.

Interfaces for Xamarin.Essentials by Ryan Davis

5 Xamarin.Forms Debugging Nightmares And Their Solutions

We have all had those horrible situations where you get a wacky debugging scenario or error deploying to devices. In this post Doumer presents some of his most common nightmares and work arounds / solutions.

5 Xamarin.Forms Debugging Nightmares And Their Solutions by Doumer

.NET

Working with the HttpClient Class

The HttpClient class is used to send and receive requests to an HTTP endpoint. In this article, Camilo Reyes describes how to work with the class and how to avoid common pitfalls and issue.

Working with the HttpClient Class by Camilo Reyes

AI

Using Machine Learning and Azure Custom Vision for image classification

Daniel Hindrikes is using Machine Learning and custom vision to train models to recognize mushrooms. He then talks about how to incorporate this in iOS using CoreML and on Android TensorFlow.

Using Machine Learning and Azure Custom Vision for image classification in your apps by dhindrik

MEETUPS

.NET Presentations

Here is a website that's worth keeping tabs on:

Welcome to .NET "Presentations in a Box." We have a listing of workshops and presentations YOU can use AND contribute to! Remix and share, and present at Meetups, User Groups, CodeCamps, or Conferences!

Hopefully we will get some Xamarin content up there soon.

.NET Presentations

NUGET OF THE WEEK

TinyInsights – A library for helping developers with analytics and crash reporting

Daniel Hindrikes shares a neato little analytics library. TinyInsightshas support for multiple service providers., which makes it possible to track data to multiple destinations with one common call. Right now TinyInsights has providers for AppCenter and Google Analytics.

TinyInsights – A library for helping developers with analytics and crash reporting by dhindrik

PODCASTS & VIDEOS

DevOps with VSTS: CI-CD for Xamarin Android app

Houssem Dellai has a video which walks through the process of creating a CI-CD pipeline for Xamarin App app using VSTS.

DevOps with VSTS: CI-CD for Xamarin Android app by Houssem Dellai

Prism Template Studio & Developer Toolkit for Visual Studio for Mac with Dan Siegel

This week, James is joined once again by friend of the show Dan Siegel, Microsoft MVP, who shows off his latest creation, Prism Template Studio & Developer Toolkit for Visual Studio for Mac. Pretty Amazing Stuff

Prism Template Studio & Developer Toolkit for Visual Studio for Mac with Dan Siegel by James Montemagno

Merge Conflict 104: Learning From Our Users

This week we are diving into one of the final parts of DevOps, which is continuous monitoring and learning about our apps and our users. Frank has gone all in on integrating crash reporting and analytics into his apps and we discuss his outcome

104: Learning From Our Users

What's New in Visual Studio 2017, Xamarin.Forms, and the Android designer

In this episode of the Xamarin Podcast, Pierce Boggan and James Montemagno discuss the latest & greatest in mobile .NET development, including Xamarin.Forms 3.0 and 3.1, Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 and 15.8, updates to the Android designer, and more!

What's New in Visual Studio 2017, Xamarin.Forms, and the Android designer

AND FINALLY...

A big Thank You!!

Thanks so much to all our subscribers for allowing us to share all the great community blogs and posts with you! We are now over 3000 strong.