James Montemagno (Page 2) - James Montemagno

Hello Again, My Name is James

And...... we are back! Where have I been? Inside, in Seattle! It has been around 5 months since my last update on the site and a lot of things have changed since then. Here is an update. Be safe when you get your coffeeSince my last blog here are just a few things that have happened: We ushered in a whole new yearA global pandemic broke out and continues to impact us every dayWe had our largest Xamarin event of the year all online We all learned how to properly wash our handsNintendo Dispatch br…

James Montemagno

Setting Android Status Bar Background & Icon Colors

Over the past few months, I have been attempting to figure out the best ways to implement a light theme and dark theme in my Hanselman.Forms app. Working closely with my friend Kym Phillpotts we came up with a very nice theme changer for Xamarin.Forms, that allowed us to change all of the colors dynamically. The result is a very nice looking application that allows the users to pick their theme or use system defaults. One thing that bugged me in the original implementation for Android, was th…

James Montemagno

Investing Time in the Xamarin Linker for Smaller App Sizes

When developing an app, 99% of our time goes into writing the code, testing the functionality, and making small UI tweaks to please our end users. Most of this is done in debug mode which optimizes compilation and app size for speed, which makes sense. When we flip that flag to Release with the default settings, we often pay very little attention as to what is happening to our app. We get a nice APK or IPA and ship it up to the app store and we are done. However, if we just spent a little time f…

James Montemagno

Windows Mouse Pointer & Cursor Features for Presenting

When I present, I am constantly zooming in and out to help attendees focus in on what I am talking about. It is also nice because it makes all the text nice and large so it is easier to see from the back of the room or if someone has reduced vision. One thing that has always bothered me, is that the mouse pointer is always tiny and the typing cursor is so thin. Well, not anymore with the latest versions of Windows 10, that pack a new feature to adjust mouse & cursor size. Simply type: Window…

James Montemagno

Azure DevOps Settings for Xamarin iOS 13 and Android 10 Apps

Settings up continuous integration can be tricky when there are new versions coming out. Recently Visual Studio 2019 updated to support Xcode 11, iOS 13, Android 10, .NET Core 3, and C# 8. What a whirlwind of new updates that CI servers got all around the same time! This means that as you were updating your apps your hosted machines also got updated and probably broke your builds :(. My good friend Jonathan Peppers wrote an amazing tool called Boots that allows you to manually install dependenci…

James Montemagno

Is the MacBook Pro 16-inch the Ultimate Developer Laptop?

It seems as though Apple has finally fixed the keyboard on the latest MacBook 16-inch and as a bonus, brought back the escape key! This seems to be what everyone is talking about, but what is really important is the return to PRO for the MacBook Pro. What I mean by this is that finally we can fully spec out a MacBook Pro with as much RAM and SSD space that we could ever want and at a decent price. If you head over to the configuration page you will be able to spec out your MacBook Pro with up to…

James Montemagno

Use C# 8 In Any .NET Project Today

C# 8 was officially released in September at .NET Conf along side .NET Core 3 & Visual Studio 16.3 (8.3 on Mac). It is packed with tons of amazing new features that truly everyone should be using. However, there is a lot of confusing as to if you can actually use C# 8 if you aren't using .NET Core 3 or .NET Standard 2.1. Short answer: YES! You can use it today. Long answer: YES! You just have to turn it on and perhaps add a NuGet package or two for certain features. When you create a new ap…

James Montemagno

MOK: Brussels Best Coffee Shop & Roastery

In the past, I have talked about my favorite coffee shops that my hometown of Seattle has to offer. I don't just drink coffee in Seattle, I make coffee a destination in every single city that I travel to. Coffee can bring the best out of a city and turn a gray and gloomy day into a warm and delightful one. On my short stop over in Brussels I took a walk north of downtown to the lovely coffee shop known as MOK. It stood out to me on Google Maps with more photos of coffee than food (always a good…

James Montemagno

Tags

Hello Again, My Name is James

Setting Android Status Bar Background & Icon Colors

Investing Time in the Xamarin Linker for Smaller App Sizes

Windows Mouse Pointer & Cursor Features for Presenting

Azure DevOps Settings for Xamarin iOS 13 and Android 10 Apps

Is the MacBook Pro 16-inch the Ultimate Developer Laptop?

Use C# 8 In Any .NET Project Today

MOK: Brussels Best Coffee Shop & Roastery

James Montemagno

Tags