Xamarin

Generating Android Color Palettes Super Fast with Rev 22.1

Google went on a spree a few weeks back updating all of their support libraries to rev 22.1. If you haven’t read about all the changes be sure to read through the official Android Developer’s blog for a full breakdown [http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/04/android-support-library-221.html] . The most drastic change to the support libraries was to v7 AppCompat with the new AppCompatActivity, but there were several other enhancement to the libraries including one of my favorite Palette. I…

James Montemagno

1 Million Developers, Xamarin.Forms UAP, & I'm Speaking at Build!

Whoa! What an amazing day! Today Xamarin reached 1 Million Developer downloads [http://blog.xamarin.com/xamarin-passes-1-million-developer-milestone/], released awesome new Xamarin.Forms goodness, and tons of other updates to kick off Build. If you didn’t see the full announcement be sure to check it out on the Xamarin Blog [http://blog.xamarin.com]. If you are here at Build I hope that you are sporting that awesome Xamarin shirt from the Xamarin Build party. I am honored to be giving two pr…

James Montemagno

Android Parallax Made Easy

You may have seen some of my tweets recently about the upcoming release of Coffee Filter 2.0 with some awesome new features. Before I release any Android app I always send it off to my good friend Jérémie Laval [http://twitter.com/jeremie_laval]to do a full UI review. We both love Android and Material Design and he always gives me the best pointers on how to improve my apps. On my details page I setup a complex view with an image on the background that sits behind a ScrollView for the content. I…

James Montemagno

Essential Xamarin.Android Templates for Visual Studio

During my Effective Navigation in Android [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw8tB45kse4] talk at last years Xamarin Evolve I had the opportunity of showcasing my Xamarin.Android Templates Pack for Visual Studio [https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/bee6442f-8f5a-4bba-8849-e380b61e76b0] , which you can get from the Visual Studio Gallery under “Tools->Extensions and Updates”. I like the templates that come installed with Xamarin, however the flexibility of Visual Studio to easily creat…

James Montemagno

Coffee Filter: A C# Powered Android App in 2 Days

I love coffee. You will normally find me riding my bike around Seattle stopping from coffee shop to coffee shop indulging in a 8oz quad lattes, strong black coffee, or probably a shot in the dark. So when I set out to blog about the new Google Maps Lite API [http://blog.xamarin.com/android-tips-faster-maps-with-google-maps-lite/] it was pretty obvious what I needed to do… create an app showing me the closest coffee shops around me. In that moment Coffee Filter [https://play.google.com/store/apps…

James Montemagno

How To Keep Your Android App Size Down

On my recent visit out to Tonto National Forest [http://www.fs.usda.gov/tonto/] to visit one of my best friends,Luke Karrys [http://www.twitter.com/lukekarrys], I started to realize the importance of trying to keep your app size down when shipping Android apps to Google Play. Working from the middle of the forest is relaxing, productive, and just plain fun, but there is one huge issue, internet and cell reception barely exists in the the middle of no where. When I woke up one morning and saw…

James Montemagno

iOS Tip: Change Status Bar Icon & Text Colors

When iOS 7 was introduced Apple allowed your application to extend all the way up into the status bar region. This was neat because you can scroll content behind it, change the color, and make the entire screen feel completely full. One thing that has upset me is that it isn’t really straight forward as to how to change the color of the time, carrier, battery, and other icons that live in the status bar. So here is my quick tips. Launch Screen Colors In general you can just hide the status bar…

James Montemagno

Hi, I'm James, Developer Evangelist

I have been a .NET developer for over a decade and worked in a wide variety of industries including games, printer software, web services, and more. A little over three years ago I decided to move my entire life from Phoenix, AZ to the most wonderful place in the world Seattle, WA for a brand new job. That new job was to be the lead and only mobile developer at Ceton. My first assignment was to create a series of mobile apps to pair with their DVR hardware and Windows Media Center (Microsoft’s a…

James Montemagno

Tags

Generating Android Color Palettes Super Fast with Rev 22.1

1 Million Developers, Xamarin.Forms UAP, & I'm Speaking at Build!

Android Parallax Made Easy

Essential Xamarin.Android Templates for Visual Studio

Coffee Filter: A C# Powered Android App in 2 Days

How To Keep Your Android App Size Down

iOS Tip: Change Status Bar Icon & Text Colors

Hi, I'm James, Developer Evangelist

James Montemagno

Tags