Hands-On Mobile Development with .NET Core

• Implement native applications for multiple mobile and desktop platforms
• Understand and use various Azure Services with .NET Core
• Make use of architectural patterns designed for mobile and web applications
• Understand the basic Cosmos DB concepts
• Understand how different app models can be used to create an app service
• Explore the Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms UI suite with .NET Core for building mobile applications

.NET Core is the general umbrella term used for Microsoft’s cross-platform toolset. Xamarin used for developing mobile applications, is one of the app model implementations for .NET Core infrastructure. In this book, you will learn how to design, architect, and develop highly attractive, maintainable, efficient, and robust mobile applications for multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, and UWP, with the toolset provided by Microsoft using Xamarin, .NET Core, and Azure Cloud Services. This book will take you through various phases of application development with Xamarin, from environment setup, design, and architecture to publishing, using real-world scenarios. Throughout the book, you will learn how to develop mobile apps using Xamarin, Xamarin.Forms and .NET Standard; implement a webbased backend composed of microservices with .NET Core using various Azure services including but not limited to Azure App Services, Azure Active Directory, Notification Hub, Logic Apps, and Azure Functions, Cognitive Services; create data stores using popular database technologies such as Cosmos DB, SQL and Realm. Towards the end, the book will help developers to set up an efficient and maintainable development pipeline to manage the application life cycle using Visual Studio App Center and Visual Studio Services.

• Understand .NET Core and its cross-platform development philosophy
• Build Android, iOS, and Windows mobile applications with C#, .NET Core, and Azure Cloud Services
• Bring Artificial Intelligence capabilities into your mobile applications with Azure AI

Table of contents

1 Getting Started with .NET Core
Cross-platform development
Introduction to .NET Core
.NET Foundation
Developing with .NET Core
Summary

2 Xamarin, Mono, and .NET Standard
Introduction to Xamarin
Creating your first Xamarin application
Xamarin on iOS – Mono Touch
Xamarin on Android – Mono Droid
Xamarin.Forms
Using .NET Standard with Xamarin
Extending the reach
Summary

3 Universal Windows Platform
Universal Windows Platform
Creating UWP applications
XAML Standard
.NET Standard and .NET Native
Platform extensions
Summary

4 Developing Mobile Applications with Xamarin
Xamarin versus Xamarin.Forms
Xamarin application anatomy
Selecting the presentation architecture
Useful architectural patterns
Summary

5 UI Development with Xamarin
Application layout
Implementing navigation structure
Using Xamarin.Forms and native controls
Creating data-driven views
Summary

6 Customizing Xamarin.Forms
Xamarin.Forms development domains
Xamarin.Forms shared domain
Customizing native domains
Creating custom controls
Summary

7 Azure Services for Mobile Applications
An overview of Azure services
Data stores
Azure serverless
Development services
Summary

8 Creating a Datastore with Cosmos DB
The basics of Cosmos DB 
Data access models
Modeling data
Cosmos DB in depth
Summary

9 Creating Microservices Azure App Services
Choosing the right app model
Creating our first microservice
Integrating with Redis cache
Hosting the services
Securing the application
Summary

10 Using .NET Core for Azure Serverless
Understanding Azure Serverless
Developing Azure Functions
Developing a Logic App
Integration with Azure services
Summary

11 Fluid Applications with Asynchronous Patterns
Utilizing tasks and awaitables
Asynchronous execution patterns
Native asynchronous execution
Summary

12 Managing Application Data
Improving HTTP performance with transient caching
Persistent data cache using SQLite
Data access patterns
Understanding Realm
Summary

13 Engaging Users with Notifications and the Graph API
Understanding Native Notification Services
Azure Notification Hub
Creating a notification service
The Graph API and Project Rome
Summary

14 Introducing Cognitive Services
Understanding Cognitive Services
Speech APIs
Computer vision
Search API
Summary

15 Azure DevOps and Visual Studio App Center
Using Azure DevOps and Git
Creating Xamarin application packages
App Center for Xamarin
Distribution with AppCenter
App Center telemetry and diagnostics 
Summary

16 Application Telemetry with Application Insights
Collecting insights for Xamarin applications
Collecting telemetry data for Azure Service
Analyzing data
Summary

17 Automated Testing
Maintaining application integrity with tests
Maintaining cross-module integrity with integration tests
Automated UI tests
Summary

18 Deploying Azure Modules
Creating an ARM template
ARM template concepts
Using Azure DevOps for ARM templates
Deploying .NET Core applications
Summary

19 CI/CD with Azure DevOps
Introducing CI/CD
CI/CD with GitFlow
The QA process
Creating and using release templates
Summary