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Introduction to Xamarin

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Supporting iOS Development

2:33 with Heath Hodgert

We'll discuss Visual Studio for Mac and how we can use it to develop mobile apps. We'll also set up our Mac environment to support iOS development.

Brief History of Visual Studio for Mac

Integrated development environments for .NET on non-Windows platforms started soon after .NET was released with SharpDevelop. When the Mono project was started, SharpDevelop became MonoDevelop for writing C# and running on any platform. When Xamarin was formed, MonoDevelop was renamed to Xamarin Studio and added support for mobile development on Android and iOS. Now that Microsoft owns the company, the latest release is Visual Studio for Mac.

Further Reading:

iOS Installation Instructions
Introduction to Visual Studio for Mac
Visual Studio for Mac
Register for an Apple ID
Apple Developer Program
Troubleshooting iOS

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    Before we can talk about the Visual Studio for 0:00
    Mac, we need to make sure all the required software is installed. 0:02
    You'll need an Apple ID to develop iOS apps if you don't already have one. 0:06
    Enroll in the Apple development program so you can eventually distribute your app. 0:12
    You also need to install the latest Xcode and the latest iOS SDK, 0:17
    because it has the required tools to compile our iOS projects. 0:22
    The iOS SDK is installed with Xcode, and 0:26
    additional versions can be added in the component preferences. 0:29
    Next, install Visual Studio for 0:34
    Mac, which will install the Mac agent software as well as the IDE. 0:36
    The instructions for installing are well documented on the Xamarin site, and 0:41
    a link is in the teacher's notes. 0:45
    These installs will take quite a while. 0:47
    When they are done, launch Visual Studio for Mac and 0:50
    sign in with your Microsoft account to activate your license. 0:52
    Remember you can use the community edition, which is free. 0:56
    Visual Studio for Mac has a number of improvements over its predecessors. 1:00
    Most notably is support for ASP.NET core projects. 1:04
    Supporting web projects allows a developer to work on the back end 1:10
    as well as the mobile app in the same IDE. 1:13
    One of the downsides of Visual Studio for 1:17
    Mac is it does not support as many project types as Visual Studio for Windows. 1:19
    There are also no MSTest projects in Visual Studio for Mac, 1:25
    but you can use NUnit or unit test projects. 1:29
    NUnit is also the unit test framework used by Xamarin Test Cloud, 1:33
    which is a cloud testing service. 1:37
    Many of the same features for Xamarin development are found in Visual Studio for 1:42
    Mac, but they are laid out in a Mac friendly way. 1:45
    The project templates in Visual Studio for Mac are basically the same, 1:49
    with different dialogs that don't include Windows apps. 1:52
    The iOS and Android tools are directly under the Tools menu, and 1:57
    don't indicate which platforms they apply to. 2:00
    The platform configuration is under the Preferences in the project SDK location 2:03
    section. 2:08
    Visual Studio for Mac also has support for NuGet packages, 2:12
    which are a great way to include libraries. 2:15
    The interface is nothing like the Windows versions, but packages can be added, 2:18
    restored, and updated as needed. 2:22
    Next, we'll discuss how to share code between platforms, 2:25
    which is one of the most powerful features of Xamarin developement. 2:29

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