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Deep Dive Xamarin.Android
1) This document provides an overview of Xamarin and building Android apps. It discusses components like Xamarin.Mobile that allow writing code once across platforms. 2) It describes the anatomy of an Android app including activities, layouts, strings, styles, and the main application class. 3) The document demonstrates how to create custom views like a calendar and handle intents, fragments, lists, and drawing. It provides best practices for testing on devices due to emulator limitations.
Deep Dive Xamarin.Android
- 1. EEPER DIVE INTOXAMARIN.AND Ben Bishop ben@rendr.io
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- 5. Who Am i? •My name is Ben Bishop (Twitter: @benjamminstl) • I grew up in a small rural town of Indiana • Went to Purdue University • Now lives in Saint Louis • Been independent for 4+ years • Worked at an agency for 5 years, 1 year at TMG
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- 7. WHAT IS AXAMARIN? “The best damn mobile team, building the best damn mobile platform.”
- 8. What is Mono? • Mono1.0 was released on June 30, 2004 • “The Mono runtime contains a code execution engine that translates ECMA CIL byte codes into native code and supports a number of processors: ARM, MIPS SPARC, PowerPC, S390 , x86, x86-64 and IA-64 for 64-bit modes.” • Also has support for LLVM • Runs on Linux, OSX, Windows, PS3, XBox 360, Wii
- 9. How does MonoWork? “Xamarin compiles your app to a native binary, not cross-compiled, and not interpreted.”
- 10. ART (Android RunTime)is an experimental runtime that could replace Dalvik. ART uses Ahead of Time compilation instead of JIT (like iOS)
- 11. Code Structure By onlyhaving to write core code once, more time can be spent tuning the UI per platform.
- 12. must have components Componentsthat keep you from having to write platform specific code.
- 13. xamarin.mobile A component thathelps abstract your code for location, photos, and contacts across all platforms.
- 14. Xamarin.Social A component thathelps abstract your code for App.Net, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr
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- 16. Data RestSharp, SQLite.NET, andJSON.net help you store and retrieve data for your app.
- 17. Android components Google PlayServices allows your app to interface with the PlayStore. Android support helps make your Android app backwards compatible.
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- 19. anatomy of anAndroid app
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- 21. Edit App Name& Package, Icon,Version #, Min and Target Android SDKs, Permissions
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- 23. Pro tip: needfor speed You can specify hardware acceleration for the app or for specific activities. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/hardware-acce
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- 30. another example OnResume andOnPause are good places to do assignment and release.
- 31. declaring activity behavior Inthis case, InitialActivity is our splash/loading screen.
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- 33. Anatomy of alayout
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- 36. layouts for orientations Bycreating a directory “layout-land,” Activities will use this as content when orientation changes. http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/android/application_fundamentals
- 37. layouts for screensizes Relying on naming conventions you can specify layouts to be used for screen widths. “layout-large” is for Android apps below API-13, “layout-swXXXdp” is for 13 and above.
- 38. How layouts areconnected to your code
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- 40. How to connectstrings.xml to your code You can link via layout xml or use “GetString” from your Activity.
- 41. string array This canbe used as a data provider for a spinner.
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- 43. More value resourcetypes Bool XML resource that carries a boolean value. Color XML resource that carries a color value. Dimension XML resource that carries a dimension value. Integer XML resource that carries an integer value. Integer Array XML resource that provides an array of integers. Typed Array XML resource that provides a TypedArray (which you can use for an array of drawables).
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- 46. Units of measure px Pixels- corresponds to actual pixels on the screen. in Inches - based on the physical size of the screen. mm Millimeters - based on the physical size of the screen. pt Points - 1/72 of an inch based on the physical size of the screen. dp Density-independent Pixels - an abstract unit that is based on the physical density of the screen. These units are relative to a 160 dpi screen, so one dp is one pixel on a 160 dpi screen. The ratio of dp-to-pixel will change with the screen density, but not necessarily in direct proportion. Note: The compiler accepts both "dip" and "dp", though "dp" is more consistent with "sp". sp Scale-independent Pixels - this is like the dp unit, but it is also scaled by the user's font size preference. It is recommend you use this unit when specifying font sizes, so they will be adjusted for both the screen density and user's preference.
- 47. Connect style toview
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- 49. Using a PNG PNGSFOR STATES
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- 51. alternative drawables Using foldernaming conventions will tell Android what version of the drawable to use
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- 53. BOOTSTRAP/INIT Class will beinstantiated on app startup.
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- 57. Create and assignadapter
- 60. Setup list ofdata.
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- 62. In our Adapter,we collapse unused TextViews
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- 64. Set layout ofActivity
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- 68. Fragments are important Fragmentspromote code reuse.
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- 81. experiences - The AndroidSDK is substantially more robust (complicated?) than iOS - Device fragmentation is challenging (TestCloud) - Emulators suck. Use a device instead. - Not as prescriptive in UX/Design - The more innovative (but not as polished) platform.
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