Contents
About ................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Getting started with Xamarin.Forms ........................................................................................... 2
Section 1.1: Installation (Visual Studio) ......................................................................................................................... 2
Section 1.2: Hello World Xamarin Forms: Visual Studio ............................................................................................. 4
Chapter 2: Why Xamarin Forms and When to use Xamarin Forms .................................................... 7
Section 2.1: Why Xamarin Forms and When to use Xamarin Forms ....................................................................... 7
Chapter 3: Xamarin Forms Layouts .................................................................................................................... 8
Section 3.1: AbsoluteLayout .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Section 3.2: Grid ........................................................................................................................................................... 10
Section 3.3: ContentPresenter .................................................................................................................................... 11
Section 3.4: ContentView ............................................................................................................................................ 12
Section 3.5: ScrollView ................................................................................................................................................ 13
Section 3.6: Frame ....................................................................................................................................................... 14
Section 3.7: TemplatedView ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Section 3.8: RelativeLayout ........................................................................................................................................ 15
Section 3.9: StackLayout ............................................................................................................................................ 16
Chapter 4: Xamarin Relative Layout ............................................................................................................... 19
Section 4.1: Box after box ........................................................................................................................................... 19
Section 4.2: Page with an simple label on the middle ............................................................................................. 21
Chapter 5: Navigation in Xamarin.Forms ....................................................................................................... 23
Section 5.1: NavigationPage flow with XAML ............................................................................................................ 23
Section 5.2: NavigationPage flow .............................................................................................................................. 24
Section 5.3: Master Detail Navigation ....................................................................................................................... 25
Section 5.4: Using INavigation from view model ..................................................................................................... 26
Section 5.5: Master Detail Root Page ........................................................................................................................ 28
Section 5.6: Hierarchical navigation with XAML ....................................................................................................... 29
Section 5.7: Modal navigation with XAML ................................................................................................................. 31
Chapter 6: Xamarin.Forms Page ........................................................................................................................ 32
Section 6.1: TabbedPage ............................................................................................................................................ 32
Section 6.2: ContentPage ........................................................................................................................................... 33
Section 6.3: MasterDetailPage ................................................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 7: Xamarin.Forms Cells ......................................................................................................................... 36
Section 7.1: EntryCell ................................................................................................................................................... 36
Section 7.2: SwitchCell ................................................................................................................................................. 36
Section 7.3: TextCell .................................................................................................................................................... 37
Section 7.4: ImageCell ................................................................................................................................................. 38
Section 7.5: ViewCell .................................................................................................................................................... 39
Chapter 8: Xamarin.Forms Views ....................................................................................................................... 41
Section 8.1: Button ....................................................................................................................................................... 41
Section 8.2: DatePicker ............................................................................................................................................... 42
Section 8.3: Entry ......................................................................................................................................................... 43
Section 8.4: Editor ........................................................................................................................................................ 43
Section 8.5: Image ....................................................................................................................................................... 44
Section 8.6: Label ........................................................................................................................................................ 45
Chapter 9: Using ListViews ..................................................................................................................................... 47
Section 9.1: Pull to Refresh in XAML and Code behind ............................................................................................ 47
,Chapter 10: Display Alert ........................................................................................................................................ 48
Section 10.1: DisplayAlert ............................................................................................................................................ 48
Section 10.2: Alert Example with only one button and action ................................................................................. 49
Chapter 11: Accessing native features with DependencyService ....................................................... 50
Section 11.1: Implementing text-to-speech ................................................................................................................ 50
Section 11.2: Getting Application and Device OS Version Numbers - Android & iOS - PCL ................................. 53
Chapter 12: DependencyService ......................................................................................................................... 55
Section 12.1: Android implementation ........................................................................................................................ 55
Section 12.2: Interface ................................................................................................................................................. 56
Section 12.3: iOS implementation ............................................................................................................................... 56
Section 12.4: Shared code ........................................................................................................................................... 57
Chapter 13: Custom Renderers ............................................................................................................................ 58
Section 13.1: Accessing renderer from a native project ........................................................................................... 58
Section 13.2: Rounded label with a custom renderer for Frame (PCL & iOS parts) ............................................. 58
Section 13.3: Custom renderer for ListView .............................................................................................................. 59
Section 13.4: Custom Renderer for BoxView ............................................................................................................. 61
Section 13.5: Rounded BoxView with selectable background color ....................................................................... 65
Chapter 14: Caching .................................................................................................................................................. 68
Section 14.1: Caching using Akavache ....................................................................................................................... 68
Chapter 15: Gestures ................................................................................................................................................. 70
Section 15.1: Make an Image tappable by adding a TapGestureRecognizer ....................................................... 70
Section 15.2: Gesture Event ......................................................................................................................................... 70
Section 15.3: Zoom an Image with the Pinch gesture .............................................................................................. 78
Section 15.4: Show all of the zoomed Image content with the PanGestureRecognizer ....................................... 78
Section 15.5: Tap Gesture ........................................................................................................................................... 79
Section 15.6: Place a pin where the user touched the screen with MR.Gestures .................................................. 79
Chapter 16: Data Binding ........................................................................................................................................ 81
Section 16.1: Basic Binding to ViewModel .................................................................................................................. 81
Chapter 17: Working with Maps ........................................................................................................................... 83
Section 17.1: Adding a map in Xamarin.Forms (Xamarin Studio) ........................................................................... 83
Chapter 18: Custom Fonts in Styles ................................................................................................................... 92
Section 18.1: Accessing custom Fonts in Syles .......................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 19: Push Notifications ............................................................................................................................. 94
Section 19.1: Push notifications for Android with Azure ........................................................................................... 94
Section 19.2: Push notifications for iOS with Azure .................................................................................................. 96
Section 19.3: iOS Example ........................................................................................................................................... 99
Chapter 20: Eects .................................................................................................................................................. 101
Section 20.1: Adding platform specific Eect for an Entry control ...................................................................... 101
Chapter 21: Triggers & Behaviours .................................................................................................................. 105
Section 21.1: Xamarin Forms Trigger Example ....................................................................................................... 105
Section 21.2: Multi Triggers ....................................................................................................................................... 106
Chapter 22: AppSettings Reader in Xamarin.Forms .............................................................................. 107
Section 22.1: Reading app.config file in a Xamarin.Forms Xaml project ............................................................. 107
Chapter 23: Creating custom controls ........................................................................................................... 108
Section 23.1: Label with bindable collection of Spans ........................................................................................... 108
Section 23.2: Implementing a CheckBox Control ................................................................................................... 110
Section 23.3: Create an Xamarin Forms custom input control (no native required) ......................................... 116
Section 23.4: Creating a custom Entry control with a MaxLength property ....................................................... 118
, Section 23.5: Creating custom Button ..................................................................................................................... 119
Chapter 24: Working with local databases ................................................................................................ 121
Section 24.1: Using SQLite.NET in a Shared Project ............................................................................................... 121
Section 24.2: Working with local databases using xamarin.forms in visual studio 2015 ................................... 123
Chapter 25: CarouselView - Pre-release version ..................................................................................... 133
Section 25.1: Import CarouselView .......................................................................................................................... 133
Section 25.2: Import CarouselView into a XAML Page .......................................................................................... 133
Chapter 26: Exception handling ........................................................................................................................ 135
Section 26.1: One way to report about exceptions on iOS .................................................................................... 135
Chapter 27: SQL Database and API in Xamarin Forms. ........................................................................ 137
Section 27.1: Create API using SQL database and implement in Xamarin forms, .............................................. 137
Chapter 28: Contact Picker - Xamarin Forms (Android and iOS) .................................................... 138
Section 28.1: contact_picker.cs ................................................................................................................................ 138
Section 28.2: MyPage.cs ........................................................................................................................................... 138
Section 28.3: ChooseContactPicker.cs .................................................................................................................... 139
Section 28.4: ChooseContactActivity.cs .................................................................................................................. 139
Section 28.5: MainActivity.cs .................................................................................................................................... 140
Section 28.6: ChooseContactRenderer.cs ............................................................................................................... 141
Chapter 29: Xamarin Plugin ................................................................................................................................ 144
Section 29.1: Media Plugin ........................................................................................................................................ 144
Section 29.2: Share Plugin ........................................................................................................................................ 146
Section 29.3: ExternalMaps ...................................................................................................................................... 147
Section 29.4: Geolocator Plugin ............................................................................................................................... 148
Section 29.5: Messaging Plugin ............................................................................................................................... 150
Section 29.6: Permissions Plugin .............................................................................................................................. 151
Chapter 30: OAuth2 ................................................................................................................................................. 155
Section 30.1: Authentication by using Plugin .......................................................................................................... 155
Chapter 31: MessagingCenter ............................................................................................................................. 157
Section 31.1: Simple example .................................................................................................................................... 157
Section 31.2: Passing arguments ............................................................................................................................. 157
Section 31.3: Unsubscribing ...................................................................................................................................... 158
Chapter 32: Generic Xamarin.Forms app lifecycle? Platform-dependant! ................................ 159
Section 32.1: Xamarin.Forms lifecycle is not the actual app lifecycle but a cross-platform representation of
it .......................................................................................................................................................................... 159
Chapter 33: Platform-specific behaviour ..................................................................................................... 161
Section 33.1: Removing icon in navigation header in Anroid ................................................................................ 161
Section 33.2: Make label's font size smaller in iOS ................................................................................................ 161
Chapter 34: Platform specific visual adjustments .................................................................................. 163
Section 34.1: Idiom adjustments ............................................................................................................................... 163
Section 34.2: Platform adjustments ........................................................................................................................ 163
Section 34.3: Using styles ......................................................................................................................................... 164
Section 34.4: Using custom views ............................................................................................................................ 164
Chapter 35: Dependency Services ................................................................................................................... 165
Section 35.1: Access Camera and Gallery ............................................................................................................... 165
Chapter 36: Unit Testing ....................................................................................................................................... 166
Section 36.1: Testing the view models ..................................................................................................................... 166
Chapter 37: BDD Unit Testing in Xamarin.Forms ..................................................................................... 172
Section 37.1: Simple Specflow to test commands and navigation with NUnit Test Runner .............................. 172
, Section 37.2: Advanced Usage for MVVM .............................................................................................................. 174
Credits ............................................................................................................................................................................ 175
You may also like ...................................................................................................................................................... 176
About ................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Getting started with Xamarin.Forms ........................................................................................... 2
Section 1.1: Installation (Visual Studio) ......................................................................................................................... 2
Section 1.2: Hello World Xamarin Forms: Visual Studio ............................................................................................. 4
Chapter 2: Why Xamarin Forms and When to use Xamarin Forms .................................................... 7
Section 2.1: Why Xamarin Forms and When to use Xamarin Forms ....................................................................... 7
Chapter 3: Xamarin Forms Layouts .................................................................................................................... 8
Section 3.1: AbsoluteLayout .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Section 3.2: Grid ........................................................................................................................................................... 10
Section 3.3: ContentPresenter .................................................................................................................................... 11
Section 3.4: ContentView ............................................................................................................................................ 12
Section 3.5: ScrollView ................................................................................................................................................ 13
Section 3.6: Frame ....................................................................................................................................................... 14
Section 3.7: TemplatedView ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Section 3.8: RelativeLayout ........................................................................................................................................ 15
Section 3.9: StackLayout ............................................................................................................................................ 16
Chapter 4: Xamarin Relative Layout ............................................................................................................... 19
Section 4.1: Box after box ........................................................................................................................................... 19
Section 4.2: Page with an simple label on the middle ............................................................................................. 21
Chapter 5: Navigation in Xamarin.Forms ....................................................................................................... 23
Section 5.1: NavigationPage flow with XAML ............................................................................................................ 23
Section 5.2: NavigationPage flow .............................................................................................................................. 24
Section 5.3: Master Detail Navigation ....................................................................................................................... 25
Section 5.4: Using INavigation from view model ..................................................................................................... 26
Section 5.5: Master Detail Root Page ........................................................................................................................ 28
Section 5.6: Hierarchical navigation with XAML ....................................................................................................... 29
Section 5.7: Modal navigation with XAML ................................................................................................................. 31
Chapter 6: Xamarin.Forms Page ........................................................................................................................ 32
Section 6.1: TabbedPage ............................................................................................................................................ 32
Section 6.2: ContentPage ........................................................................................................................................... 33
Section 6.3: MasterDetailPage ................................................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 7: Xamarin.Forms Cells ......................................................................................................................... 36
Section 7.1: EntryCell ................................................................................................................................................... 36
Section 7.2: SwitchCell ................................................................................................................................................. 36
Section 7.3: TextCell .................................................................................................................................................... 37
Section 7.4: ImageCell ................................................................................................................................................. 38
Section 7.5: ViewCell .................................................................................................................................................... 39
Chapter 8: Xamarin.Forms Views ....................................................................................................................... 41
Section 8.1: Button ....................................................................................................................................................... 41
Section 8.2: DatePicker ............................................................................................................................................... 42
Section 8.3: Entry ......................................................................................................................................................... 43
Section 8.4: Editor ........................................................................................................................................................ 43
Section 8.5: Image ....................................................................................................................................................... 44
Section 8.6: Label ........................................................................................................................................................ 45
Chapter 9: Using ListViews ..................................................................................................................................... 47
Section 9.1: Pull to Refresh in XAML and Code behind ............................................................................................ 47
,Chapter 10: Display Alert ........................................................................................................................................ 48
Section 10.1: DisplayAlert ............................................................................................................................................ 48
Section 10.2: Alert Example with only one button and action ................................................................................. 49
Chapter 11: Accessing native features with DependencyService ....................................................... 50
Section 11.1: Implementing text-to-speech ................................................................................................................ 50
Section 11.2: Getting Application and Device OS Version Numbers - Android & iOS - PCL ................................. 53
Chapter 12: DependencyService ......................................................................................................................... 55
Section 12.1: Android implementation ........................................................................................................................ 55
Section 12.2: Interface ................................................................................................................................................. 56
Section 12.3: iOS implementation ............................................................................................................................... 56
Section 12.4: Shared code ........................................................................................................................................... 57
Chapter 13: Custom Renderers ............................................................................................................................ 58
Section 13.1: Accessing renderer from a native project ........................................................................................... 58
Section 13.2: Rounded label with a custom renderer for Frame (PCL & iOS parts) ............................................. 58
Section 13.3: Custom renderer for ListView .............................................................................................................. 59
Section 13.4: Custom Renderer for BoxView ............................................................................................................. 61
Section 13.5: Rounded BoxView with selectable background color ....................................................................... 65
Chapter 14: Caching .................................................................................................................................................. 68
Section 14.1: Caching using Akavache ....................................................................................................................... 68
Chapter 15: Gestures ................................................................................................................................................. 70
Section 15.1: Make an Image tappable by adding a TapGestureRecognizer ....................................................... 70
Section 15.2: Gesture Event ......................................................................................................................................... 70
Section 15.3: Zoom an Image with the Pinch gesture .............................................................................................. 78
Section 15.4: Show all of the zoomed Image content with the PanGestureRecognizer ....................................... 78
Section 15.5: Tap Gesture ........................................................................................................................................... 79
Section 15.6: Place a pin where the user touched the screen with MR.Gestures .................................................. 79
Chapter 16: Data Binding ........................................................................................................................................ 81
Section 16.1: Basic Binding to ViewModel .................................................................................................................. 81
Chapter 17: Working with Maps ........................................................................................................................... 83
Section 17.1: Adding a map in Xamarin.Forms (Xamarin Studio) ........................................................................... 83
Chapter 18: Custom Fonts in Styles ................................................................................................................... 92
Section 18.1: Accessing custom Fonts in Syles .......................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 19: Push Notifications ............................................................................................................................. 94
Section 19.1: Push notifications for Android with Azure ........................................................................................... 94
Section 19.2: Push notifications for iOS with Azure .................................................................................................. 96
Section 19.3: iOS Example ........................................................................................................................................... 99
Chapter 20: Eects .................................................................................................................................................. 101
Section 20.1: Adding platform specific Eect for an Entry control ...................................................................... 101
Chapter 21: Triggers & Behaviours .................................................................................................................. 105
Section 21.1: Xamarin Forms Trigger Example ....................................................................................................... 105
Section 21.2: Multi Triggers ....................................................................................................................................... 106
Chapter 22: AppSettings Reader in Xamarin.Forms .............................................................................. 107
Section 22.1: Reading app.config file in a Xamarin.Forms Xaml project ............................................................. 107
Chapter 23: Creating custom controls ........................................................................................................... 108
Section 23.1: Label with bindable collection of Spans ........................................................................................... 108
Section 23.2: Implementing a CheckBox Control ................................................................................................... 110
Section 23.3: Create an Xamarin Forms custom input control (no native required) ......................................... 116
Section 23.4: Creating a custom Entry control with a MaxLength property ....................................................... 118
, Section 23.5: Creating custom Button ..................................................................................................................... 119
Chapter 24: Working with local databases ................................................................................................ 121
Section 24.1: Using SQLite.NET in a Shared Project ............................................................................................... 121
Section 24.2: Working with local databases using xamarin.forms in visual studio 2015 ................................... 123
Chapter 25: CarouselView - Pre-release version ..................................................................................... 133
Section 25.1: Import CarouselView .......................................................................................................................... 133
Section 25.2: Import CarouselView into a XAML Page .......................................................................................... 133
Chapter 26: Exception handling ........................................................................................................................ 135
Section 26.1: One way to report about exceptions on iOS .................................................................................... 135
Chapter 27: SQL Database and API in Xamarin Forms. ........................................................................ 137
Section 27.1: Create API using SQL database and implement in Xamarin forms, .............................................. 137
Chapter 28: Contact Picker - Xamarin Forms (Android and iOS) .................................................... 138
Section 28.1: contact_picker.cs ................................................................................................................................ 138
Section 28.2: MyPage.cs ........................................................................................................................................... 138
Section 28.3: ChooseContactPicker.cs .................................................................................................................... 139
Section 28.4: ChooseContactActivity.cs .................................................................................................................. 139
Section 28.5: MainActivity.cs .................................................................................................................................... 140
Section 28.6: ChooseContactRenderer.cs ............................................................................................................... 141
Chapter 29: Xamarin Plugin ................................................................................................................................ 144
Section 29.1: Media Plugin ........................................................................................................................................ 144
Section 29.2: Share Plugin ........................................................................................................................................ 146
Section 29.3: ExternalMaps ...................................................................................................................................... 147
Section 29.4: Geolocator Plugin ............................................................................................................................... 148
Section 29.5: Messaging Plugin ............................................................................................................................... 150
Section 29.6: Permissions Plugin .............................................................................................................................. 151
Chapter 30: OAuth2 ................................................................................................................................................. 155
Section 30.1: Authentication by using Plugin .......................................................................................................... 155
Chapter 31: MessagingCenter ............................................................................................................................. 157
Section 31.1: Simple example .................................................................................................................................... 157
Section 31.2: Passing arguments ............................................................................................................................. 157
Section 31.3: Unsubscribing ...................................................................................................................................... 158
Chapter 32: Generic Xamarin.Forms app lifecycle? Platform-dependant! ................................ 159
Section 32.1: Xamarin.Forms lifecycle is not the actual app lifecycle but a cross-platform representation of
it .......................................................................................................................................................................... 159
Chapter 33: Platform-specific behaviour ..................................................................................................... 161
Section 33.1: Removing icon in navigation header in Anroid ................................................................................ 161
Section 33.2: Make label's font size smaller in iOS ................................................................................................ 161
Chapter 34: Platform specific visual adjustments .................................................................................. 163
Section 34.1: Idiom adjustments ............................................................................................................................... 163
Section 34.2: Platform adjustments ........................................................................................................................ 163
Section 34.3: Using styles ......................................................................................................................................... 164
Section 34.4: Using custom views ............................................................................................................................ 164
Chapter 35: Dependency Services ................................................................................................................... 165
Section 35.1: Access Camera and Gallery ............................................................................................................... 165
Chapter 36: Unit Testing ....................................................................................................................................... 166
Section 36.1: Testing the view models ..................................................................................................................... 166
Chapter 37: BDD Unit Testing in Xamarin.Forms ..................................................................................... 172
Section 37.1: Simple Specflow to test commands and navigation with NUnit Test Runner .............................. 172
, Section 37.2: Advanced Usage for MVVM .............................................................................................................. 174
Credits ............................................................................................................................................................................ 175
You may also like ...................................................................................................................................................... 176
