A quick 30-60 minute overview of the announcements from the Xamarin Evolve 2016 conference. This was used to provide the talking points for a user group presentation
2. Chris Miller
Senior R&D Engineer for Tyler Technologies, currently working on mobile apps for
the K-12 transportation market.
@anotherlab
http://www.rajapet.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophermiller
3. Overview
• Sold out (3 for 3)
• 2 Days of training
• 2 days of conference sessions
• Included sessions by the Woz and a Mythbuster
• Open sourcing of Xamarin SDKs
4. Xamarin SDKs
• open.xamarin.com
• All repos on Github
• Xamarin.iOS
• Xamarin.Android
• Xamarin.Forms
• MIT license
• Ready for pull requests
• Consider filing a bug before going in and changing the code
6. Licensing
• What’s covered
• Included in every edition of Visual Studio
• Including Visual Studio Community Edition
• Test Cloud and Xamarin University are separate products
7. Licensing
• How do I get me some free Xamarin
• Install Visual Studio 2015 Update 2
8. Licensing
• What was lost
• The Enterprise Edition of Xamarin included a set of 3rd party controls (like SQLcipher)
at no extra charge. Those controls are no longer bundled in.
• Having to find $1900 in budget money each year.
9. Open Source
• The Mono Project to be re-released under the MIT License
• Xamarin SDKs for Android, iOS, and OS X
• Xamarin.Forms
10. Microsoft/Xamarin integration
• Parts of .NET are being integrated into Mono
• Addresses missing features
• Improved performance
• Easier sell for Xamarin technology as part of the Microsoft stack
• Xamarin is now saying that they acquired Microsoft.
11. Changes to Xamarin Studio
• New “dark” theme
• All new icons
• First class support for F#, the only IDE to
support shared projects for F#
• Uses the Roslyn compiler as a service
• Better code compilation
• Better refactoring
• Full C#6 support
• Will pick up C#7 features at the same time as Visual Studio
• New Project Model with parallel compilation of projects and better support for
MSBuild
12. Changes to Xamarin.iOS &
Xamarin.Android
• New Java Invocation Architecture – reduce app size by 2MB (API-23) by shrinking
the size of Mono.Android.dll. Fewer round trips from managed code to JNI
• HttpClient uses new platform specific handlers for better performance and
access to platform specific network & encryption protocols such as TLS 1.2.
• Visual Studio Community Edition now supported. No more application size limits.
Command line builds, P/Invoke, All assembly types: all supported in all editions,
Trial version splash screen has been removed
13. Workbooks
• Live documents that mix a blend of
documentation and code to test with
and experiment on code.
• Live results for Android, iOS, OS X, or
WPF.
• A REPL for drilling into C# and platform
APIs with visualizers for data
• Runs on both Mac and Windows via the Inspector App
14. Workbooks
• Support Rich Text Editing
• All Xamarin documentation is being moved over to use Workbooks. This will let
you see step by step invocations of the code.
• Rich Visualizations of data
• Early preview, get it from the Beta Channel
• https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/workbooks/
15. iOS Simulator on Windows
• A screen and touch share from the iOS Simulator running
on a Mac
• Unlike the Mac, true touch is supported
• Pen support on devices that support it (Surface)
• No longer have to interrupt your workflow to switch
between VS on your PC and the simulator on the Mac
• Visual Studio developers can leave their Mac in the corner
• Currently in Preview on the Beta Channel
16. iOS USB Remoting
• You can debug an iOS app on actual device plugged into Windows
• Still requires the Mac, but pushes it further back in the corner
• Will be available soon
17. Xamarin.Forms
• Now supports native deep linking
• Datapages let you create master/detail pages from json or Azure data
• Theming support to change styles quickly and easily
• Embedded Platform specific controls
• Xamarin.Forms Previewer
18. DataPages
• Fast way to create master/detail pages from data
• Prebuilt data sources for JSON, Azure Easy Tables
• Three prebuilt pages
• ListDataPage (master/detail list)
• DirectoryPage (a list with grouping)
• PersonDetailView (single view for specific data objects, like a contact entry)
• Read only, CRUD at a later date
20. Themes
• Define specific styling for the standard controls
• Comes with a Light theme and a Dark theme
• Create your own theme
• The StyleClass property of a view allows the view to be changed to a definition
provided by the theme
• Preview release and requires Xamarin.Forms 2.3 preview release (or later)
21. Xamarin.Forms Previewer
• Support live previews of XAML on iOS and Android.
• Supports custom renderers
• Works with latest release of Xamarin.Forms (2.3 Prerelease)
• Preview release in Alpha Channel, Xamarin Studio Mac only
22. Xamarin Test Recorder
• As you interact with your app, Xamarin.UITest code will be generated
• Run the test locally on the device or on thousands of devices in Xamarin Test
Cloud
• Preview
23. DevOps
• Check your code into Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and VSTS will run the
unit tests
• Push the code to HockeyApp and enable testers to get the latest builds.
• Xamarin Insights is now part of HockeyApp. All of the Xamarin Insights metrics
and crash reporting have been brought to HockeyApp
24. Test Cloud Live
• Remote debugging into one of the thousands of devices currently
hosted in Test Cloud
• Private preview
25. Xamarin University
• Still one of the best ways to learn Xamarin
• As part of Microsoft, more resources means more classes
• Self-Guide Learning
• Certification Exam Improvements
26. Xamarin University
• Still one of the best ways to learn Xamarin
• Live lessons with instructors
• Scheduled around the clock for a global audience
• Class size is limited
• Covers Xamarin coding, C#, F#, Testing
27. Xamarin University
• As part of Microsoft, more resources means more classes
• More instructors mean more sessions available
• More topics
• Azure
• Data
• Best Practices
28. Xamarin University
• Self-Guide Learning
• Follow at your pace
• Tracked like a live class and counts towards certification
• Still includes labs and quizzes
• Video Chapter Navigation
• Responsive design, scales to your device
29. Xamarin University
• Certification Exam Improvements
• New inhouse exam system to replace 3rd party exam site
• Better user experience
• Status updated instantly
31. Watch the Keynote and the sessions
• The keynote and individual sessions were all recorded and available online
• https://evolve.xamarin.com/#sessions
• Updates are posted to http://releases.xamarin.com/
Editor's Notes
SQLcipher
SQLcipher
SQLcipher
SQLcipher
JNI Java Native Interface. The framework that allows java code to interact with native applications
Visuallizers
Play with live data
read-eval-print-loop, interactive shell
so you can deep link to a page deep in your Xamarin.Forms app from the web, email, or other app-external sources.
DataPages connect you to a cloud or JSON data source, and create master-detail views for visualizing that data automatically, without any additional configuration.
Add platfprm controls with a single line without having to write a custom rendered. Like the Android FAB button
That took out Gorilla Player
Do a walk through of the DataPages demo
I used https://blog.xamarin.com/scaffolding-xamarin-forms-pages-with-datapages/
Self-Guide Learning was soft launched at //build
Self-Guide Learning was soft launched at //build
Self-Guide Learning was soft launched at //build
Self-Guide Learning was soft launched at //build
Self-Guide Learning was soft launched at //build
With the kind permission of Xamarin
http://elearning.xamarin.com/forms/xam130/why-xaml