Issue 250

KYM PHILLPOTTS

Hi Everyone

In this time of Pandemics, it's a great time for self isolation. This week we have lots of great community resources to keep you getting bored..

Stay safe people, and happy Friday 13th.

❤

Kym

CODE

How to avoid NullReferenceException in C#

Every developer knows this exception - System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. In this article Cheng Yang discusses techniques to never see it ever again.

How to avoid NullReferenceException in C# by Cheng Yang

Image Placeholders with BlurHash on Xamarin

Stuart Lang discusses creating a xamarin version of BlurHash, which looks like a really interesting way of providing Image Loading placeholders.

Do Away with Static Image Placeholders with BlurHash on Xamarin by Stuart Lang

DESIGN

Organize SVG icons in one place

This looks to be a great tool for organizing all your SVG Icons. It also has references to many great free SVG Libraries. Why SVGs? Despite being a pain in the butt to integrate into your application, they are infinitely re-sizable and that matters for different densities.

Organize SVG icons in one place

ANAYLTICS

Application Insights with TinyInsights

Daniel Hindrikes has a great library called TinyInsights. It's worth checking out if you want to abstract away your logging provider. Now it supports Application Insights.

Application Insights for Xamarin- and UWP apps with TinyInsights by dhindrik

DEVOPS

Manage your application by environment using Azure DevOps

When you are developing a project you probably are building for multiples environments, Each of these environments has its own configuration (server url, api keys…).

Damien Aicheh continues his excellent series on DevOps for Xamarin. Make sure you check the other articles in the series too.

Manage your application by environment using Azure DevOps by Damien Aicheh

TOOLS

VS Mac - Code Coverage Extension

A code coverage extension for Visual Studio for Mac that provides a new pad for displaying coverage statistics and visualizing line coverage in the editor gutter.

ademanuele/VSMac-CodeCoverage

Shared Images for Xamarin with Resizetizer NT

Redth shares a cool little build tool which allows the build engine to create different density images for you.

Shared Images for Xamarin with Resizetizer NT by Redth

Dotfuscator Comes to Visual Studio for Mac

With the recent release of Dotfuscator Professional 6 Beta, we've migrated Dotfuscator to .NET Standard and .NET Core, so it now has cross-platform support for building under .NET Core and Mono, on Windows, Mac, and Linux. This opens up many more options for all Xamarin developers:

Dotfuscator Comes to Visual Studio for Mac to Help Protect Apps by Bill Leach

ANDROID

Binding Android Kotlin Libraries

Need to use 3rd Party Android libraries developed in Kotlin? Well here is some great resources to get you started.

Binding Android Kotlin Libraries by Alexey Strakh

XAMARIN FORMS

Handle The Safe Area On iPhone X And Higher Models

When you build apps for these devices, you must now consider this larger screen area in order to ensure your contents properly fit into the page. Generally speaking, the area of the screen where your contents should go is called the Safe Area.

Xamarin.Forms - Handle The Safe Area On iPhone X And Higher Models by Alessandro Del Sole

Xamarin.Forms.Nuke: iOS native image caching for Xamarin.Forms

This library was heavily inspired by Jonathan Peppers GlideX implementation of the IImageViewHandler interface for Xamarin.Forms.

Its goal is to provide the same kind of native implementation for iOS, achieving a complete native image caching solution for Xamarin.Forms: you don't have to change any line of your existing project, the Xamarin.Forms image source handlers will just be overridden with cache-enabled ones.

Xamarin.Forms.Nuke: iOS native image caching for Xamarin.Forms by Jean-Marie Alfonsi

Launching Apps in Xamarin Forms

Learning how to Launch external Apps in Xamarin Forms with Leomaris!

Launching Apps in Xamarin Forms by Leomaris Reyes

Storage Browser for Xamarin.Forms

If you've ever needed to browse the application storage on the iPhone or the Android device this library and source code might be useful for you.

Xamarin-Samples by Siasb Radvar Zanganeh

Creating Custom StateTriggers

StateTriggers represent a set of rules that apply VisualStates based on certain conditions. Each VisualState now has a Collection of StateTriggerBase that indicate when the VisualState should be applied. If any of the triggers are active, the VisualState will be applied.

Xamarin.Forms provides certain StateTriggers to cover common cases such as device orientation, dynamic changes in App window size, and so on. However, wouldn't it be great to be able to extend the possibilities and create custom StateTriggers?

Note: Post is in Spanish

[Xamarin.Forms] Creando StateTriggers personalizados by Javier Suárez Ruiz

5 Little nuggets

Thiago Bertuzzi shares tips and code references for Xamarin.Forms about Automapper, AndroidBackButton, WorkerAndroid, AppShortcuts and CustomVision.

Note: Post is in Portuguese

O X do Xamarin Forms by Thiago Bertuzzi

CAREER

How To Work From Home

In this time of pandemics, Phil Haack discusses his top tips for working from home.

How To Work From Home by Phil Haack

Issue 250 14th March 2020