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    Azure and Xamarin Forms: Cross Platform Mobile Development
    Azure and Xamarin Forms: Cross Platform Mobile Development
    Azure and Xamarin Forms: Cross Platform Mobile Development
    Ebook314 pages1 hour

    Azure and Xamarin Forms: Cross Platform Mobile Development

    By Russell Fustino

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Discover how to create cross platform apps for Android, iOS and UWP using Azure services and C# with Xamarin Forms. This book illustrates how to utilize Azure cloud storage for serving up Azure SQL DB data through Azure App Services.

    The book starts by setting up Xamarin and introducing Xamarin Forms and then covers the Azure Portal from a developer’s perspective and goes on to demonstrate how to build an Azure Service using Quickstart. You'll also see how to add Azure support to Xamarin Forms application. You'll review in detail how to build a Xamarin Form with Azure Client and modify an existing app to become a Xamarin Forms Client for Azure with offline synchronization.

    You then move on to third-party controls that speed up development. By the end of the book, you will be able to use Azure and Xamarin together and master how to use Azure Mobile Quickstarts, Azure SQL plumbing, database synchronization and Xamarin Forms.

    What You'll Learn

    • Create a Xamarin Forms App and understand the Structure of a Xamarin Forms App. 
    • Navigate pages and use platform specific coding. 
    • Use images, ListView and the Azure Mobile App Quickstart to build a Service and  Xamarin Forms app
    • Modify an existing app to use Azure Client Libraries, understand offline storage with SQLite and incorporate offline synchronization

    Who This Book Is For 

    Software developers new to Xamarin and/or Azure and for the developers who are familiar with both the technologies to use in mobile apps.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApress
    Release dateJun 15, 2018
    ISBN9781484235614
    Azure and Xamarin Forms: Cross Platform Mobile Development

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      Book preview

      Azure and Xamarin Forms - Russell Fustino

      © Russell Fustino 2018

      Russell FustinoAzure and Xamarin Formshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3561-4_1

      1. Installing Visual Studio 2017

      Russell Fustino¹ 

      (1)

      New Port Richey, Florida, USA

      In this chapter, you will learn how to install Visual Studio 2017, which will be used to complete the examples in this book.

      Note

      The source code and assets for this book can be downloaded from https://github.com/Apress/azure-and-xamarin-forms

      Installing Visual Studio 2017 and Tools on Windows

      This chapter covers how to install the required products to complete all the examples in this book.

      Windows 10 Pro or higher is required to run the emulators and cross platform development for iOS, Android, and Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

      Download and install Visual Studio Community 2017 or later versions, available at www.visualstudio.com/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=Community.

      Select and install the UWP development workload, (Figure 1-1) under the Windows section, and Mobile development with .NET.

      Select the .NET (cross platform development using Xamarin) option, under the Mobile & Gaming section (Figure 1-2) on the Visual Studio (VS) 2017 Installer.

      ../images/462945_1_En_1_Chapter/462945_1_En_1_Fig1_HTML.jpg

      Figure 1-1

      Select Universal Windows Platform development

      ../images/462945_1_En_1_Chapter/462945_1_En_1_Fig2_HTML.jpg

      Figure 1-2

      Select Mobile development with .NET

      Install ASP.NET and web development ➤ Azure development under the Web & Cloud section (Figure 1-3).

      ../images/462945_1_En_1_Chapter/462945_1_En_1_Fig3_HTML.jpg

      Figure 1-3

      Select ASP.NET and web development ➤ Azure development

      Install Data storage and processing, under the same section (Figure 1-4).

      ../images/462945_1_En_1_Chapter/462945_1_En_1_Fig4_HTML.jpg

      Figure 1-4

      Select Data storage and processing

      Under the Individual components tab, under the Emulators section, check off the following (Figure 1-5):

      Google Android Emulator (global)

      Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (global)

      Visual Studio Emulator for Android

      All Windows 10 Mobile Emulator (Anniversary Edition AND Creators Update)

      If you do not see Google Android Emulator listed, this means that you do not have Hyper-V enabled. See Chapter 2 for how to enable Hyper-V. In the meantime, start the install.

      ../images/462945_1_En_1_Chapter/462945_1_En_1_Fig5_HTML.jpg

      Figure 1-5

      Select Google Android Emulator (global), Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (global), Visual Studio Emulator for Android, and Windows 10 Mobile Emulator (Anniversary Edition and Creators Update)

      Installing Visual Studio 2017 and Tools on the Mac

      Optionally, install Visual Studio for the Mac. The purpose for a Mac installation would be to run, test, and deploy iOS and Android versions of your app in a Mac environment (UWP not supported). To build iOS apps on a PC, you must be wired to a Mac on the same network. Most of the examples in this book will use either the Android emulator or UWP local machine on a PC, so the Mac install is optional for the book. Instructions are available at https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/ios/getting_started/installation/mac/ .

      Other Tools

      Postman (www.getpostman.com and install)

      SQL Server Management Studio (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms). This tool will be used to verify our database contents.

      Firefox (www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/). Firefox has a nicely formatted view when looking at JSON data coming back from a web service.

      Summary

      In this chapter, you learned how to install Visual Studio 2017, which will be used to complete the examples in this book, and some other tools, such as Postman, SQL Server Management Studio, and Firefox. Visual Studio for the Mac is an optional installation. In the next chapter, we will build a Xamarin Forms app.

      © Russell Fustino 2018

      Russell FustinoAzure and Xamarin Formshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3561-4_2

      2. Introduction to Xamarin Forms

      Russell Fustino¹ 

      (1)

      New Port Richey, Florida, USA

      Xamarin Forms is an awesome cross platform environment from which to build iOS, Android, and UWP apps, as well as other potential platforms in the future.

      Project Overview

      In this chapter, you’ll get your feet wet with Xamarin Forms via five projects. Each project builds on the prior one. Several topics will be covered in this introductory chapter, including how to create a Xamarin Forms solution, as well as emulator tips, navigation, images, event handlers, device form factors, and list views. The result will be a typical app with a main navigation page, a list view page, and a detail page that you can use as a template for building future apps! We will be creating a book list project that has a main navigation page that looks like that in Figure 2-1.

      ../images/462945_1_En_2_Chapter/462945_1_En_2_Fig1_HTML.jpg

      Figure 2-1

      Main navigation page in the completed project

      It has a list view page that looks like that in Figure 2-2.

      ../images/462945_1_En_2_Chapter/462945_1_En_2_Fig2_HTML.jpg

      Figure 2-2

      ListView page in the completed project

      The app will navigate to a detail page on the Apress site for the book selected from a list such as that in Figure 2-3.

      ../images/462945_1_En_2_Chapter/462945_1_En_2_Fig3_HTML.jpg

      Figure 2-3

      Detail page in the completed project

      We’ll first create a new Xamarin Forms application and review the structure of the solution. We’ll then run the application for Android, UWP, and, optionally, iOS, if connected with a Mac server. As this is a cross platform app, you can use any mix of the platform projects, depending on your development environment (Mac or Windows).

      We will then enhance the app, to have a main navigation page, with StackLayout and GridLayout, which considers device form factors for phones and tablets, using device-specific logic.

      We will use XAML and code behind to control your layout form factors for tablets and phones.

      We will also use embedded resource images of the MainPage.

      A ListView page will be added with a selection event handler. You can also run these examples on Visual Studio (VS) for Mac; however, this does not support UWP.

      Note

      Run all the exercises in this book from your laptop/PC and not an Azure virtual machine.

      Time Estimate

      70 Minutes

      Project 2-1: Creating Your First Xamarin Forms

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