In Xamarin Forms, if you bind ViewModel Commands to Page Buttons, all of the logic from the button click action takes place in the ViewModel. The problem is that the ViewModel doesn’t have access to the Xamarin Forms controls, and so it’s difficult to access functions of Views from your ViewModel. Delegates are not commonly used, so I hope this article adds another tool in your arsenal that you can use to solve your coding challenges. Note that Action delegates can be used for all UI frameworks that use C#.

Example use case: Focus on an Entry

Let’s look at a scenario where we have a Password…

REJOICE MOBILE DEVELOPERS, THE TIME HAS COME

Wireless build and debug for Android is a feature mobile developers have been waiting for years, especially since iOS enabled wireless debugging years ago. From Android 11, the process has been simplified and you can finally get rid of wired build and debugging!

There’s a few steps involved, but luckily you just have to do it once per wireless connection, and you’re good across all your apps. If you are already using Android SDK 30, you should be fine. Or else you need to install SDK 30 on your computer .

Steps to Wireless Debugging with Xamarin Android

1. On your Android 11 device, go to your Settings…

While working on the feature development, maintenance & white-labeling with our biggest client, we received an email from Monotype stating that the apps were using their fonts without a license. They didn’t provide details about which app or which font in the 16 apps (8 titles) violated the policy. Until we were brought in, the fleet of apps were designed, created and maintained for 6 years by Microsoft’s leading consulting partner. We found most of the fonts were used without licenses, but that’s alright, no one’s perfect.

Seeing how it’s easily overlooked, we decided to write this article, where we…

DEVELOPING APPS NATIVELY PAYS OFF GREATLY

Picture In Picture (PIP) was introduced years ago in iOS 9, but it was only available for iPads. It was brought to iPhones recently in iOS 14, so I wanted to implement it in my app. The iOS 9 documents showed that several steps were involved to implement this, and I was having a hard time integrating that with Xamarin Forms. However, while I was experimenting I realized, Apple made changes to simplify PIP implementation greatly, so those steps are not needed anymore. …

NEW EXPERIENCES IN 6 SHORT STEPS

WORKS FOR ALL APPS, INCLUDING CROSS PLATFORM & HYBRIDS

Apple announced that the new Mac computers with the ARM 64 processor will be able to install compatible iOS & iPad apps. Just like you, I was super curious to know if my apps would be “compatible” too. I tried to search multiple articles and blogs to understand what the requirements are, especially for apps created with cross-platform frameworks, but I couldn’t find anything. Aside from compatibility though, there is a way to “opt-out” through the Apple Developer portal, so your app is not available for Macs. While clicking around, I figured this out and thought I would share.

Here’s how to find out

While…

SENIOR MOBILE DEVELOPERS ALREADY USE THIS TO SAVE TIME

If you have done a weeks’ worth of Xamarin mobile development, you know the need to frequently delete the bin & obj folders in each sub-directory of your solution. This tedious process essentially clears the cache and deletes any improperly built code, so that you can recompile your code, and this magically solves half the problems you face.

How does this work?

To achieve this we are going to take advantage of how projects with git version controlling setup correctly, will only “track” the necessary files that are not “auto-generated”. So in order to make this work, you need a file named .gitignore file…

SIMPLE TRICKS TO STEP UP YOUR PRESENTATION GAME

Have you have ever needed to share your app screenshots with other team members, but skipped adding the frame just to save time? Taking a screenshot is as simple as a click, but designing & dealing with image editing tools is definitely not a developer’s forte. Well, adding a device frame is now a simple keyboard tap!

While lurking in the iOSProgramming subreddit, I saw an answer to a question taking me to Fastlane’s page teaching how to take screenshots using automated UI Tests. And there, I stumbled upon the frameit command.

Getting Started

There are several ways you can follow mentioned…