Uno Platform and XPO

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As a proof of concept I wanted to give a try of using Uno Platform and XPO together. Uno has been gaining popularity and I have to say that after this I will have a tough decision on the framework selection for my next mobile project. I love Xamarin but the benefits that Uno brings to the table are hard to pass.

From their own website:

  • Uno-built native apps can be compiled to WASM with no additional development efforts!
  • Ramp up time is minimal and you can take advantage of all that the Visual Studio ecosystem has to offer for testing, deploying, project management, and more.

What that means to us?

First, A web front end thanks to web assembly (I honestly don’t know why Xamarin has not invested in this route yet. Besides Ooui that I believe it is awesome but not even close to production, there is nothing else out there)

Update: UNO has WebAssembly Renderers for Xamarin Forms.

And second, a UWP first approach where all the VS tooling just work. Including Designers, Hot reload, Brushes and more.

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ReactiveUI + Xamarin Forms + Prism

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If you guys have not use this combination I strongly suggest to give it a try. Prism handles navigation like a boss, ReactiveUI makes your code readable that you will comeback 6 months from today and you will still be able to pick it up fairly quickly (that is not the only reason of course but one of the most appealing for me) and Xamarin Forms (no need for introductions here).

If you have never used Prism or ReactiveUI I recommend:

Prism in Xamarin Forms Step by Step by Xamgirl.

And

You, I, and ReactiveUI by Kent Boogaart.

Now, How do we use them together?

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XAF to Xamarin Teaser

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I know I still owe you guys the complete article about the XAF POS Teaser but I could not help it. Here is a quick XAF to Xamarin Teaser.

Remarks:

  • ORM in NET Standard library to share between XAF and Xamarin.
  • Custom IDataStore Implementation in ASP.Net Core Web API.
  • Shared Authentication between XAF and Xamarin
  • Support for Direct SQL Queries with XPO
  • Win, Web, Android, iOS, UWP. (UNO coming soon)
  • Using Syncfusion Data Grid because DevExpress Data Grid for Xamarin is still not on Nuget. (You can also use a ListView,  CollectionView, etc)
  • Not showing in the teaser: XAF Reports in Xamarin using Syncfusion PDF Viewer.
  • Not showing in the teaser: Multiple IDataStore implementation to support multiple databases in the same application.

I am really happy about this template. I believe it will save a ton of time. As always feel free to reach out with any question/suggestion or if you are struggling trying to make your XAF project mobile.

Xafmarin out!

Meeting Dave and Adam -DevExpress MVPs

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For the Xamarin Saturday on August 24 I traveled to Toronto, as we all know from my last post. One thing I did not mention there because I wanted to have a special post just for this was that I had the opportunity and honor to finally meet in person Dave Hesketh and Adam Latimer current DevExpress MVPs.

I want to say thanks to both for making the trip from Orangeville. I have been following their work for a couple years already and my XAF POS Teaser includes code from their Free Modules.

We had a  great talk about XAF, XPO, Blazor, Xamarin and more. Continue reading →

CodeRush Shortcuts for XAF, Xamarin, ReactiveUI and Prism

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A few months back my great friend Joche Ojeda did  a post on a CodeRush Template for Xamarin forms bindable property and to quote him exactly:

“From time to time I realize that a lot of the stuff I’m writing is repetitive and complex, so that is the perfect time to create a new code rush custom template, behold the new template xfbp (xamarin forms bindable property).”

Well, behold some other templates for XAF, Xamarin, Prism and Reactive UI.

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Xamarin Developer Summit Impressions

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Last month,  I was in Houston at the Xamarin Developer Summit, a conference by the community and for the community, and I have to admit it was everything I expected and more. You read blogs about past events (Microsoft Build, Evolve, Ignite) but nothing compare to actually attending one.

It was good to meet a large number of community members that you follow daily on twitter, read their articles and actually ask them anything in person.

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Notes to Myself: Helpers.cs

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My next step is making CodeRush shortcuts for these classes but meanwhile I decided to have them here so I can refer quickly to them.

Update:

This is exactly the type of post that I always find and then I have to look into the source code to get the code I need.

https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/T825872/how-to-clone-an-object-example

I wish we had something like https://source.xafmarin.com for XAF.

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XAF ColorWheel Module For Win

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I had this post in private for a while now, one because I did not think that many people were interested and two because this was actually my first XAF module after taking the training from BITFrameworks a few years back.

Lately, I have been making public a few of other post so why not, let’s put this one out there as well.

The concept of modules in XAF it really interest me because we do a specific functionality once and that is it, we have it available for all future projects if you architecture it right.

Besides the training that I would always recommend, a great article about reusable modules is this one by Dennis. It goes over controllers, actions, localization and more.

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XPO Tips and Tricks (2) @ CurrentUser

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I am still amazed by the amount of neat tips, tricks and new (or sometimes really old) things I am still learning every day about XAF and XPO only by browsing the daily support tickets.

This time I stumbled upon a couple tickets:

https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/T214693/how-to-create-currentuser-parameter-instead-of-currentuserid

https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/T468768/is-there-a-way-to-pull-in-the-current-user-into-a-security-criteria-expression

And

https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/Q415990/criteria-current-user-property

Those ones made me revisit the docs about Free Joins in XPO and honestly I don’t know why I haven’t been using this more often because it is a beauty.

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