I have just upgraded to the MonoDevelop 2.8 Alpha and built my MonoTouch app with it.
I noticed that in the build type dropdown, where I can select Simulator debug/release and iPhone debug/release, there are three separate entries:
Default Runtime
Mono 2.10.2
Mono 2.10.1
My MonoTouch version is 4.0.4.1. I thought MonoTouch was coming with its own Mono runtime. Does the dropdown make any difference for MT projects?
No, the target runtime doesn't affect MonoTouch. It only matters for "normal" desktop/server .NET projects.
Related
I'm using Fedora 27 as my Operating System, and I'm wondering if I could get the Xamarin toolset working on it to create cross platform apps with an IDE like monodevelop, VS Code or Rider.
I heard Xamarin get's new templates for Xamarin.Forms for Linux, but I can't find any recent development news about that.
Yes, as of mid-2018, it is somewhat possible to develop a Xamarin.Forms app under MonoDevelop on Linux. I successfully managed to do it.
Basically, you need to have at least two things:
A shared library project, containing all the cross-platform Xamarin.Forms code and Xaml files. For some reason, on Linux this library project have to be compiled with .NET Core toolchain and not Mono toolchain (otherwise there is some GTK issues at runtime later on). The target framework is .NET Standard 1.0 or .NET Standard 2.0, and the main dependency is the NuGet package "Xamarin.Forms".
A Mono/GTK# platform-specific project for Linux, containing all the platform specific code: initialize GTK and Xamarin.Forms.Platform.GTK backend, and start the Xamarin.Forms code. The dependencies are the NuGet package "Xamarin.Forms.Platform.GTK", references to locally installed GTK# of your linux distribution (gtk-sharp, atk-sharp, etc...), and obviously a reference to the shared library project. Note that only GTK2 is supported and not GTK3.
The shared library project may be developed with MonoDevelop, Visual Studio, or JetBrains Rider. Note that with MonoDevelop, there is no XAML designer... so this is easier to do the design stuff with Visual Studio on Windows.
The platform specific project may be developed using MonoDevelop or Rider on Linux.
Here is a picture of the project structure under MonoDevelop:
There is a "HelloWorldXamarin" library project. It uses the .NET Core toolchain targeting .NET Standard 1.0, and have a dependency to NuGet package "Xamarin.Forms"
There is a "HelloWorldXamarin_Linux" project. It uses the Mono toolchain targeting Mono/GTK# for Linux, and have dependencies to GKT# and HelloWorldXamarin library, as well as dependency to NuGet package "Xamarin.Forms.Platform.GTK". You can see the platform specific code on the right.
And a picture of the result:
So you can now develop cross-platform Xamarin.Forms GUI applications for Windows,Mac,Linux,Android,iOS...
Yes you can and how well it will work on Fedora I'm not sure, but it looks like development is still in progress for the GTK Backend on Linux. For more information, there's a Github repo here that shows how far along it is and how you can try it yourself.
In my question about using .NET 4.0.3 in a Portable Class Library I spoke a little too soon: I got the PCL working on my Windows machine, but now I can't get it working on the Mac. If the library is set to use .NET 4.03, I get compiler errors in MonoDevelop, saying that the framework is not supported. So I'm stuck on PCL for .NET 4.0, which is annoying because I need some features from 4.0.3.
So, is there a way to target .NET 4.0.3 in MonoTouch/MonoDevelop on the mac?
MonoDevelop (up through 3.0.6) is/was hard-coded to only work with PCL Profile1 (I think it was Profile1, anyway). As a workaround, you can try changing over to Profile1 and building that.
On MacOS, MonoDevelop simply links with MonoTouch (or Mono4Android) system assemblies and ignores the PCL profile constraints (other than verifying that the profile is Profile1). If MonoTouch has the 4.0.3 APIs that you are trying to use, then things will build fine.
I have got an application developed with Monotouch 4.0.7. This app is running on iPads with iOS 4.3.
Now, I want to migrate to the latest Monotouch version is 5.0. Will I be able to deploy my app on iPads with iOS 4.3? Or Monotouch 5.0 only for iOS 5.0?
Yes, it is possible to develop for iOS 4.3 (or even earlier iOS versions) with MonoTouch 5.0.
To set the minimum iOS version your app needs, go to the project's options, and in the iPhone Application page set Deployment Target to the minimum version.
Have in mind that MonoTouch will not tell you if you use iOS 5.0 API in your app. You can add iOS 5.0 features to your app, but you must not try to use those features on a lower version (here you can see how to accomplish this).
You can upgrade to Monotouch 5.x without any problems. In Monodevelop, change your SDK to 5.x
Just make sure your deployment target remains 4.3, if you still want to target that platform.
You will have to pay attention to not calling any methods that don't exist in 4.3.
If you want to have different/extended behavior on iOS 5 devices, you can check the OS version and use a different code branch.
Another small thing to be prepared for: iOS5 behaves differently in some situations. For instance if you are having hierarchical UIViewControllers, iOS5 will automatically call all UI events like ViewWillAppear(), even if you don't use the new UIViewControllery hierachy API.
What I want to say: test your app thoroughly on both iOS versions.
I wanted to convert a small test application from Windows .NET 4 to MonoTouch but I am missing System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles.
Then I tried it with a plain Mono console app and the namespace isn't there either.
I tried Mono 2.10 in combination with MonoDevelop 2.4.
Is it supposed to be there or not? I'm kind of confused, as .NET4 compatibility was announced with Mono, as far as I know.
Mono 2.10 has some support for memory mapped file. However it is not 100% complete (and Windows-specific things like security are not likely to be ever included) so YMMV.
You can browser what's available from the GIT repository:
https://github.com/mono/mono/tree/mono-2-10/mcs/class/System.Core/System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles
Since this is a .NET 4.0 feature you'll need to use the 'dmcs' compiler to get your code to compile (and also reference System.Core.dll where the types resides).
As for MonoTouch it provides a subset of Mono (originally based on the 2.1 profile from Silverlight and extra, even some 4.0, features). Currently (for MonoTouch 4.x) this does not include any type from System.IO.MemoryMappedFile.* namespace. Future versions will offer more .NET 4.0 features (if they are available from iOS).
On main page there is MonoDevelop IDE, and MonoTouch (IDE?)
What is the difference? Are they two separate IDE's? With different features?
MonoDevelop is the free cross-platform Mono IDE. It can be used with Mono, MonoTouch, MonoDroid, MonoMac, etc.
MonoTouch is the commercial SDK that exposes the iOS API for use with C#.
MonoTouch vs MonoDevelop From the Wiki:
Unlike Mono applications MonoTouch
"Apps" are compiled down to machine
code targeted specifically at the
Apple iPhone. This is necessary
because the iPhone kernel prevents
just-in-time compilers from executing
on the device.