Build Real World App with Xamarin Forms

Create a Xamarin Forms project in Visual Studio 2017 using a cross-platform template and dot net standard. Target Android and iOS with optional UWP; note iOS testing needs a Mac.

Explore the architecture of a Xamarin Forms project, with a dotnet standard shared codebase and separate Android and iOS projects, using dependencies, nuget, and xaml UI with code-behind.

Run a Xamarin Forms application on Android by selecting the start up project and enabling developer mode, then run on an Android emulator to load the app.

Explore how to lay out a real-world Xamarin Forms app using stack layout and grid, learn vertical and horizontal arrangements, row and column definitions, and spacing to build responsive interfaces.

Navigate content pages with a navigation page, use pushAsync to open a second page, and configure the root page as navigation, preparing to explore the tabbed page next.

Learn to create a tabbed page in Xamarin Forms, set HomePage as the root, organize pages in a Pages folder, and run a three-tab interface.

Add three content pages—menu, reservation, and info—to a tabbed page in the Xamarin.Forms app, and assign icons with Android drawables and iOS resources using 1x, 2x, and 3x images.

Update Xamarin Forms to 3.1+ and install the latest packages to enable a bottom tab bar on Android, while iOS remains unchanged.

Download the GitHub code for an ASP.NET Web API, open it in Visual Studio, and learn how to consume the API inside a Xamarin.Forms app with Azure free trial.

Create a Microsoft Azure account to start a free 30-day trial, verify your identity by phone, and provide a valid credit card, then access the portal at portal.azure.com.

Deploy your asp.net web api to azure web apps and publish on microsoft azure by creating a web app and app service plan, then access via the unique url.

Create a sql database on Microsoft Azure to publish your asp dot net web api, configure a data connection, select server and pricing tier, and download published profile for deployment.

Publish the web api to Azure by setting the web.config connection string to your Azure SQL database, providing credentials, and deploying via Visual Studio publish.

Insert data into Azure SQL database using generated scripts, run queries in the portal, verify with a web API and Postman, then apply to a Xamarin Forms app.

Explore Azure's new way to create web apps and SQL databases in 2020, integrated within building real-world apps using Xamarin forms.

Build real world Xamarin forms app by creating model classes in models folder from a web api and generating C# classes from json data with json2csharp.com, including menu and reservation.

Create a service layer in a Xamarin.Forms app with an ApiServices class and an async getMenu method that uses HttpClient and Newtonsoft.Json to return a Menu list.

Create a Xamarin.Forms app reserve table method that uses an http client, serializes a Reservation object to json, and posts to a reservations endpoint with PostAsync using async/await.

Create a Xamarin.Forms menu page UI with a list view featuring no separators and uneven rows, using a grid to display an image and centered label bound to menu properties.

Bind menu class properties to the label and image controls on the menu page, linking the label text to the menu name and the image source to the menu image.

Bind an observable menu collection to the list view, load menus via ApiService with async OnAppearing, and use a first-time flag and a 0.4 opacity overlay for UI.

Create a sub menu page ui by passing selected menu object to sub menu page via navigation push async, and design with grid, image, overlay, and name, price, description labels.

Implement the sub menu page code behind, name LvSubMenu, and bind labels and images to sub menu properties (name, image, description, price) via an observable collection.

Design a reservation page UI in a Xamarin Forms app using a stacklayout with name, email, phone, total people, date and time pickers, and a book table button.

Implement the code-behind for a reservation page in Xamarin Forms by wiring XAML controls to a Reservation object, invoking the ReserveTable API asynchronously, and displaying success or error alerts.

Create a static info page in Xamarin Forms using stack layouts, labels, and icons, organizing timings, levels, address, and follow us elements with Android and iOS resources.

Demonstrates implementing info page code behind in Xamarin.Forms by using tap gestures on icons to open social media links and launch the device dialer for calls.

Learn to integrate the Xamarin Essentials plugin to access native phone dialer and cross-platform APIs from shared code in Xamarin Forms, and install the prerelease NuGet package in Visual Studio.

Learn to use the Xamarin essentials NuGet package to open the phone dialer from a Xamarin forms app. Implement a tapped gesture recognizer to call a test number.

Fix bugs in the Xamarin Forms app by adding a loader, clearing selection highlights after navigation, and updating bottom tab bar, navigation bar, and Android status bar colors.

Wrap the list view in a grid on the menu page, add a centered activity indicator, and toggle its IsRunning to true on open and false when server response arrives.

Resolve the list view selection issue by checking the selected item is not null and using Navigation.PushAsync. Then reset the selected item to null to prevent reuse.

Learn to style a tabbed page in Xamarin Forms by changing tab item colors, the selected color, and the tab bar background, with guidance for Android and iOS.

Change the navigation bar color across the app by adding a resource dictionary in App.xaml, defining a navigation page style with a BarBackgroundColor setter, and applying a color.

Discover how to make the Android status bar translucent in a Xamarin forms app by editing the values styles file and enabling Android color window translucent status.

Explore the FF image loading library, a cross-platform image cache system for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Tizen, and Xamarin-Forms, and see how disk and memory caches boost long-list performance.

Explore how to integrate the ff image loading library into a Xamarin forms application, install the Xamarin FF image loading NuGet package, and enable image caching across platforms.

Implement the FFImageLoading plugin in Xamarin Forms by configuring iOS and Android setup, binding image sources, and using cache types and placeholders for smooth image loading from API data.