Getting Started – Xamarin.Forms

Introduction:

Xamarin.Forms is a cross platform UI toolkit that allow user to efficiently create native user interface layout. Code can be shared all the device (IOS,Android , Windows Phone and Win store app) .

System Requirement:

1. Mac / Windows 7++ Machine with 8 GB RAM
2. Xamarin  Studio 5.0 or new version/ Visual Studio 2012 or new version

Support Devices:

Xamarin.Forms applications can be support following operating systems devices

• Android 4.0.3 (API 15) or higher
• iOS 6.1 or higher
• Windows Phone 8.1
• Windows 8.1
• Windows 10 Universal Apps
• Windows Phone 8 Silverlight

                                 

How to create First Xamarin.Form Application?

Step 1:

Open Visual Studio ( Run ➔ Devenv.exe)

• My system having following VS  version with xamarin

Step 2:

Create New Project ( File ➔ New ➔ Project )

Step 3:

Open New Project template Cross Platform ➔ Blank App(Xamarin .Forms .Portable)

*** Solution and project name is  DevXamarinForms

Visual Studio automatically creates following projects,

DevXamarinForms.Android, DevXamarinForms.iOS, DevXamarinForms.UWP, etc and a shared Portable Class Library (PCL) project named called DevXamarinForms (Refer below)

After create project solution should be like below

Step 4:

Right Click on Portable Project (DevXamarinForms) ➔ Add ➔ New Item ➔Cross-Platform ➔ Forms Xaml Page and name it HomePage.CS

After that two new file are created under portable library HomePage.XAML and HomePage.XAML.cs

In  HomePage.XAMl , the below code will automatically added into xaml page

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"             x:Class="DevXamarinForms.HomePage"> <Entry x:Name="txtresult" Text="welcome Devenvexe.com" />  <!--Add this TextBox--> </ContentPage>

The xml two name space (xmls) are added into xaml page and refered xamarin and micrsoft url with version.

The HomePage.xaml.cs code-behind file looks like this.

using Xamarin.Forms; namespace DevXamarinForms {    public partial class HomePage : ContentPage    {        public HomePage()        {            InitializeComponent();        }    } }

Where Can find InitializeComponent() Method :

InitializeComponent() method will generate during build so build your portable library ,  C# code file is generated from the XAML file. If you look in the \DevXamarinForms\DevXamarinForms\obj\Debug directory, you’ll find a file named DevXamarinForms.HomePage.xaml.g.cs. The ‘g’ stands for generated.

namespace DevXamarinForm { using System; using Xamarin.Forms; using Xamarin.Forms.Xaml; public partial class HomePage : global::Xamarin.Forms.ContentPage { [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("Xamarin.Forms.Build. Tasks.XamlG", "0.0.0.0")] private global::Xamarin.Forms.Entry txtresult; [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("Xamarin.Forms.Build. Tasks.XamlG", "0.0.0.0")]        private void InitializeComponent() {            this.LoadFromXaml(typeof(HomePage));            txtresult = this.FindByName<global::Xamarin.Forms.Entry>("txtresult");        }    } }

Just Modify App.CS file, like below

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Xamarin.Forms; namespace DevXamarinForm {    public class App : Application    {        public App()        {            // The root page of your application            //MainPage = new ContentPage            //{            //    Content = new StackLayout            //    {            //        VerticalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center,            //        Children = {            //            new Label {            //                HorizontalTextAlignment = TextAlignment.Center,            //                Text = "Welcome to Xamarin Forms!"            //            }            //        }            //    }            //};            MainPage = new HomePage(); // Add this code        }    } }

Build and Run Application: