Images are an important part of the UI of a mobile app. Because there are lots of different mobile phones, all having very different screens - width, height or pixel density - using images made of pixels (called "raster images") is often a bad idea to get a great result.

I'm gonna tell you why it's very important to use vector image. I will first give you advices of when to use raster or svg images, then i will show you how to easily use vector images (SVG) in your apps on iOS, Android and Windows UWP.

Creating a good Xamarin Forms control - Part 3 - UI Day 4

In

I proposed the foundations of a win-win architecture for a good Xamarin Forms control using a multi targeting project.

Today I am presenting a way to create a control with a renderer that auto register itself, greatly simplifying the control's usage in teams, but also its documentation and its maintenance.

The art of creating a good control

In

I explained what makes a good control and where to find some. In this article i propose the foundations of a win-win architecture for a good Xamarin Forms control.

Windows server core can be managed remotely easily using VSCode capabilities, thanks to its built-in filesystem feature.

VSCode is a great open source success. It has become a must have application in a few years of existence. Tons of developers have created tons of plugins, from Python development to edition of Yaml configuration files (with "intellisense", Microsoft name for auto completion + syntax highlighting + go to definition), there is a plugin for everything (coding, analysis, powershell, bash, ...). VSCode is so fast that it nicely replaces any text editor, including notepad. Thank you Microsoft!

Recently, VSCode has improved by filling a new gap, with the flagship feature "remote coding". With remote coding, VSCode connects to any machine (linux or windows), any docker container, any Azure VM, and anything supporting its virtual filesystem plugin, and you can start edit files and use plugins and execute remote commands.

The art of creating a good control

Do you remember the joy when you were playing lego in your young years ? With small lego parts you can build your most wanted star wars ship. You don't build the lego parts though, you buy them.

It's the same for software components, also called controls. They are well builded, polished piece of code solving a problem; and they can be easily plugged into your app. They bring you value, and if they fit your needs out of the box, or if you are a little weak on coding (lots of us are), they will save you a lot of time.

Have you ever remarked the gorgeous wheel picker used in lots of AppStore apps? Did you ever wanted to use it in the Xamarin Forms project of your customer so you can hear Ohhs and Ahhs from your work? Did you feel bad when you discovered this control does not come out of the box of Xamarin Forms, and no-one seems to have created one on github, and that finally you decided to put an horrible list picker instead ?

On Apple's world, the wheelpicker is a well documented, not easy to use, but so cutely designed UI control from which the user can quickly and intuitively select linked values, like a date : a birth date, a driver license's date (month day year values); or a vehicle's details (brand, model, year) for examples. You can also use it to select a single value in an easy way, even in a large list, thanks to the "flying" acceleration feature, simulating the inertia of a heavy wheel that you spin with force. In this last case, the addition of a search or filter input could also have some benefits.