Category Archives: Xamarin Forms

Android, Azure, iOS, Uncategorized, UWP, Xamarin Forms

Azure and Xamarin Forms book published!

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I am officially a published book author! “Azure and Xamarin Forms” is now available on Amazon as an Apress publication for both the kindle and printed versions or PDF at the Apress site.

When someone asks you if you know a good book to recommend on getting with Xamarin Forms or getting started with Azure for Devs or using them both together, I would be most appreciative on considering a recommendation. To my knowledge it is the only book available like it combining these two technologies in one place. I have received some great feedback so far and am very excited about this book helping devs. Special tanks to my technical reviewer:

Sunny Mukherjee :   https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnymukherjee/

Here are the links:

Amazon -

https://www.amazon.com/Azure-Xamarin-Forms-Platform-Development-ebook/dp/B07DS9RH87

Or directly thru Apress for the EPub and PDF versions

https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484235607#otherversion=9781484235614

Happy coding!

 

.NET, UWP, Xamarin Forms

Deploying a SQLite database file with a Xamarin.Forms app–(UWP update)

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Say you have a SQLite DB you want to deploy with your Xamarin Forms app. Here is an excellent article on how to do this from Rob Gibbens of Xamarin University fame…

http://arteksoftware.com/deploying-a-database-file-with-a-xamarin-forms-app/

The article has wp8 but it uses Application.GetResourceStream and that is only for Windows phone, and the code below I have updated for UWP. Also, in November the UWP team posted some great sample code where I found the answer at: https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-universal-samples/tree/master/Samples/FileAccess

So, just replace the WP8 code in the blog article with this code below and you will all set. The iOS and Android code works fine in the blog.

var storageFile = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication();

if (!storageFile.FileExists(dbPath))

{
// copy storage file; replace if exists.
var fileToRead = await Windows.Storage.StorageFile.GetFileFromApplicationUriAsync(new Uri(“ms-appx:///people.db3″, UriKind.Absolute));

Windows.Storage.StorageFolder storageFolder =

Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder;

StorageFile fileCopy = await fileToRead.CopyAsync(storageFolder, “people.db3″, NameCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting);

}

.NET, app studio, community, iOS, Jethro Tull, raygun, Tampa Dev, Xamarin Forms

Where is Russ Fustino in July? The tour continues!

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IMG_8157 small

July 2, 6:30 PM – Space Coast User Group

  • Topic: Improving Your App Quality with Raygun
  • Register at: http://www.meetup.com/Space-Coast-Net-User-Group/events/222906128/?a=wc1d.2_gnl&gj=wc1d.2_e&rv=wc1d.2_e
  • Location: Aerotek new office, 6767 North Wickham Road Suite B-104, Melbourne, FL
  • Join MVP and Raygun Community Evangelist Russ Fustino as he shares a great error reporting tool that is fast and reliable, no matter what the load. See how he used Raygun this during the development cycle to help debug errors and some weird bugs for the Xamarin Forms Endorsed Jethro Tull app. It is also great for the production environment and gives you real time data and affected user information no matter what the platform including JavaScript, .NET, Ruby and more. Be proactive and fix errors before your users hound you down. See an overview of Raygun and the many supported platforms as well as integrations. Download your free trial today! www.raygun.io and follow @raygunio

July 7, 6PM – Tallahassee Capital City .NET User Group

  • Topic: Rock’in with Russ, Raygun and Xamarin Forms
  • Register at: http://www.meetup.com/tally-dot-net/events/223451975/
  • Location: Domi Station – 914 Railroad Avenue, Tallahassee, FL (map)
  • Join MVP and Raygun Community Evangelist Russ Fustino in this hot off the metal session as he shares insights into the trials, tribulations and joy of building the Endorsed Jethro Tull App. Share the excitement as Russ “tells all” about creating his Jethro Tull app. The app is now published for Android and iOS, Windows Store and Windows Phone. How did he do it? Is Xamarin Forms the real deal? Topics covered include: Custom Renderers, Embedded Resources, XAML, Third party controls and plugins, Building for Phone and Tablet, Dependency Injection, Store app review process,  and Third Party Endorsement Proof. Russ will close with showing his world class error reporting built into the app with proactive email support. He shares this great error reporting tool that is fast and reliable, no matter what the load. See how he used Raygun this during the development cycle to help debug errors and some weird bugs for the Xamarin Forms Endorsed Jethro Tull app. It is also great for the production environment and gives you real time data and affected user information no matter what the platform including JavaScript, .NET, Ruby and more. Be proactive and fix errors before your users hound you down. See an overview of Raygun and the many supported platforms as well as integrations. Download your free trial today! www.raygun.io and follow @raygunio

July 10-11, CodeStock attendee, Knoxville, TN

  • wait list for speaking:
  • Register at: http://www.codestock.org/
  • Location: Knoxville Convention Center 701 Henley Street, Knoxville, TN 37902

July 14, 6PM – South Florida Xamarin User Group

July 18, Tampa Code Camp

  • Topic: Rock’in with Russ, Raygun and Xamarin Forms
  • Register at: http://tampacodecamp.net/
  • Location: KForce 1001 East Palm Avenue, Tampa FL 33605

July 27-28 Disney Developer Days (onsite for internal employees) , Orlando

  • Improving Your App Quality
Android, app studio, iOS, Jethro Tull, raygun, Xamarin Forms

Rock’in with Russ Fustino, Florida Tour Announced!

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Where in the world is Russ Fustino? Here are the dates, locations and topics for this week in Florida! More dates to be published next week. This week includes Bradenton, Miami and Boca Raton! Hope to see you there!

Date: June 2 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Location: Station 2 Innovation Center
912 7th Ave E, Bradenton, FL 34208  (map)

Topic: Rock’in Cross Platform Mobile Dev with Russ!

Register here: http://www.meetup.com/Entrepreneurs-Startups/events/222241246/

 

Date: June 3 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Location: University of Miami

5030 Brunson Dr #314, Coral Gables, FL 33124

Room 314 Dooley Memorial Building.  In the same building as the Cosford Cinema.

Topic:  Rock’in with Russ on Today’s Software Development Technologies

Register here:   (limited number of public seats available) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rockin-with-russ-on-todays-software-development-technologies-tickets-17218250250

 

Date: June 4 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Location: Coders Café Special meeting at Cendyn Spaces!

Cendyn SPACES Cazbah
980 North Federal Highway #110
Boca Raton, FL 33432

Topic:  Rock’in with Russ! How We Built the Jethro Tull App Using Xamarin Forms and Raygun

Register here:   http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=769

Tour sponsored by Raygun.IO!

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.NET, community, Fustino Brothers, iOS, Jethro Tull, raygun, Tampa Dev, Visual Studio, Xamarin Forms

Rock’in Cross Platform Mobile Dev with Russ!

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June 2 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Station 2 Innovation Center

912 7th Ave E, Bradenton, FL 34208  (map)

Two sessions in one! Join Russ as he kicks off his Florida Tour. This will be the only Tampa/Sarasota location on the tour, so be sure not to miss it! Details  of tour to follow.

Also, see “Improving Your App Quality”, details below!

Register here: http://www.meetup.com/Entrepreneurs-Startups/events/222241246/

RussFustino

Join Microsoft MVP and Raygun Community Evangelist Russ Fustino in this hot off the metal session as he shares insights into the trials, tribulations and joy of building the officially endorsed Jethro Tull App.

Share the excitement as Russ “tells all” about creating his Jethro Tull app. The app is now published for Android and iOS, Windows Store and Windows Phone. How did he do it? Is Xamarin Forms the real deal?

Topics covered include:

·  Images

·  Custom Renderers

·  Embedded Resources

·  XAML

·  Third party controls and plugins

·  Building for Phone and Tablet

·  Dependency Injection

·  App Store review process

·  Third Party Endorsement Proof

Improving Your App Quality:

Russ will close with showing his world class error reporting built into the app with proactive email support. He shares this great error reporting tool that is fast and reliable, no matter what the load. See how he used Raygun this during the development cycle to help debug errors and some weird bugs for the Xamarin Forms Endorsed Jethro Tull app. It is also great for the production environment and gives you real time data and affected user information no matter what the platform including JavaScript, .NET, Ruby and more. Be proactive and fix errors before your users hound you down. See an overview of Raygun and the many supported platforms as well as integrations. Download your free trial today! www.raygun.io and follow @raygunio

Raygun

Bio: Russ Fustino is a MVP and Raygun Community Evangelist and a highly experienced software evangelist. He has developed and published Windows Store, Windows Phone 8.1 Universal, Xamarin iOS, Android and WP 8 apps. He is a former Developer Evangelist for Xamarin, ComponentOne and Microsoft and is CEO of Fustino Brothers, Inc (FBI). FBI Tull apps are officially endorsed by Jethro Tull. Russ has a passion for software development and tools through conveying technology via live seminars, webcasts, blogs, photos and internet video productions.  Russ is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Client Development and an INETA Lifetime Achievement Award winner for helping educate, entertain and enlighten over 1 million programmers. Russ co-heads up an INETA group:  Mobile Application Developers Tampa (MADTampa – www.madtampa.com ). Check out Russ’ blog at www.russtoolshed.net/blog and follow @RussFustino.

Android, Fustino Brothers, iOS, Jethro Tull, MAD Tampa, Visual Studio, Xamarin Forms

MAD Tampa recap, How We Built The Jethro Tull App

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Special thanks go out to a great group! The Mobile Application Developer Tampa group was a packed house and the crowd was very engaged with a ton of questions. Please find the links with all of the answers!

 

IMG_8143

 

The second session I did was on “Improving Your App Quality”  and the recap for that session including PowerPoint and sample code will be posted soon on the http://raygun.io  site. As promised, here are all of the resource links for the Tull session:

Post

• Xamarin Forms Gallery (Navigation)

http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/xamarin-forms/controls/pages/

•What is a Xamarin plugin?

http://motzcod.es/post/104507063997/what-exactly-is-a-plugin-for-xamarin

•How to create a plugin?

http://blog.xamarin.com/creating-reusable-plugins-for-xamarin.forms/

•302 Error on Tour dates feed – Bugzilla
https://bugzilla.xamarin.com/show_bug.cgi?id=27265

•Mr. Gestures on NuGet

http://mrgestures.com/

•Background images that don’t stretch

http://java.dzone.com/articles/using-full-size-none-stretched

•Circle Images

https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xam.Plugins.Forms.ImageCircle

•XAML View for Custom Cells

https://gist.github.com/jamesmontemagno/a70ffa4a3d16972a3369

•HP 10 Plus 10.1-Inch 16 GB Tablet (Silver) – $239

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Plus-10-1-Inch-Tablet-Silver/dp/B00LPC3W1Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431503402&sr=8-1&keywords=HP+10+Plus+10.1-Inch+16+GB+Tablet+%28Silver%29

PS. You need 10 inch screen shots for submitting apps, and there are no emulators of that size that I could find.

•Excel 2003 Add-in: XML Tools Add-in

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3108

•Good link for splash screen on android:

http://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/19362/xamarin-forms-splashscreen-in-android

• For the Build/iOS Bundle Signing set “Identity: Developer (Automatic)” and “Provisioning Profile: Automatic”. Was getting error – can’t find in keychain

http://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/25768/iphone-code-signing-key-other-developer-name-xxxxx-not-found-in-keychain

•App Submission Resources Android

https://developers.google.com/android-publisher/

http://www.appbrain.com/stats/android-market-app-categories

https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/113474

• App Submission Resources IOS

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/

• IOS Screen shots

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Appendices/Properties.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011225-CH26-SW2

•Publishing IOS:

http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/ios/deployment,_testing,_and_metrics/app_distribution_overview/publishing_to_the_app_store/

•Common Bug on IOS Publishing

https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/40388/disallowed-paths-itunesmetadata-plist-found-at-when-submitting-to-app-store/p1

•Publishing Android

http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/android/deployment,_testing,_and_metrics/publishing_an_application/

•Android in app billing:

http://components.xamarin.com/view/xamarin.inappbilling  (Which has a sample app)

•Dependency service:

http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/xamarin-forms/dependency-service/

•Getting Started  Xamarin.InAppPurchase:

https://components.xamarin.com/gettingstarted/xamarin.inapppurchase

Android, iOS, Jethro Tull, raygun, Tampa Dev, Visual Studio, Windows 8 App, Windows Phone App, Xamarin Forms

Rockin with Russ Fustino!

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Join the Mobile Application Developer Meetup Group in Tampa, Florida!

http://www.meetup.com/TampaBay-MobileAppDevelopers

Meeting Dates Set for 2015!

MAD Tampa will generally meet every second Wednesday

Time: 5:30-8:00PM

Location: AgileThought Office (Tampa)

2502 N Rocky Point Dr. Ste 900
Tampa, FL 33607  (map)
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Two Sessions by Russ Fustino, MVP and Raygun Community Evangelist

Tull_iOS_LaunceScreen2048x1496

How we built the Jethro Tull Endorsed app using Xamarin Forms

Is Xamarin Forms the real deal? Join MVP Russ Fustino as he shares insights into the trials, tribulations and joy of building the Endorsed Jethro Tull App. Hot off the metal topics covered include: background images in the app (that are not distorted), using custom renderers, using embedded resources, XAML markup for Tablet and Phone, instrumentation, custom view cell, image sizes, third party controls including Mr. Gestures,  Circle Image Control ,  Xam.Plugins.Settings as well as portrait and landscape orientations. Also, he will cover some gotcha’s on the submission process to Amazon Store, Google Play and The App store including: setting up a test team, app size limitations on Android, iTunes and Apple logos, competitive mobile platform stores for iOS apps, in app purchases and third party endorsement proof.

raygun-transparent@128

Improving Your App Quality

Join MVP Russ Fustino as he shares a great error reporting tool that is fast and reliable, no matter what the load. See how he used Raygun this during the development cycle to help debug errors and some weird bugs for the Endorsed Jethro Tull app. It is also great for the production environment and gives you real time data and affected user information. Be proactive and fix errors before your users hound you down. See an overview of Raygun and the many supported platforms as well as integrations.

Download your free trial today! www.raygun.io and follow @raygunio

Bio:

Russ Fustino is a Raygun Community Evangelist and a highly experienced software evangelist. As well he has developed and published Windows Store, Windows Phone 8.1 Universal, Xamarin iOS, Android and WP 8 apps. He is a former Developer Evangelist for Xamarin, ComponentOne and Microsoft and is CEO of Fustino Brothers, Inc (FBI). FBI Tull apps are endorsed by Jethro Tull. Russ has a passion for software development and tools through conveying technology via live seminars, webcasts, blogs, photos and internet video productions. Russ is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Client Development and an INETA Lifetime Achievement Award winner for helping educate, entertain and enlighten over 1 million programmers. Russ co-heads up an INETA group: Mobile Application Developers Tampa (MADTampa – www.madtampa.com ). Check out Russ’ blog at www.russtoolshed.net/blog and follow @RussFustino

Android, Azure, iOS, Visual Studio, Windows Phone App, Xamarin, Xamarin Forms, Xamarin Studio

Great SD Times Article on Xamarin and Azure

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I had the great pleasure of chatting with Microsoft RD Patrick Hynds and I contributed a few quotes to his latest article in SD Times Magazine on Azure.  We talked  about how Xamarin fits nicely into this scenario. Xamarin has an Azure Mobile Services Component in the Xamarin Component Store.

Enjoy a good read at:
http://sdtimes.com/follow-azure-road-cloud/

Xamarin is specifically mentioned on page 9:
http://sdtimes.com/follow-azure-road-cloud/9/

Also, announcing Monthly payments for Indie!

Xamarin Student

Xamarin Forms session by Russ Fustino, Xamarin Developer Evangelist
Android, iOS, Tampa Dev, Windows Phone App, Xamarin, Xamarin Forms

Xamarin at Successful Tampa Code Camp! Recap

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I had the great pleasure presenting Xamarin Forms at the recent Tampa Code Camp. This event was resurrected from a one year hiatus and a welcome site to the Tampa Developer Community. Many are looking forward to a bigger and better code camp as part of a very engaged developer community here in Tampa next year.

Personally, this was a huge moment in the next chapter of my career as well. I delivered my first Xamarin Session, concluding with three weeks of intense training and setup. It was a culture shock, of sorts, for me to present on a Mac and I joked about it that it was more of a challenge for me to learn a Mac than learn Xamarin! The Mac is a better presenting machine in that there are fewer moving parts to demonstrate iOS development. I still use my Windows machine to develop on. Anyway, it all turned out good as about 60 in my session learned about the Xamarin Platform and Xamarin Forms.  For most of the audience, it was their first exposure to Xamarin.

Here are is PowerPoint for the session: http://1drv.ms/1AbKxPp

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First photo of Russ as a Xamarin Developer Evangelist in Action! (Thanks Scott Dorman!)

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It was a packed house! Greg Leonardo was working on my AV here.   It is funny, I once did that for him a few years back at one of his sessions. Full circle, huh?

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First Demo, Xamarin Forms Hello World in iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. This got a big warm round of applause!

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Russ with Greg Leonardo, Head organizer of Tampa Code Camp.

Fox News has a great piece on the code camp: http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/26016891/code-camp-brings-developers-together

Download Xamarin today at www.xamarin.com

Follow my new Twitter @RussFustino

and follow @XamarinHQ