Issue 254

LUCE CARTER

Hey everyone,

Happy Friday!

Sadly the world is still in the middle of a pandemic and none of us can see family and friends as much as we would like. But hang in there and stay home! I hope you and all your loved ones are safe and well.

Another great set of content this week for you all to enjoy. Thanks again to everyone who created content and all you lovely readers out there!

Have a great weekend, Luce 🧡

NEWS

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.5 | Xamarin Blog

This week, Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.5 was released! Which brings several new features and improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio for Mac to help you build better mobile apps, faster.

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.5 by Pierce Boggan

DESIGN

Coolors.co - The super fast color schemes generator

Steven Thewissen recently mentioned this handy colours generator in his talk at the Focus on Xamarin DotNETConf event. It's a great way to start with some colours you like and get suggestions on ones that may go well with it. You can lock ones you like and keep generating until you have a palette that you think would look good in your app!

Coolors - colour scheme generator

DEVOPS

Customize your Azure DevOps "Run pipeline" menu

Once you automate your development process, you may have multiple pipelines. If so, each one has its own purpose and unique name. We run unit tests, then if they succeed, we build the iOS and Android projects. Finally, we distribute the application through App Center.

Customize your Azure DevOps "Run pipeline" menu by Damien Aicheh

XAMARIN FORMS

Adding Embedded Fonts: Custom Fonts in Xamarin.Forms

A bit like images, fonts is one of those resources you want to include in your app but it was historically a bit of a pain. Gerald has written a great article on how to use custom fonts with the new embedded fonts feature. Luce actually used this exact post this week to add FiraCode to an app she is working on!

Embedded Fonts: Custom Fonts in Xamarin.Forms by Gerald Versluis

Updating Old Xamarin Forms Projects

Although Xamarin.Forms has been using .NET Standard 2.0 for a while now, there are still projects out there using the old PCL format. Charlin does a great job of showing you how to not only migrate over but also how to update the other parts of your solution as well!

Updating Old Xamarin Forms Projects by Charlin Agramonte

Combining Xamarin.Essentials WebAuthenticator with IdentityModel.OidcClient

IdentityModel.OidcClient is a C#/.NET standard 2.0 OpenID certified library for native mobile and desktop applications. Read this follow-on post from Dave's other featured article, showing how you can make WebAuthenticator in Xamarin.Essentials even simpler with the use of this library.

Combining Xamarin.Essentials WebAuthenticator with IdentityModel.OidcClient by David Britch

Picker within Listview

Jesse and his team recently wanted to put a picker inside a ListView in Xamarin.Forms and wanted to be notified of changes in the picker. This is a great blog post on what they learned!

Picker within Listview by Jesse Liberty

Sharpnado 1.5 goes Acrylic! MaterialFrame with dynamic themes

As of version 1.5, Sharpnado's MaterialFrame now has Acrylic has an additional theme option. In this post, Jean-Marie talks you through how to use it!

Sharpnado 1.5 goes Acrylic! MaterialFrame with dynamic themes by Jean-Marie Alfonsi

Authentication from a Xamarin.Forms app using WebAuthenticator

Xamarin.Essentials recently introduced a WebAuthenticator class, which is a web navigation API that can be used for authentication with web services. The class contains a single method, AuthenticateAsync, which starts an authentication flow by navigating to a specified URI, and then waits for a callback/redirect to the redirect URI scheme. The whole point of the class is that it avoids having to write platform code to invoke native browsers.

Authentication from a Xamarin.Forms app using WebAuthenticator by David Britch

Customising iOS Frame shadows in Xamarin.Forms 4.5+

Even with iOS 13 having been out for quite a while now and Xamarin.Forms 4.5+ bringing a lot of improvements and fixes, I still find myself having to customise things for different projects (usually for the same reason as some of my other other posts: Graphic Designers and marketing people 😂).

Customising iOS Frame shadows in Xamarin.Forms 4.5+ by Matt Crombie

NUGET OF THE WEEK

Magic Gradients Make Beautiful Xamarin.Forms Apps

Magic Gradients is a NuGet that allows you to add beautiful and enhanced gradients into Xamarin.Forms applications. This NuGet package supports all common Xamarin platforms, such as Android, iOS and UWP. It is built upon SkiaSharp to draw a simple multi-color or multi-layer engaged gradients in Skia Surface(SKSurface).

Magic Gradients Make Beautiful Xamarin.Forms Apps by Bohdan Benetskyi

CAREER

dotNETConf - First speaking gig: A retrospective

Steven Thewissen of PancakeView, DebugRainbows and generally beautiful apps fame, recently spoke at the DotNETConf: Focus on Xamarin event. It was his first speaking gig (you wouldn't know it from watching!) and he has written a really helpful retrospective article on his experience.

[dotNETConf - First speaking gig: A retrospective[https://www.thewissen.io/dotnetconf-first-speaking-gig-a-retrospective/) by Steven Thewissen

WHO'S HIRING/LOOKING

Automated Test Developer

Megsoft Consulting is a leading digital product agency, trusted Microsoft Partner and Premier Xamarin Partner at the forefront of IT. They are looking for an Automated Test Developer to join their team.

Looking for skills in:

C#, Xamarin.Forms, XAML, SQLite, Reactive Extensions
4+ years of experience developing high-complexity applications.
Writing automated unit tests using C# & nUnit.
Working with developers & Technical Lead to ensure appropriate test coverage.
Taking Developer & UI tasks, as needed.

This is a remote position. Occasional travel may be required.

For this and other great positions check megsoftconsulting.com.

Issue 254 10th April 2020