James Montemagno

Part 1: My StepCounter Android: Step Sensors

In February, my fellow Xamarin Michael James [https://twitter.com/micjames6] published a wonderful app for iOS called My StepCounter [http://micjames.co.uk/stepcounter-now-open-source/]. This app uses the new CoreMotion apis in iOS 7 to track your steps on your iPhone 5s. This isn’t a new concept and there are plenty of devices and apps out there that do step tracking, but what makes My StepCounter special is that Michael gave it a beautiful simplistic UI & beautiful animations. On top of t…

James Montemagno

Xamarin.Android SwipeRefreshLayout for #MvvmCross

I was very excited to see that the latest version of Support v4 for Android was updated to include as most people would says it a “Pull to Refresh”… or as Google would call it a “SwipeRefreshLayout [http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/widget/SwipeRefreshLayout.html] ”. It is now available in the Xamarin.Android Support v4 Component [https://components.xamarin.com/view/xamandroidsupportv4-18] so we should probably take advantage of it! This is actually a really slick Layout…

James Montemagno

Xamarin.Android Templates Pack!

Xamarin.Android already ships with a bunch of great project templates for Visual Studio, however I find that there are a few things missing. I usually start a new project with a Navigation Drawer and I am always adding new Menus, but I can never seem to remember every little bit of XML that is needed for some complex menus such as share and search. This is why I have created the Xamarin.Android Templates Pack. This is the first release that includes these items that I have listed. You can downlo…

James Montemagno

Cross Platform Settings for Everyone!

If you haven’t figure it out by now, I simply love portable class libraries. I have been blogging about them, talking about them on Channel 9 [http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Visual-Studio-Toolbox/Using-Portable-Class-Libraries-with-Xamarin] , and I even did a 18 city roadshow [http://blog.xamarin.com/a-look-back-at-the-.net-rocks-roadshow/] discussing PCLs and Azure Mobile Services. On my GitHub [http://www.github.com/jamesmontemagno] I have started to build out a lot of applications, someti…

James Montemagno

Portable Class Libraries + HttpClient: So Happy Together!

I was recently on Channel 9’s VS Toolbox talking about Xamarin and Portable Class Libraries [http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Visual-Studio-Toolbox/Using-Portable-Class-Libraries-with-Xamarin] where I showed of an expense taking application called My Expenses [https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/myexpenses]. This little app uses a portable class library and a SQLite database to store and track all of your expenses. I built out a full app for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone using this single PCL th…

James Montemagno

Portable Class Library Tips and Tricks

There has been a recent explosion of PCL use since Microsoft and Xamarin added official support for Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. It is really amazing to have one project that is shared completely across Android, iOS, and all of the Windows platforms. I have blogged before about how to get “fake” PCL support, but I wanted to give an updated post on how to get up and running with a bunch of tips as well. It is important to remember that there is nothing special you need to do to get PCL su…

James Montemagno

Android Screen Mirroring Made Easy

UPDATE 1: Mobizen has since update their app to be web based which is a downer :( But you can get the older version still which is fantastic! http://help.mobizen.com/en/beta-pc-version/ Update #2: Be sure to check out my new blog on how to easily screen mirror android ios and windows phone devices [http://motzcod.es/post/90610802117/screen-mirroring-for-ios-android-and-windows] ! I have been giving a lot of presentations recently for Xamarin [http://www.xamarin.com], and one of the bigges…

James Montemagno

MvvmCross + ActionBarCompat (v7 Support)

If you are using MvvmCross (if you aren’t you should) then you might notice that there is no official MvxActionBarActivity to use. This is sad because if you are using the new Support v7 Library [https://components.xamarin.com/view/xamandroidsupportv7appcompat] then this will be a must. I am sure Stuart is going to add this or create a NuGet for it, but you can do it today by creating 2 new classes. Since MvxActivity [https://github.com/MvvmCross/MvvmCross/blob/162a816d148df224df0b8f635aeafe3…

James Montemagno

Tags

Part 1: My StepCounter Android: Step Sensors

Xamarin.Android SwipeRefreshLayout for #MvvmCross

Xamarin.Android Templates Pack!

Cross Platform Settings for Everyone!

Portable Class Libraries + HttpClient: So Happy Together!

Portable Class Library Tips and Tricks

Android Screen Mirroring Made Easy

MvvmCross + ActionBarCompat (v7 Support)

Tags