someone asked a similar question 2 years ago, but 2 years is a lot of time in the app world. So I wanted to ask again:
Can I write a plugin (that for example controles the camera) with xamarin using c# to avoid using java/objective c and use this plugin in my html app ?
No, this is not possible. Xamarin is not setup to create libraries that are then used by native applications. It's theoretically possible but not something they have prioritized.
In the case of Xamarin Android in particular, the entire concept relies on the Mono Framework being present in the app container to handle the .Net/Mono side of the architecture. So doing something like this would require somehow embedding the Mono runtime in your native Java Android application.
Related
Is it possible to write a mobile app using .NET 6 but still maintain platform specific implementation of UI
So this would involve still using UIViewControllers for iOS and Activities for Android without taking the MAUI approach of writing the UI in a cross platform manner.
If this is possible could you point us at some documentation around how this is achieved.
I haven't tried to follow the instructions yet but the links provided by #Paramjit in the comments to my original question seem to provide the answer I was looking for, namely that MAUI isn' the only mobile option in .NET 6:
https://www.andreasnesheim.no/converting-xamarin-android-template-to-net-6/
https://www.andreasnesheim.no/converting-xamarin-ios-template-to-net-6/
I am an iOS developer & I have to start work on Xamarin platform project for iOS. So I have some basic queries as a beginner in Xamarin. I have already initiated study from Link1 Link2
App is developed in Android On Xamarin & now I have to develop the same app for iOS(iPhone+iPad).
So my question are
Can I reuse the C# code written for Android app in iOS?
I have to redesign the UI for iOS devices? (As per my knowledge "YES" plz
confirm if I am wrong)
.Any idea or any suggestion would be great for me.
Thanks
Well, that depends.
If you had been using Xamarin.Forms you would only need to build one project which would then compile into a .apk (Android) and .ipa (iOS) distribution binary. Thus, by choosing Forms, you would only need to design and build the UI once as logic and UI is shared between all platforms.
On the other hand, you can chose to build your application using Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. In doing so, you can share the logic (e.g. ViewModels, Services, Converters) only. The rest will have to be built platform specific. So in the ladder case, you wouldn't be able to reuse the C# code which you've built for Android on iOS, as the platforms differ.
As Demitrian said earlier, using Xamarin.Forms allows you to build a single project.
If you want to use Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS, which I do, you can build a solution containing an Android project and an iOS project, then add a Shared Project to your solution containing the common code, like classes, models, HTTP actions, etc. That way, you can save some programming time, while still taking advantage of each platform's specificities.
Since [ReactNative/NativeScript] uses JavaScriptCore/V8 JIT interpreters and not compiling it so, is it strong enough for building all types of apps e.g. (Mediaplayer, Photo Editing, etc…)?
And how do you compare it with Xamarin?
I heard Xamarin uses AOT; is it similar to (JavaScriptCore/V8) JIT interpreters?
And how often Xamarin uses AOT for all of the app or it compile the part of code to native and uses AOT for rest of it?
Many Thanks in Advance.
Xamarin does AOT for its C# code, which will be run by open source port of .NET -Mono in non windows platforms like Android and iOS. Here are some limitations on Xamarin AOT
In comparison, Nativescript with Angular 2+ can take advantage of the Angular AOT for performance boot. More details here.
Here is a detailed comparison from Progress, the company that backs NativeScript and also provides UI elements for xamarin.
With more traction towards JS open source community, JavaScript virtual machine growth vs Mono for .NET, current benchmarks, I would bet on NativeScript/React native more than Xamarin.
NativeScript / React Native is a good bet, including your media player kind of app.. here is a sample you can give it a try.
Hope it helps.
We have an android application and want to recreate it for cross platform.
What are the facts for or against Xamarin native and forms?
The advantage of native would be, we could reuse all the xml-layouts while we have to recreate the iOS view in either XAML or XIB?
Is there anything what is really a blocker?
I'll comment based on Giorgi's answer with some actual insight and refer to the copied bullet points:
This is a resume of the experience i've gathered in the past 6 months:
Xamarin.Forms is best for:
Apps that require little platform-specific functionality
Wrong. With DI you can use any device functionality you could possibly want. Check out XLabs on GitHub if you doubt this.
Apps where code sharing is more important than custom UI
Kind of nonsense really. You can write your own renderers to represent controls of each platform in the way you want. I've also written more difficult renderers for custom controls such as a SideDrawer. In android i was done in 2 days, iOS about 2 weeks (android renderer was just a wrapper for the native control)
Developers comfortable with XAML
well yeah and anyone who enjoys convenient UI development. Mind you that there is a learning curve with xaml (which i already knew at the time i started from WPF development). But from what i have seen it's not that different from android.
Xamarin.iOS & Xamarin.Android are best for:
Apps with interactions that require native behavior
While hacking your solution up natively is certainly faster you can instead be done rather quick if purchase good controls / know a good native implementation and mirror it in C#, since the API in C# is very similar to the native one.
Apps that use many platform-specific APIs
Not sure why Xamarin is doing anti advertisement against forms. I had little trouble with it so far
Apps where custom UI is more important than
code sharing
Probably true, but it's also harder to keep UI functionality inline and you will need more manpower.
Things to consider about forms:
Forms seems to be stabilizing at the moment and i am sure Microsoft will do their best to turn it into a solid, reliable product (build issues have been a nightmare in the past sometimes, but it has gotten better over time)
The XAML for Xamarin is less developed compared to WPF XAML, though very similar. Recent nuget updates however provide mirrored functionality at an impressive rate. The vast majority of features you expect and love about XAML are present.
List performance is bad if you don't do your research (here). Performance increased loads in that area.
If i had to make the choice again i'd still go for forms. While there are sometimes things which seem flawed / bad you can usually figure out a clean fix somehow, while spending most of your time actually developing the app. (sometimes you will still find things which just make you frown why something isn't implemented, like the Margin property being implemented only just after microsoft purchased xamarin)
If you end up having a requirement of nested lists, make sure to have a look at embeded native controls in order to achieve the maximum performance - this was essential for a product i was working at. See this
According to Xamarin.Forms main page:
Xamarin.Forms is best for:
Apps that require little platform-specific functionality
Apps where code sharing is more important than custom UI
Developers comfortable with XAML
Xamarin.iOS & Xamarin.Android are best for:
Apps with interactions that require native behavior
Apps that use many platform-specific APIs
Apps where custom UI is more important than code sharing
Giorgis answer is the right one, but since you added some more constraints here are my thoughts.
I would analyze the current app. How much code is business logic which can be shared? How customized is the UI, should it look more native or more the same and how will it change in the future? If you plan to change a lot in UI and platforms should look similar, it might be easier to switch to forms.
Also consider if are you planning to develop for Windows Phone? If yes, you might save a lot of time just for this third platform.
After all there is one thing which I would also keep in mind. Developing in Xamarin.Forms does not mean, you cannot develop native. It is just an additional framework. In worst case you can still do everything natively.
Personally I use Xamarin.iOS & Xamarin.Android with MvvmCross, that way I can keep full control of the native UI on each platform while maximizing code reuse.
From Xamarin website (who knows better than them?):
Xamarin.Forms is best for:
Data entry apps
Prototypes and proofs-of-concept
Apps that require little platform-specific functionality
Apps where code sharing is more important than custom UI
[https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-forms/]
With Xamarin.Forms at runtime, each page and its controls are mapped to platform-specific native user interface elements.
With Native Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS apps leverage platform-specific hardware acceleration, and are compiled for native performance. This can’t be achieved with solutions that interpret code at runtime.
"Xamarin.iOS - The best way to build native iOS apps."
Ship native app bundles on the App Store. Our Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compiler compiles Xamarin.iOS apps directly to native ARM assembly
code, meaning your app is a native platform binary.
Access any iOS API. We bring 100% of Apple’s iOS SDK to C#, enhancing Objective-C APIs with stronger types and .NET naming
conventions so you feel right at home.
Call existing Objective-C code from C#. Use your existing Objective-C code, frameworks, and custom controls in your Xamarin app
using our automatic binding generator.
Build WatchKit apps. Use Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio to build new Watch Apps, edit Watch user interfaces in the iOS Designer, and
debug Watch apps in the iOS Simulator.
Stay up-to-date with Apple. We released same-day support for iOS 5, iOS 6, iOS 7, and iOS 8 so your apps can take advantage of the
latest iOS features as soon as possible.
[https://www.xamarin.com/platform]
"Xamarin.Android - The best way to build native Android apps."
Ship native Android packages. Xamarin.Android uses just-in-time compilation for sophisticated runtime optimization of your app’s
performance, meaning your app is a native Android APK.
Access any Android API, including new form factors. We bring 100% of Google’s Android APIs to C#, enhancing Java APIs with async support
and .NET naming conventions so you feel right at home.
Call existing Java code from C#. Use your existing Java code, frameworks, and custom controls in your Xamarin app using our
automatic binding generator.
Build Android Wear apps. With access to 100% API support for Android Wear, create full-featured applications capable of running on
Android Wear devices. Stay up-to-date with Android. Xamarin stays
up-to-date with the most current APIs from Google, so you can always
use the latest features in your apps.
[https://www.xamarin.com/platform]
I'm a developer, with years of experience in C# as well as Java.
I have developed a few ADT projects for my Nexus One Android 2.23 phone.
I am considering further mobile development and I heard of Mono for Android/iOS and Xamarin. At first I thought Mono would recode to Java, but now I understand that it compiles to native C code and runs over mono libs.
So I was wondering how much bloat does this add to apps, as I believe size of download is directly linked to number of downloads (I myself sometimes don't download something due to it being > 1MB)
If there is someone here who uses Mono I would love to hear from your experiences.
I understand there is a Visual Studio 2010 Plugin for Mono. Do you recommend it?
So I was wondering how much bloat does this add to apps, as I believe size of download is directly linked to number of downloads (I myself sometimes don't download something due to it being >1MB .... )
Monodroid apps are usually somewhat around 5 Megabytes (if Linked) because the runtime is embedded in the app.
If there is someone here who uses Mono I would love to hear from your experiences.
All in all i'm pretty happy with Monodroid. Java tutorials on Android are easy to translate or if too big you can create Bindings. I've only done one project on Mono so my experiences are limited but thus far i've expected nothing that would make me regret my choice. On the other hand, if you're familiar with Java (and like coding in Java) their is no reason to switch over except for Cross Plattform apps (see Monocross).
The VisualStudio plugin is necessary to develop in VisualStudio. The new version comes with a Layout Designer like the Android Eclipse plugin. I'd recommend you download the trail version from Xamarin and try it (the trail has no expiration date, it lets you only deploy to an emulator)