Create Cross Platform apps effectively

with Portable Class Libraries

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@f5debug

Agenda

Cross Platform Applications

• .Net Framework Apps

• Windows Phone

• Windows 8

• Xbox

• Silverlight

• iOS

• Android

Challenges in building Native Apps

• Multiple Operating Systems

• Multiple Teams and Products

• Feature Fragmentation

• Uniform User Experience

• Cost Factor

Cross Platform Applications

When to use

• Low Performance

Applications

• Apps which makes a

replication of Web

Applications

• Restful Applications

• Targeting multiple

platforms

When not to use

• High Performance

Applications

• More Native features

like OS integration,

device specific

• Tightly coupled with

Network

communications

Portable Class Libraries

• Introduced officially with Visual Studio 2012

• Library that runs on multiple platforms

• Single code base for multiple target platforms

• Avoid multiple copies of the same code

• Share code across platforms

• Can select the target framework out of the

box

Portable Class Libraries

Portable Class Library project supports a

subset of assemblies from

Target Platforms

Portable Class Libraries

Code Files for reusable classes

UX.SilverlightUX.Phone UX.WindowsUX.Web

Common PCL

What can I use and where?

Portable Class Libraries

• One source

• One project

• One binary

Multiple

platforms!

Mobile Apps with Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone Market Place

Separate Visual Studio Templates

Different application Layers and Tiers

Separate Emulators and device specific deployments

Modern Apps with Windows 8

Windows Store Market Place

Separate Visual Studio Templates with support for Web developers

Different application Layers and Tiers

Separate Emulators and device specific deployments

Client

Mobile and Modern Clients

Server

Mobile Apps with Xamarin

C# everywhere

SDK and Studio available for both Windows and MAC

Build Apps for iOS and Android as well

Single code base for all platforms

Separate Emulators and device specific deployments

Cross platform apps with Xamarin

Xamarin

Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM)

ViewsHow to display information

Written in XAML

View ModelsWhat information to display

Flow of interaction

ModelsData objects

Business logic

Etc.

Platform-specific

PortableReferences

Databinds

MVVM in Cross-platform app architecture

Reference Reference

Resources

http://bit.ly/18T5Hal

http://bit.ly/16Gwzod

www.f5debug.net

http://bit.ly/13oyq2v

Portable Class Libraries on Channel9 @ http://bit.ly/1cqtMnO

Question & Answers

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