Coping with Device Rotation in Xamarin.Android

October 19, 2016 by 1 Comment

You think that you have your Android application in a state where you can demo it to your supervisor when you accidentally rotate your device and the app crashes. We have all been there before and the good news is that the fix is usually pretty simple even if it can sometimes take awhile to find.

This has always been an issue for Android developers, but I have found that, due to the unique interaction between your C# classes and the corresponding Java objects, it seems to be a little more sensitive with Xamarin.Android apps. In this post, we will discuss what happens when you rotate your device and cover the different techniques that you might choose to use to manage your application state through device rotations as well as the ramifications of each of them.

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Filed Under: Best Practice, Mobile

Mobile App Services

June 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Starting on a mobile app can be a daunting proposition.

Your stakeholders at Rex’s Gym really need this app to help drive customer retention, promote the business, and make payments a breeze.

Getting the development environment set up, learning a new language, understanding a wholly different API for screen layouts per-platform, having to go to the Apple Store and buy a Mac (which is the absolutely last thing you thought you would ever do).

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Filed Under: Maintainability, Mobile, Performance, Testing

C# vs. Swift – Iron Man vs. Captain America

May 11, 2016 by 2 Comments

In Captain America: Civil War we get to see the ultimate battle between Iron Man and Captain America.

It is a battle of simple gutty defense vs. smart weapons and flashy offense, humility vs. brashness, down in the dirt vs. up in the clouds.

To totally geek it up, the same kind of battle exists in the languages that software engineers use today and I believe this is especially true in the battle of C# vs. Swift.

Don’t worry, this really isn’t a versus type write up. If anything I seek to point out each language’s unique strengths, then show how software engineers can get into the right superhero mindset to really use those strengths, and be aware of the weaknesses, to create great solutions.

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Filed Under: .NET, Best Practice, Mobile

C# / .NET for Mobile Development: Worth a Second Look

February 16, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Over the past few years I believe that Microsoft, and their Xamarin partners, have created a compelling, quick, stable, and rich ecosystem for native development across Android, iOS, and Windows 10. It is finally time for native app developers to double back and take a look at C# / .NET based code for their native app platform needs in iOS, Android, and Windows 10.

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Filed Under: .NET, Mobile

Sencha Touch

February 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Mobile applications are everywhere these days and the number of development frameworks geared towards mobile audiences is growing as well. This can make it difficult for us developers who have to spend valuable training time learning one or more of these frameworks in order to be able to do our jobs. Sencha Touch is one of these frameworks and it allows a developer to code in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and then package up the application to run on different mobile devices. This article is intended to provide a general feel for what Sencha Touch is and what it does.
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Filed Under: Frameworks, Javascript, Mobile Tagged With: , ,