In my previous (and first) posting on Learning Xamarin, I demonstrated how to create a pretty cool program out of the box. Let’s back up now, and start with a blank app, and see what we can build from there.
Create a new project as described in the previous posting, but this time choose a Blank application.
Continue readingIt has been a few months since I’ve posted, and I hope you missed me as much as I missed you. To re-launch this blog, I’ve decided to provide a series on Xamarin.Forms programming.
If you prefer to learn by watching a video, check out this video course.
If you are new to Xamarin.Forms (and I’m assuming you are) then there is a lot to learn, but none of it is very difficult… ok some of it is, but not until you’re into very advanced topics. The one thing you do need to know is C#. You don’t have to be an expert, but you do have to be comfortable with the language.
Continue readingHere is a link to the slide deck for my presentation at NYC Code Camp.
Thanks!
Here’s a problem I come across more often than I would have expected. 
I want my buttons to use Commands in the View Model, but in response to the command, I have to interact with the user in a way that is much easier to do in the code behind.
Let’s take the example of a user pressing a button to delete a record. The button calls a command in the ViewModel, but I want to show a confirmation dialog box in the view. If the user affirms the deletion, I want to do the work back in the View Model. Oy.
OzCode is an extraordinary debugging tool for Visual Studio (Windows). I’m joined by Omer Raviv, Creator and CTO of OzCode and Alon Fliess, Co-founder of CodeValue and Chief Architect at OzCode. Alon is a Microsoft Regional Director and an Azure MVP.
I often have to dim a button to indicate that it is disabled, and I want to do that via data binding.
John Papa and I have just released our new Play by Play on Learning To Program. If you know of someone who has wanted to learn to code but didn’t know where to start, this might be a great option.
In my previous posts I showed how to get started with App Center and how to build an app on App Center. In this post, I will demonstrate how to distribute your shiny new app to your alpha or beta testers.
Return to App Center and confirm that your application has been built with the latest check in. Next, create your distribution group.
To do so, click on Distribute Groups, where you will see a button in the upper right hand corner: New Group.
Create and name your group (e.g., Alpha Testers) . You can allow public access , but then device registration won’t work (at least for now). Leave this off, and enter email addresses into the box labeled Who would you like to invite to this group?
Matthew Robbins is a Xamarin and Microsoft MVP and he is the creator of MFractor, a mobile-first utility for Visual Studio Mac.
Our site: https://www.mfractor.com/
Documentation: http://docs.mfractor.com/
Localisation Tooling Blog: https://www.mfractor.
In my previous (and first) blog post on App Center I talked about getting started, adding the SDK to your code, and looking at Analytics and Crash reporting. In this post I’d like to discuss building your app on App Center; which allows you to distribute your app to Beta testers and others.
There are a few steps in setting up and configuring your build process, but once done, building is as simple as pressing a button (or, even simpler, you can set it up to build on every push to your source control!)
There is no doubt that Microsoft’s VS App Center is an incredible resource 
for mobile application programmers. The problem is that it seems hard to get started. The good news is that once you get started, it turns out to be wicked easy!
For this blog post, I’m going to assume that you are already sold that App Center is the Cat’s Meow; if not check out this article by Microsoft on why App Center is so cool.
The short version is that App Center allows you to Build your application in the cloud, directly from your repository. You can Test (using Xamarin Cloud) and you can Distribute to beta testers. You can also set up and view analytics and crash reports. Finally, you can set up push notifications.
