As you embark on the journey of swift app development, it's natural to feel overwhelmed by the steep learning curve. But fear not! With the right resources and guidance, you can overcome any obstacles and become a proficient developer in no time.

Prerequisites

Before diving headfirst into the world of swift app development, make sure you have the necessary tools and knowledge at your disposal. This includes mobile platform SDKs, an IDE, emulators, simulators, and devices. Check out our comprehensive guides for Windows and Mac installation to get started quickly.

Simplified iOS Development

Xamarin.Forms has made significant strides in simplifying iOS development with the introduction of the Xamarin Live Player (currently in Preview 2). This innovative tool allows you to code in Visual Studio 2017 and see your app immediately on device via the Xamarin Live Player app. When you're ready to compile and deploy your applications for iOS, or outgrow the Xamarin Live Player's capabilities, connect to your Mac and use the Remote iOS Simulator for Windows.

Common First Questions

Navigating Screens

When it comes to navigating between screens in your swift app development project, Xamarin.Forms uses a stack concept, where you push and pop pages onto a navigation stack. Start your application with a NavigationPage and use the Navigation service to push a new page onto the stack: MainPage = new NavigationPage(new FirstPage()); await Navigation.PushAsync(new SecondPage());

Laying Out Content

Xamarin.Forms supports several layout patterns, including Grid, StackLayout, AbsoluteLayout, and RelativeLayout. For highly optimized layouts, explore creating a custom layout to finely control aspects of the measure and invalidation cycles.

Seeing Your Design

Have you ever wanted to see your design come to life in real-time? The Xamarin Live Player allows for live editing XAML in the text editor and instant rendering on your device. You can also use an application like Reflector to mirror your device on your development machine.

Moving Beyond Basics

Customizing Controls

When it comes to customizing controls, out-of-the-box Xamarin.Forms controls provide basic customization possibilities. However, when you "hit a wall," you have options: platform-specific implementations, effects, and custom renderers. Learn how to implement these in our comprehensive guides on Using Effects in Xamarin.Forms [XAM330] and Creating Custom Renderers [XAM335].

Using Custom Fonts

While setting font attributes is included in Xamarin.Forms, custom fonts require a bit more attention. We use a custom icon font, WeatherIcons, in our Weather dem