KYM PHILLPOTTS
And just like that it was already December
Happy Friday everyone!
What a bumper issue we have this week. As we like to say here in Australia "Crikeys, we've got more links than you can poke a stick at". And there I was thinking the leadup to Christmas was going to be quiet. Not so much.
Thank you so much to all the great content from the amazing Xamarin community!
And thank you dear reader for taking the time to check out the issue.
Have an awesome weekend
❤️
Kym
SPONSORED LINK
NEWS
Announcing Syncfusion’s Xamarin Holiday Challenge
Like the community, here at Weekly Xamarin we love a challenge. We also love beautiful UI's! Syncfusion have combined the two to offer a Xamarin Holiday Challenge to introduce you to their Essential UI Kit.
Announcing Syncfusion’s Xamarin Holiday Challenge by Prabakaran Ramasamy
GETTING STARTED
Getting started with Converters in Xamarin.Forms
In this blog post, Delpin will show you how to use Converter in MVVM using IValueConverter in Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Forms - Converter in MVVM using IValueConverter by Delpin Susai Raj
CODE
Xamarin.Forms NLog sample
This is a simple Xamarin.Forms sample code for logging with NLog. This repository provides a very simple application, which has only two buttons. If you tap the buttons, sample application writes information to CSV format log file. But it's interesting to see how to use NLog (a popular choice of logger)
tafuji/Xamarin-Forms-NLog-Sample by Takeshi Fujimoto
DESIGN
Who doesn't love icons?
For the first time ever, Bootstrap has its own icon library, custom designed and built for our components and documentation. I know what you are thinking - "Bootstrap, wha?" Well, even though these or on the bootstrap site, these are SVG icons so you can go ahead and use them in your Xamarin projects.
Healthcare Mobile App Design: Tips and Inspiration
There’s always a delicate balance to be struck between form and functionality when designing mobile apps. This post over at the Telerik blog gives some great advice on achieving that balance.
Healthcare Mobile App Design: Tips and Inspiration by Suzanne Scacca
PERFORMANCE
Investing Time in the Xamarin Linker for Smaller App Sizes
When developing an app, 99% of our time goes into writing the code, testing the functionality, and making small UI tweaks to please our end users. Most of this is done in debug mode which optimizes compilation and app size for speed, which makes sense. But app sizes, that's important too. James has posted a great article on using the linker.
Investing Time in the Xamarin Linker for Smaller App Sizes by James Montemagno
DEVOPS
How to build and sign your iOS application using Azure DevOps
When developing a mobile application you need to distribute a package on a regular basis, for example when you want to update your application on the App Store. In this article, Damien continues his excellent series of DevOps posts to show you how to automatically build and sign your iOS application.
How to build and sign your iOS application using Azure DevOps by Damien Aicheh
ANDROID
Setting Android Status Bar Background & Icon Colors
With all the talk of different theming of applications, one thing was still bugging James: Status bar colours in Android. But james has come through with the goods and tells you how to pull it off.
Setting Android Status Bar Background & Icon Colors by James Montemagno
IOS
(More of) What's new in iOS13
At the Melbourne Xamarin Meetup November 2019 Meetup, Ryan gave a second run of his "(Some of) What's new in iOS13" talk, which (appropriately) covers new features and frameworks in the latest version of iOS. It was a fantastic talk, and I highly recommend checking it out!
How to upload .ipa app package to Apple Store Connect
Recently Apple decided to discontinue Application Loader and therefore took the only GUI tool from the developers to upload their application packages to TestFlight/Apple Store. In this post, Mikolaj shows two options to upload: Command Line, and the Transporter App.
How to upload .ipa app package to Apple Store Connect by Mikolaj Kieres
XAMARIN FORMS
7 Ways to Boost Your Xamarin Development Productivity
Meikanda Nayanar shares his tips for improving your productivity when developing a Xamarin.Forms application.
7 Ways to Boost Your Xamarin Development Productivity by Meikanda Nayanar
GIF Support now available in Xamarin.Forms
Gif or Jif? Who cares! With the new pre-release version of Xamarin.Forms you can now use animated GIF images! Gerald shows you how to get started. From now on all my apps are going to be just a big collection of animated gifs! ;-)
Also, it's definitely GIF.
Xamarin.Forms SwipeView
In Xamarin.Forms 4.4 comes SwipeView , a new control with the objective of covering the functionality related to contextual options. Available for Android, iOS and UWP (soon also on Tizen). Javier, walks you through it.
Note: Post is in Spanish
[Xamarin.Forms] Un primer vistazo a SwipeView by Javier Suárez Ruiz
Xamarin.Forms IndicatorView
Another new control in Xamarin.Forms 4.4, the IndicatorView. You know those dots that appear under a carousel view which aims to show the number of elements and the position of the current element. Yeah, that one.
Note: Post is in Spanish
Xamarin.Forms - Compiled Bindings
Learn what is compiled bindings in Xamarin.Forms and how to use it to improve performance and avoid spelling errors.
AI
How you can use Artifical Intelligence in your xamarin apps (a real-world example)
Applying AI Algorithms to a news app? Why not. Ahmed walks through some algorithms and real world implementation.
How you can use Artifical Intelligence in your xamarin apps (a real-world example) by Ahmed Fouad
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
DevTalk 25: Developing with Xamarin.Forms. With Almir Vuk
On this episode of DevTalk Kerry speaks to Almir Vuk about developing cross-platform apps using Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Forms 101: Entries and Editors
This week Maddy takes a look at how to effectively use the Entry control and the Editor control in Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Forms 101: Entries and Editors by Maddy Leger
Flashlight (Xamarin.Essentials API of the Week)
Xamarin.Essentials provides developers with cross-platform APIs for their mobile applications. On this week's Xamarin.Essential API of the week we take a look at the Flashlight API to turn on and off the light on a device.
Play Flashlight (Xamarin.Essentials API of the Week) by James Montemagno
Merge Conflict: 178: Building C# with Mads Torgersen
James sits down with the legendary Mads Torgersen to talk about how the team at Microsoft builds C# and works with the community to plan out and iterate on new features.
Merge Conflict: 178: Building C# with Mads Torgersen by Merge Conflict
RELEASES
MFractor 3.9 for Visual Studio Mac Out Now
We all love improved productivity and if you do your Xamarin develop on VS for Mac, you have no doubt heard of MFractor! They have just announced the release of MFractor 3.9 for Visual Studio Mac. This release upgrades the delete output folders feature, improves general performance and stability and also revamps the documentation.
MFractor 3.9 for Visual Studio Mac Out Now by Matthew Robbins
AND FINALLY...
Snppts Challenge Wrap-up
A while ago we started the Snppts Challenge, asking you to submit your good-looking UIs to the platform and promising swag in the process. Now that the deadline has passed, let’s take a quick look back on this challenge! We think the response to this was great, with quite a few submissions.