iOS Debugging on Windows – VS Code Extension

One of the things that has always impressed me was the ability to pair Visual Studio running on Windows to a Mac and be able to debug on either a real device, or on a simulator. There’s even a remote simulator which will display the simulator on Windows, meaning I never have to open, or … Read more

Enhancing .NET Hot Reload with CreateNewOnMetadataUpdate, MetadataUpdateHandler and MetadataUpdateOriginalType Attributes

With each update to the .NET SDK and Visual Studio the support for Hot Reload improves. Hot Reload is the ability to make changes to your running application without having to restart and it can dramatically improve developer productivity, when it works. In this post we’re going to look at a simple example of where … Read more

Implementing WinUI/Fluent into Visual Studio

As Windows, continues to apply the Fluent design language across various aspects of the underlying operating system, Microsoft is also looking to apply it to other first party applications. According to this post on their blog, Visual Studio is the next application to be hit by designers and not everyone is happy (check out comments … Read more

Visual Studio: How to Pair to Mac for iOS Development on Windows

I have to start this post by pointing out what a major bonus it is for .NET developers that you can build, deploy and debug an iOS application on Windows – that’s right, if you didn’t already know this, if you’re using Xamarin (now net6 ios/android), Xamarin.Forms (now dotnetmaui) or Uno Platform, you can do … Read more

XAML Live Preview and the Future of Designers for App Development

Earlier this year I shared a post, Visual Designer, Hot Reload and Beyond, where I talked about how I thought the future of designers would evolve. Looks like I preempted a new feature that’s coming to Visual Studio 2022 called XAML Live Preview. Currently this is in preview for WPF applications but you can imagine … Read more

Getting Started with Project Reunion (Windows UI) and Visual Studio 2022

There’s a bit of fanfare going on at the moment because Microsoft have released the first preview of Visual Studio 2022 (announcement / download) which is significant because this is the first version of Visual Studio which will be 64bit. Note, this isn’t the first version that supports 64bit development, it’s the first version where … Read more

Errors with Windows Application Packaging Project

Here’s a quick fix for an error I came across when I’ve been experimenting with various packaging options for WPF (Win32) applications. To set the scene I have a new application, PackagingWPF, that I created based on the WPF Application project template. At this stage I’m not even going to both modifying the application. Next … Read more

Missing Files in Multi-Targeted Project

In the .NET ecosystem there have been a number of different approaches to building libraries that work cross platform (i.e. support building apps for different platforms such as iOS, Android, Windows etc). One of the more recent is to build a multi-targeted project that can light up either different features or just different implementations for … Read more

Don’t Judge XAML Based On Lines of Code

For those following the on-going discussion around the future of XAML and specifically the use of XAML in DotNetMaui/Xamarin.Forms, this post is a follow on from two great posts discussing the options that are, or will be, available for Xamarin.Forms developers as we move forward with DotNetMaui: Mobile Blazor Bindings – Getting Started + Why … Read more

Building Messages in Blend for Visual Studio

The other day Martin Zikmond tweeted about a messaging sample app he’d built using the Uno Platform, allowing the same app to run on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS and Web. Whilst the concept was simple enough, the point was that there was almost no platform specific code and yet the app works and looks virtually … Read more

Improving Developer Experience with Multi-Targeted Visual Studio Projects

In my previous post on using multi-targeted cross platform projects I showed how you can add additional target frameworks to allow the addition of platform specific code to a library. One of the downsides of this approach (versus perhaps using a shared project) is that the library gets built once for every target framework that’s … Read more

Look iOS Developer, No Mac Required – Build an iOS Application using Xamarin and Visual Studio for Windows without using a Mac

If you’re a die-hard Windows user, like me, you’ll be excited to know that you can now build iOS application using Xamarin (and Xamarin.Forms) and Visual Studio, without having to buy or use a Mac. That’s right for development, you no longer need to invest, or carry around, a Mac. In this post I’ll walk you through how to enable this feature.

Running Android Device Tests for Xamarin.Essentials on Windows

As a developer working with Xamarin or Xamarin.Forms you should be aware of the Xamarin.Essentials package that Microsoft have been developing that “provides developers with cross-platform APIs for their mobile applications”. If you haven’t taken the time to look through the source code, it’s well worth cloning the repository and taking a look. Not only … Read more

Optimising Multi-Targeting with Visual Studio Solution Filters

Over time Visual Studio has progressively improved support for solutions that have a large number of projects. MvvmCross used to be over 200 projects to handle each of the target platforms it supports. With the introduction of multi-targeted projects the number of projects dropped significantly to around 50 projects. For example, the core MvvmCross project … Read more