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Xamarin Forms Plugins

The following plugins are quite helpful. Currently most of the plugins are used in sessions from Xamarin University or from Xamarin Forms Kickstarter but the list will be updated whenever something helpful comes along my way.

Connection Plugins

 

Storage

  • Settings Plugin
    Read and Write Settings Plugin for Xamarin and Windows
    Needs to be added to PCL and all client projects
    Source code is available on Github at https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/SettingsPlugin
    Xam.Plugins.Settings is available on nuget at https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xam.Plugins.Settings/
  • SQLite
    SQLite is a self-contained, high-reliability, embedded, full-featured, public-domain, SQL database engine. SQLite is the most used database engine in the world.
    Needs to be added to PCL and all client projects. For Windows Projects it’s also necessary to add a reference to “Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Runtime Package” otherwise a “FileNotFoundException” will be thrown when the database file is opened or created.
    Source code is available at https://sqlite.org/.
    SQLite-net-pcl is available on nuget at https://www.nuget.org/packages/sqlite-net-pcl/.

    • It’s not a Xamarin Plugin, but Datum Free is a cool (and full version Datum an even better) tool for having access to the SQLite DB on emulators on Mac.
  • Akavache
    Akavache is an asynchronous, persistent (i.e. writes to disk) key-value store created for writing desktop and mobile applications in C#, based on SQLite3. Akavache is great for both storing important data (i.e. user settings) as well as cached local data that expires.
    Source code is available at https://github.com/akavache/Akavache.
    Akavache is available on nuget at https://www.nuget.org/packages/akavache/.

 

Device

 

Communication

  • ACR userdialogs
    A cross platform library that allows you to call for standard user dialogs from a shared/portable library, Actionsheets, alerts, confirmations, loading, login, progress, prompt, toast… async just for fun
    Source code is available on Github at https://github.com/aritchie/userdialogs.
    ACR UserDialogs is available on nuget at https://www.nuget.org/packages/Acr.UserDialogs/.
  • Calendars API Plugin
    API is in development for more than 2 years and currently still in beta, so if you want to add it via package manager don’t forget to check ‘include pre-releases’, otherwise you won’t find it. Even though it’s still in beta, it does already work fine for adding new calendar entries and setting reminders in the users calendar.
    Source code is available on Github at https://github.com/TheAlmightyBob/Calendars
    CClarke. Plugin. Calendars is available on nuget at https://www.nuget.org/packages/CClarke.Plugin.Calendars.

 

Media

 

Other tools

Here are some other tools which are quite helpful:

  • AppCenter
    Visual Studio App Center brings together multiple services commonly used by mobile developers into an integrated cloud solution. Developers use App Center to Build, Test, and Distribute applications. Once the app’s deployed, developers monitor the status and usage of the app using the Analytics and Diagnostics services, and engage with users using the Push service.
  • FastLane.Tools
    fastlane is the tool to release your iOS and Android app. It handles all tedious tasks, like generating screenshots, dealing with code signing, and releasing your application.
  • XAML Styler
    XAML Styler is a visual studio extension that formats XAML source code based on a set of styling rules. This tool can help you/your team maintain a better XAML coding style as well as a much better XAML readability.

 

Other plugins are available at https://www.nuget.org/profiles/PluginsForXamarin.

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