Rules to Better Xamarin (mobile)

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  1. Do you know the best way to manage assets in Xamarin?

    ​mFractor is the b​est tool for managing assets in your Xamarin project: https://www.mfractor.com/products/mfractor-professional

    This Visual Studio extension (now for Windows and Mac) is valuable for Xamarin work, it provides time-saving​ short cuts for several things, including (but not limited to):

    • Model and viewmodel creation
    • Intellisense between views and viewmodels
    • Importing of assets (images, fonts, etc)

    Importing images is the 'killer feature' - with one click you can import images into all the required folders. Without it, you need to create individual image assets for each device resolution and manually copy them to the corresponding folder for iOS and Android, and then update the manifest XML files. Using mFractor saves 30-60 minutes for every image imported into a project.

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  2. Xamarin - Do you know the stuff to install?

    ​Installing Visual Studio is not enough.... There is another 2 hours plus of downloading and installing to get to your first successful Xamarin hello world app.

    Step 1

    Install VS 2015 + the Xamarin extension:  https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt613162.aspx

    xamarin-1.png
    Figure: You need "C#/.NET (Xamarin v4.1.0)

    Note: Xamarin Studio doesn't exist on the PC anymore.

    Step 2 - Android SDK Manager (about 2 hours)

    This one is painful...

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    Then get all the ones that say "Installed" :

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    Step 3 - "Manage NuGet Packages for Solution" (about 30 minutes) 

    Create a Blank App (xamarin.Forms Portable) project (this way it will trigger grabbing all extra stuff).
    Check and ensure Nuget Packages are up to date .

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    Step 4 - run the app

    Actually run the application you’ve created. Ensure it builds. It won't =D well first time it often won't, if it does then congratulations you have got everything!

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