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Building Cross-Platform applications using Xamarin and C#Open House – January 2014

Ofir Makmal - Senior ConsultantEmail: Ofirm@sela.co.ilBlog: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/ofirmakmalTwitter: @OfirMakmalLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ofirmakmal

Mobile Market ReviewiOS vs Android vs Windows (Phone\Store)JavaScript, CSS, HTML 5 alternative Xamarin approachThe magic behindCross-Platform Application ArchitectureCode-Sharing ‘tactics’Components store/open source componentsTips, tricks and others caveats

Agenda

Mobile Platforms

iOS• Storyboards• Objective C• Xcode

Android• XML-based UI• Java• Eclipse/Android

Studio/IntelliJ IDEA

Windows Phone/Windows 8• XAML-based UI• C#, VB, C++,

JavaScript• Visual Studio

OS Versions

Windows Phone 8;

70%

Windows Phone 7.x;

30%

iOS 7; 74%

iOS 6; 22%

Earlier; 4%

KitKat (4.4); 1.10%

JellyBean (4.1-4.3); 54.50%

ICS (4.0.x); 18.60%

Honeycomb (3.x); 0.10%

Gingerbread (2.3.x); 24.10%

Froyo (2.2); 1.60%

iOS Basic Concepts

Foundation/UIKit

View controllers

Storyboards and segues

Table views

Android Basic Concepts

Android SDK

Activities

Intents

ListViews and adapters

Windows Runtime Basic Concepts

.NET Framework

Pages

Navigation

ListViews and binding

Targeting all major platforms

Theoretically, can provide the best UX, but

Comes with a great costAcquire specialties with at list three different technologiesNo code sharingEvery feature, bug, needed to be implemented several times

What's out there?

What about performance, UX, Look&Feel?

What Is PhoneGap All About?Wrapper

Bridge

Write C#. Run on 2.5 billion devices.

Introducing Xamarin

Xamarin

Founded in 2011 by Novell ex-employees

Based on the Mono project – launched on 2001

Brings the .NET Framework to Linux and OS XStable, great performance, tooling, huge code base

Xamarin took it to the next step: all major platforms – iOS, Android, Linux, OS X

Write in C#Write in C#!!

100% platform API coverageSame-day support for all new API’s Average of 75% code sharing!

You can keep using Visual StudioAnd your favorite extensionsor you can use the free Xamarin Studio

All latest C# goodness – LINQ, async\await, TPL

Why Xamarin?

Boring, yet important

Officially partnered with MicrosoftMSDN special plans

Over 460,000 developers live, 20,000 paying customers, 120 consulting partners

Used by more than 20% of Fortune 500 companies

Great documentation and tutorialsVery responsive community and forumsReuse your company’s current development investment

Demo

Xamarin stack

Where is the magic?

Xamarin.iOS - full Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation to produce an ARM binary suitable for Apple's App Store.Xamarin.Android - takes advantage of Just In Time compilation right on the Android device

Xamarin on iOS (monoTouch)AOT – Ahead Of Time compilation (no JIT)Support ARMv6, ARMv7, ARMv7sCan use the LLVM optimizing compilerUses mtouch

Static analysis-based linkerOnly dependent components are being compiled and deployedReduce the size of the application dramaticallyCan be disabled using flags (No Link, Link SDK Only) or manually using attributes

From Apple perspective – Xamarin application is like any other native application on the AppStore

Xamarin on Android (monoDroid)

Runs both Dalvik and CLR at the same timeSimilar linker as to iOS – reduce the application size in up to 70%

Can be disabled using flags (No Link, Link SDK Only) or manually using attributes

Mono JIT-CompilingMono’s Simple Generational GC

See tips and tricks

Interaction with the OS is done using JNI (Java Native Interface) with Managed runtime wrappers

Xamarin Application Architecture

User Interface Designer

AndroidAXml editorAll standard android UI controlsBuilt-in – both Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio

iOSXCode UI designerStoryboards also supportedXamarin works directly with the XIB fileIntegrated designer – in Alpha

Code sharing ‘tactics’

File-LinkingUsing symbolic links to shared files from different projectsGenerally used with conditional compilation directivesCan be used with partial classes and methods

Can be hard to unit-testRequires an extra step for building the core project

Portable Class Library (PCL)

Portable Class Library

Support various deployment targetsWindows 7\8 Desktop appsWindows 8 Store AppsWindows Phone 7\8Xamarin.iOSXamarin.AndroidXbox (partial)Silverlight 4\5

All by using the same binary!

Portable Class Library – cont.

Portable Class Library – cont.

Almost every package on NuGet comes with PCL

HttpClientImmutable CollectionsSignalRODataLibRESTSharpJson.NetMvvmCrossTinyIoCProtobuf-netMany more..

MvvmCross

By far the best and most robust Mvvm framework Supports:

Xamarin.iOSXamarin.AndroidWindows PhoneWindows Store AppsWPF Mac OS X

Navigation, IoC container, bindings, etc.. – One stop shop

Demo

Visual Studio Integration

iOS application can be developed in Visual Studio, but you will still need a Mac

For building the binariesRunning the simulatorDeploy to deviceUI using Xcode (Interface Builder)

Works perfectly side-by-side – using remote build and deployment

F5 on VS, the application is loaded on the iOS simulator\device

Visual Studio Integration – cont.

Android works within VS as any other C# projectSimulator needs some tweaks for performance

Intel HAXM

Device deployment is the fastest

Xamarin Studio (monoDevelop)

Fully featured, modern IDEGlobal type searchCode NavigationBoth Mac and Windows versionsMuch more..

NuGet supportSource control

SVN / GIT are supported

Refactoring in Visual Studio is better

Generally, great IDE (really)

Demo

Geo-Location

Address book

using Xamarin.Geolocation;var locator = new Geolocator { DesiredAccuracy = 50 };

Position position = await locator.GetPositionAsync (timeout: 10000);

// position.Latitude, position.Longitude, etc..

using Xamarin.Contacts;var contacts = new AddressBook ();

if (await book.RequestPermission()) {contacts.OrderBy(c => c.LastName).ForEach(c => Console.WriteLine);}

Xamarin.Mobile

PushSharp

Server-side library for sending Push NotificationsiOS (iPhone/iPad APNS)Android (C2DM and GCM - Google Cloud Message)Windows PhoneWindows 8Amazon, Blackberry too

http://tinyurl.com/pushsharpsession

InteroperabilityUse native libraries as if they were written in C#

You can wrap a driver for any specific platform and use it in Xamarin – specific printer, scanner, etc..

iOS Objective Sharpie – for semi-automatic wrapper generation for Objective-C drivers

Android – set build action to AndroidNativeLibrary and use PInvoke

tips

Good separation between UI code and BLE.g. Do not use BitmapImage on your BL

Whatever you do, do not use MEFAbstract away the IoC implementation

Create abstractions for system.configurationiOS - Reflection and mtouch linker issuesAndroid – Large object graphs on Java.Lang.Object subclassesAndroid – Use the x86 emulator (!)

Make your app Xamarin-friendly

ShowcaseBastion

3rd party components

There is a component for almost every need

Google Play ServicesWindows Azure Mobile ServicesFacebook SDKTwitter SDKPushSharp - TBDRestSharpMany more - http://components.xamarin.com/

Scan your code for conformance

scan.xamarin.com

Demo

Licensing

Getting started with Xamarin

Scan your code for conformance: scan.xamarin.comDownload:

Trial program – 30 daysMSDN Subscription benefit – 90 days

Tons of webinars from the last conferenceGreat tutorials (really!)

Questions

Thank you!

If you can do it in Objective-C and Java, you can do it in C# with Xamarin.

Ofir Makmal - Senior ConsultantEmail: Ofirm@sela.co.ilBlog: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/ofirmakmalTwitter: @OfirMakmalLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ofirmakmal