Setting up the Xamarin

Question

I’m learning Xamarin and mobile development. I have seen several examples of how to set up a small application and I see that practically everyone starts like this: Blank App (Xamarin.Forms Portable) or in Portuguese. It turns out, when I create a new application, I don’t have this option. I’ve already updated Xamarin on my machine and nothing. When I type Xamarin in the field for search, it shows me several other options, but less this. When I appear a Blank App is for Android only. How to set up or there are other options for me to do that is equivalent to this, ie, develop for the three platforms practically at the same time?

Answer 1

In Visual Studio 2017 the options for creating a project changed a little. If you are not using VS2017 I recommend you download it and use it. Since you are starting, it is best to start the right way.

Download Visual Studio 2017: Download

Inside Visual Studio, click File/New/Project or File/New/Project. The following screen will appear:

From what I understand, you want to develop for the 3 platforms at the same time. The simplest and easiest way (at least for me) is through Xamarin.Forms, where you create the layout (XAML) and code (C#) of your app only once and Visual Studio takes care of compiling and generating code native to the 3 palates: Android, iOS and UWP.

Following this idea, select Visual C#/Cross-Platform from the left side menu. Then, check the Cross Platform App (Xamarin) option on the right side of the menu and finally, put a name for your project at the bottom of the window. Once done, click OK.

After that, the following screen will open:

Note that now you have the option to select the Blankapp that before did not see. Here then, select Blankapp, below select Xamarin.Forms and next choose the strategy of sharing code. Finally, click OK and your project will be created.