my question is easy, I think. In my solution, I used to create different projects, for example, one for data logic (layer), business logic, etc.
Now, I have to create a library not only for my projects but also an SDK for third parties. I'm not sure if I create a PCL library, my third parties can use it in shared projects. In this library, I have to call HttpClient and I should use Refit and Polly.
I read on Xamarin Help that Portable Class are obsolete. Really?
Any advice? Thank you in advance.
PCL were superseded by SCL (.Net Standard) projects.
You can upgrade your existing projects, as described here
For the new projects, just use .Net Standard
Related
How do your write Xamarin platform specific code in a .net standard library?
I want to use namespaces like Xamarin.Forms.Platform.iOS in a .Net Standard Library..
Use case: I want to develop a .net library for my apps which includes a video player for the various platforms. This video player also has to interact with other code in the .net library.
Or is the answer I need to use a shared project or portable library?
You should not include platform specific code or use namespaces like the one you mentioned in your .NET Standard Library, the reason is that .NET is just a runtime environment.
It’s not the the main runtime environment that you would use on iOS or Android. These platforms use Mono - not .NET. Check this or this to see more details for how its structured.
If you need to execute something from your .NET Standard project which is related to platform-specific behavior, use Dependency Injection or Custom Renderers.
When creating a new app in Xamarin Forms I see these two options:
Configure your Forms App
Shared Code:
Use .NET Standard
Use Shared Library
Can someone explain the difference? I looked at the help and I am still confused. I'd appreciate if someone can give me any advice on this. Not sure if it helps but this app is self contained and no code in the app will need to be shared with any other application.
In terms of what you can achieve with both, it is the same. So, in the end, it's mostly a matter of taste.
The biggest difference is that a shared project is compiled into the app itself. It is nothing more than it says on the tin: it's a shared folder that you can use in all platform projects. Using platform-specific code is done through compiler directives.
With a .NET Standard project, you will get a physical binary. It is a project of its own. You can reuse it in other .NET Standard projects, although you already mentioned you won't be using it for that. Executing platform-specific code requires a bit different approach, using the DependencyService.
Seeing that they made a choice to replace the PCL with .NET Standard but keep the shared project points out that the shared project is here to stay for a while. I tend to like the .NET Standard library more. It feels cleaner and forces you to write cleaner code. Also, .NET Standard isn't going anywhere soon and if you decide that code should be reused down the road, you have the ability to.
A good overview, together with pros and cons can be found in the Microsoft Docs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/cross-platform/app-fundamentals/code-sharing
I'm tasked with creating an SDK that can be consumed from both Android & Java applications using ReactiveX programming. I already have an android project using RxAndroid created, but now I need to extend it with RxJava2.
The question I'm facing is whether I should create 'regular' java class library and use it for both scenarios or create 2 separate packages (which would mean a lot of duplicate code + maintenance).
Is this even possible? And if so, is it a good practice?
whether I should create 'regular' java class library and use it for both scenarios
Yes. What I would do to start is simply change your Android library project to be a standard Java library and replace RxAndroid dependency by RxJava. Most code should still compile. Code which doesn't will mostly use schedulers provided by RxAndroid and can be changed to take Scheduler parameters.
Then create an Android Library project which depends on the Java Library and put the RxAndroid-specific code there.
As an addition to #AlexeyRomanov's answer, feel free to check out this library which could be used for both Android and Java projects: https://github.com/JakeWharton/RxRelay.
Its basically an extension to RxJava, but it might give you a solid idea where to go. Good luck!
I'm building a project that includes an MVC Web Api hosted in Azure and an iOS app. I'm trying to use Xamarin to build the app. As I understand it, I should use a portable class library in my Xamarin project to allow me to share the code between my Web Api project and the Xamarin app, as well as any future apps on other platforms like android.
So right off the bat I would want to put my models in the portable library. The app and the web api will pass those models back and forth. But the portable library doesn't have the Azure Table Storage library. It doesn't even have some very basic stuff. My models need to reference the Azure Storage Library so I can save instances to storage.
What is the best way to make this code shareable? Obviously I need to duplicate my model classes so they can exist in each location. But should those in the PCL inherit from those in the Web Api project? Vice versa? Should there be an interface that both inherit from (actually the Azure Table Storage library requires the classes to inherit from ITableEntity already...). Just looking for the best way to share these classes between the Web Api project and the PCL used by the Xamarin project.
Using a PCL - Portable Class Library is a great way to get started! There are a few quirks that you may want to understand prior to sharing your code.
The PCL Profile is a limited set of APIs available. Meaning that certain classes/assemblies might not be included. You can typically look up the class/assembly via MSDN and see if it has a PCL icon next to the class name.
If the library you are trying to use has assemblies not inside the current PCL Profile but can be found on the native platforms, you will want to use the IoC/DI pattern.
Hopefully the library you're using supports PCL. Otherwise, you will need a library that does support the PCL Profile. (You can check this by downloading the .nupkg, extracting, and looking at the libs folder). Note: You may want to check the Prerelease NuGet channel for PCL support. Sometimes you can find an open source project and remove/replace certain assemblies/code to make it Portable.
General Guidelines:
Keep your POCO classes simple in the PCL. If you have platform specific quirks you need to add to the models, make a Model layer on that platform that inherits from your simple PCL models. EX: Your Web API has a specific [Attribute] tag or interface that you need to apply to your model. You might already have a Model such as Person which is a simple POCO class in your PCL, and then you can create a PersonApiEntity model which might inherit Person and any platform-specific APIs you need to apply to it.
It seems ITableEntity/TableEntity is not supported in the PCL Profile.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.windowsazure.storage.table.itableentity.aspx
Seeing the source at a quick glance(https://github.com/Azure/azure-storage-net/blob/master/Lib/Common/Table/ITableEntity.cs)
Just wanted to understand there are couple of code sharing strategies exist to achieve code reusable capability in Xamarin.
Which one should i use ?
Shared Project way OR Portable Class Library way ?
if you can explain with scenarios , it would be very helpful for me.
Thanks much.
Here is the Xamarin explanation.
The question is possibly duplicated but you ask specifically for scenarios.
If you ever wrote c cross platform projects, shared projects resemble the old-school way allowing you to use #if __IOS__ statements to run device platform code in your shared/common code files. A separate assembly is created for each target (say iOS or Android). They give advantages and disadvantages of each.
PCL generates one single assembly for the common code. PCL has some limited number .net features as shown here in this table. However, most of the important .net goodies are there as you can see.
Xamarin says that shared code method is easier but PCL is easier to compile a module and share or sell that with others.
When I make projects, I check what external plugins/components/ etc I want to use and make a decision based from. For example, you may want to use sqlite and there are different options for using shared and PCL projects.