Professional Cross-Platform Mobile Development in C#

Scott Olson is a writer for iPhone Life and the lead architect at ITR Mobility. He has over 18 years of development experience. John Hunter has been developing and architecting apps for more than two decades and currently serves as a lead consulting architect at ITR Mobility. Ben Horgen is the lead technical analyst for mobile applications at Ameriprise Financial and has more than a decade of development experience. Kenny Goers has been developing software since 1998 and is currently a mobile application architect at ITR Mobility.

INTRODUCTION xvii PART I: MOBILE DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW CHAPTER 1: CHOOSING THE RIGHT ARCHITECTURE 3 Understanding Mobile Architecture 3 Connecting to the Network 4 Recognizing Storage and Processor Limitations 5 Securing Data on the Device 6 Building Scalable Applications 7 Planning for Deployment 8 Writing Extendible Modules 8 Maintaining Application Code 9 Choosing an Architecture 9 Building Native Applications 9 Building Web Applications 10 Building Hybrid Applications 11 Building for Multiple Platforms 12 Choosing iOS Applications 12 Choosing Android Applications 13 Choosing Windows Phone Applications 14 Choosing Web Applications 14 Summary 14 CHAPTER 2: DESIGNING YOUR USER EXPERIENCE 15 Making Your Applications Usable 16 Identifying the Scope of Each Screen 16 Conforming to Platform Standards 17 Separating Platform from Design 19 Prototyping 20 Whiteboarding 20 Using Functional Prototypes 22 Obtaining User Feedback 25 Using Agile Iterations 26 Summary 27 PART II: DEVELOPING CROSS-PLATFORM APPLICATIONS CHAPTER 3: SETTING UP YOUR DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT 31 Getting Your Development Tools 32 Installing Microsoft Visual Studio 32 Installing Internet Information Services (IIS) 35 Installing MonoDevelop for Mac 38 Installing Device Frameworks 41 Installing the Windows Phone SDK 41 Preparing for iOS Development 42 Preparing for Android Development 47 Installing MonoCross Project Templates 54 Installing the MonoCross Utilities 56 Organizing Your Solutions 57 Navigating the Sample Code 59 Continuous Integration 60 Summary 61 CHAPTER 4: THE MONOCROSS PATTERN 63 Understanding the Cross-Platform Problem 63 Understanding Native Platform Diff erences 64 Acknowledging HTML 5 Limitations 64 Taking a Hybrid Approach 65 Enabling Code Portability with Mono 65 Developing for Multiple Platforms 66 Defi ning a Cross-Platform Architecture 67 Separating the User Interface 67 Understanding the MonoCross Solution 67 Using the Model-View-Controller Pattern 68 Using URI-Based Navigation 77 Summary 88 CHAPTER 5: BUILDING SHARED APPLICATIONS 89 Defi ning Your Model 91 Starting from Your User Experience Design 91 Building for Lightly Loaded Lists 94 Plan for Lazy-Loaded Details 95 Advanced Techniques 96 Building Your Controllers 100 Implementing Your Workfl ow 101 Applying Changes to the Model 110 Summary 110 CHAPTER 6: BUILDING MONOCROSS CONTAINERS 113 Understanding How It All Fits Together 113 Implementing a Simple Application 115 Initializing the Container 115 Building the Customer List View 116 Building the Customer View 118 Building the Customer Edit View 120 Implementing an iOS Platform Container 122 Initializing a Container in MonoTouch 122 Building the Customer List View in MonoTouch 124 Building the Customer View in MonoTouch 127 Building the Customer Edit View in MonoTouch 131 Implementing an Android Platform Container 134 Initializing the Container for Android 134 Building the Customer List View for Android 136 Building the Customer View for Android 139 Building the Customer Edit View for Android 141 Implementing a Windows Phone Platform Container 144 Initializing a Container for Windows Phone 144 Building the Customer List View for Windows Phone 147 Building the Customer View for Windows Phone 150 Building the Customer Edit View for Windows Phone 154 Implementing a WebKit Platform Container 158 Initializing a Container with WebKit 158 Building the Customer List View with WebKit 159 Building the Customer View with WebKit 161 Building the Customer Edit View with WebKit 164 Summary 166 CHAPTER 7: DESIGNING AND BUILDING DATA SERVICES 167 Understanding Web Services Principles 167 Using SOAP Services 168 Using REST Services 168 Defining a Mobile Services API 169 Starting with Your User Experience Design 169 Optimizing for Mobile Usage 170 Creating Resource Endpoints 171 Building Indexed Lists 174 Retrieving Detail Objects 176 Enabling Transactions 179 Creating JSON Endpoints 187 Using Advanced Techniques 190 Specifying Data Elements in the Request 190 Building Pagination into Your Services 192 Filtering Results on the Server 194 Summary 196 CHAPTER 8: CONSUMING DATA SERVICES 197 Initiating RESTful Transactions 197 Performing RESTful GETs 201 Performing PUTs, POSTs, and DELETEs 211 Working Disconnected 222 Caching Data 222 Standardizing Cache Interface 223 Caching Mobile Data In-Memory 223 Caching Mobile Data Persistently 225 Securing Mobile Data (Encryption) 227 Not Caching Mobile Data 228 Queuing Data to Server 229 Device Resource Considerations 233 Managing Memory/File System Consumption 234 Managing Network Bandwidth 234 Summary 235 CHAPTER 9: ACCESSING THE DEVICE 237 Utilizing Device Audio and Video Playback Capabilities 238 Capturing Audio 239 Playing Audio 243 Capturing Video 247 Playing Video 252 Contacts and Calendar 255 Accessing Contacts 255 Messaging and Communication 258 Initiating a Voice Call 258 Geo-location 260 Getting GPS Location Information 260 Accelerometer 265 Getting X, Y, and Z 266 Summary 270 CHAPTER 10: USING MONOCROSS UTILITIES 271 Understanding MonoCross Utilities 272 Encrypting Application Information 273 Understanding the Encryption Utility 273 Putting the Encryption Utility to Work 275 Using File Storage 276 Understanding the File Utility 276 Putting the File Utility to Work 277 Serializing Objects 280 Understanding the Serializer Utility 280 Putting the Serializer Utility to Work 281 Logging Application Events 285 Understanding the Log Utility 285 Putting the Log Utility to Work 286 Accessing Network Functionality 288 Understanding the Network Utility 288 Putting the Network Utility to Work 289 Threading Your Application 291 Understanding the Thread Utility 291 Putting the Thread Utility to Work 292 Summary 294 CHAPTER 11: HYBRID APPLICATIONS 295 The Reasoning Behind the Web Hybrid Approach 295 Native Applications 295 Web Applications 296 Hybrid Applications 297 Implementing a Hybrid Approach 298 Understanding How Hybrid Applications Work 298 Building the Web Components 300 Building the Native Containers 303 Summary 314 CHAPTER 12: BRINGING APPLICATIONS TO THE ENTERPRISE 317 Expanding Your Application s Domain 317 Bringing Your Application to the Desktop 318 Bringing Your Application to the Cloud 322 Supporting Multiple Platforms 339 Future-Proofing Applications 339 Building for Reuse 339 Using View Abstraction 341 Using a Mixed-View Model 342 Summary 344 INDEX 345