KYM PHILLPOTTS
G'day everyone,
Hope you are having an excellent week and ready for a load of Xamarin and MAUI related content.
Apologies for the late newsletter. I'm working to get some people to help out with curation so we can get dates back on track. Stay tuned, but as always if you have any articles you want to submit, please do so here: https://bit.ly/WeeklyXamarinSubmit.
Oh by the way, Lachlan and I have released a new version of the Weekly Xamarin app with some community editions like filtering by topic - thanks to all the people who have submitted pull requests!
Have a great week everyone!
❤
Kym
DESIGN
How to design delightful dark themes
Dark themes are the latest trend in app design. Here we share how to design dark themes that are readable, balanced, and delightful!
TESTING
Using the Xamarin REPL Tool - Trailhead Technology Partners
Xamarin REPL (read-eval-print-loop) is one of the most important tools for building Xamarin.UITest tests. It’s a console-like environment in which we can see the structure of the visible part of our application using queries and commands.
Using the Xamarin REPL Tool - Trailhead Technology Partners by Masha Altukhova
PERFORMANCE
HTTP trick to check if a remote resource exists
Mobile network connections are extremely varied from bad underground connections to speedy 5G connections. Being able to handle this can make the difference between users loving an app, or hating it.
To avoid long UI delays with a loading animation and/or text message, or worse just something appearing to freeze, we can do a really quick HTTP call to check a resource exists ahead of actually trying to utilise the resource.
Keeping your UI fast by using this HTTP trick to check if a remote resource exists by Matt Crombie
DEVOPS
Manage your mobile application version automatically with GitHub Actions
Automate the versioning of your application. Damien Aicheh has created a new set of free GitHub Actions to use in your workflow. These actions provide a way to extract the version from a Git repository tag and apply it to your project as you want.
Manage your mobile application version automatically with GitHub Actions by Damien Aicheh
TOOLS
Mobile.BuildTools 2.0
Dan announces Mobile.BuildTools 2.0 with a bit of history and some of the awesome new features it contains.
XAMARIN FORMS
Getting started with a Xamarin.Forms UI Design
Leomaris takes a gentle approach to understaning how to think about your page layout in this post
Getting started with a UI and not die trying in Xamarin Forms by Leomaris Reyes
Getting Started with the BadgeView control for Xamarin.Forms
Learn how to create badges and attach them to any Xamariin.Forms view you have.
Getting Started with the BadgeView control for Xamarin.Forms by Yana Kerpecheva
Working with Behaviors
Behaviors lets you add functionality to user interface controls without having to subclass them. Behaviors are written in code and added to controls in XAML or code.
Xamarin.Forms - Working with Behaviors in Xamarin.froms by Delpin Susai Raj
Faster & Safer XAML with Compiled Bindings in Xamarin.Forms & .NET MAUI
Are you looking to make your Xamarin.Forms or .NET MAUI app even more performant? Look no further than compiled bindings. This piece of technology speeds up your app by compiling your data bindings ahead of time and has the additional bonus of compile type checking of your bindings. I walk through the few lines of coded needed.
Faster & Safer XAML with Compiled Bindings in Xamarin.Forms & .NET MAUI by James Montemagno
Shadow Effect in Telerik UI
Meet Telerik Shadow for Xamarin, WinUI and UWP. Bring on the material design concepts for your mobile and desktop apps.
Shadow Effect in Telerik UI for Xamarin, WinUI, UWP by Dobrinka Yordanova
Close applications programmatically
Can you programmatically close your application... sure... should you? Well that's up to you. In iOS it's a no-no, but it can be done in Android and in some cases might even be useful.
Xamarin Forms: Close applications programmatically by András Tóth
MAUI
The Future of Xamarin Community Toolkit
With the release of .NET MAUI coming soon, here is the roadmap for the Xamarin Community Toolkit.
Xamarin / .Net Maui discussion with Javier Suárez
The community talks to Javier Suarez about #DotNetMaui and #Xamarin about everything new that is coming and about the current status of Xamarin.
Note, the video is in Spanish so for English speakers turn on those auto generated subtitles.
Xamarin / .Net Maui discussion with Javier Suárez by Luis Matos
.NET MAUI Templates
Vijay shares a VS Extension that enabled Project and Item Templates in Visual Studio 2022.
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
FreshMvvm Basic Navigation Concepts in Xamarin.Forms
In this video we will learn why it's important to navigate to ViewModels instead of pages and more importantly: how to actually do just that!
FreshMvvm Basic Navigation Concepts in Xamarin.Forms by Gerald Versluis
Xamarin.Forms MVVM Made Easy with FreshMvvm Framework
Xamarin.Forms already has all the bits necessary to implement the MVVM pattern successfully. However, you can make your life easier by using a MVVM framework. In this video we will see FreshMvvm, the MVVM framework that I love using in my Xamarin.Forms apps!
Xamarin.Forms MVVM Made Easy with FreshMvvm Framework by Gerald Versluis
The Xamarin Podcast Episode 96: The Final Xamarin Podcast
It's over. Done. Finished. Caput. No more. This is the last Xamarin podcast ever. What's going to happen next month?
The Xamarin Podcast Episode 96: The Final Xamarin Podcast by The Xamarin Podcast
Merge Conflict: 262: Your AI Code Copilot
GitHub Copilot is here, and Frank goes hands on with the new service that provides code recommendations directly in VS Code.
Null Pointers 61: Versioning Software
After quickly discussing if we still have a job once GitHub Co-Pilot goes public, we discuss the ins and outs of versioning software. From semantic, new-newer-newest to other version strategies we have seen along the so far.
DevTalk 67: SwiftUI. With Ed Snider
On this episode of DevTalk I speak to Ed Snider about SwiftUI and how it compares to developing using Xamarin.Forms.