How to Start a Xamarin App from Scratch Webinar Q&A

Jacqueline Bieringer
September 17, 2021 UPDATED

The webinar, “How to Start a Xamarin App from Scratch,” is presented by Aaron Melamed, Syncfusion’s product solutions specialist. Melamed shows attendees how to use Syncfusion’s navigation drawer and list view controls to set up a new Xamarin application. The following blog post is a compilation of the Q&A portion of several runs of this webinar. The webinar recording can be found on our YouTube page, or you can watch it here.

Q: Could you please cover debugging issues with Xamarin.Forms? I regularly run into problems on Android and iOS. The only reliable build is UWP. Mostly, the problems are related to the linker. With PreserveAttribute, some issues are resolved, but not all. And even when the output project builds, it might not run or even install on a testing device. Do you have some debugging hints or best practice hints?

A: In Android, sometimes the existing application will be in cache even after uninstalling. Try uninstalling the cache from Apps under device settings, or renaming the package name under AndroidManifest.xml.

Q: I noticed that running your application using the Android emulator is quite fast. What kind of machine specs are you using for this demo? I am struggling together with my students: it takes forever to run and display something.

A: The demo was run on a Surface Book with an i7 and 16GB of RAM.

Q: Is this available on GitHub?

A: We haven’t published the exact source code for the app, but a similar application can be found here: https://github.com/AaronMelamed/Car-Demo-App.

Q: One of my biggest challenges is creating a navigation command from a ViewModel. Do you have any advice?

A: Check out this Knowledge Base article: https://www.syncfusion.com/kb/7520/how-to-navigate-page-from-viewmodel-using-button-in-listviewitem.

Q: How can you compile iOS using Windows?

A: A Mac build host is used to debug the iOS app from Windows. Please refer to this guide to learn more: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/get-started/installation/windows/connecting-to-mac/.

Q: Can we use Visual Code for building this app instead of Visual Studio?

A: No, Visual Studio must be used to build and deploy the code to a device or simulator.

Q: Can you discuss grouping in list view?

A: Please refer to this user guide document: https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/listview/getting-started#grouping.

Q: How do you navigate from the ViewModel to another page?

A: Check out this Knowledge Base article: https://www.syncfusion.com/kb/7520/how-to-navigate-page-from-viewmodel-using-button-in-listviewitem.

Q: Is there any easy way to work with data?

A: Yes. We have a data source library. It is a non-UI component that consumes raw data and processes data operations such as sorting, filtering, and grouping, saving developers time and effort in building the functionality themselves.

Q: Can I use Syncfusion’s other tools, like PDF converter?

A: Yes, check out our previous Xamarin webinar for examples of our PDF controls in a Xamarin application.

Q: Can we make list view clickable and connect to different actions?

A: Yes, check out this Knowledge Base article: https://www.syncfusion.com/kb/7523/how-to-turn-events-into-commands-with-behaviors-in-sflistview.

Q: Is it possible to have a jump list in the list view?

A: Yes, we now have a pop-up control that allows this: https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/popup/overview.

This blog post was originally published on May 24, 2018.

To learn more about Xamarin, check out the following resources: