Learning MonoTouch A Hands-On Guide to Building iOS Applications with C# and .NET

by Bluestein, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780321719928
• ISBN10: 0321719921
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-07-25
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

Many .NET developers and many enterprises would like to target the iPhone for business application development, yet the learning curve and cost of moving to Objective-C precludes the practicality of this in many cases. MonoTouch brings the best of CocoaTouch and .NET under a single, extensible technology, providing the only way to develop iPhone applications using .NET that can be published to the iPhone App Store. Learning MonoTouchbegins with the basics of building applications for the iPhone under MonoTouch. It assumes the reader is familiar with C# and .NET at least on an intermediate level and will focus on making use of existing skills while presenting in detail iPhone-specific information. Initial chapters will have simple examples to get the reader up and running and lay the groundwork for more complex samples and chapters presented later in the book. After the basics are covered, the book quickly moves into more complex examples using a practical application that addresses common use cases encountered in enterprise application projects. Learning MonoTouchis for .NET/C# developers with several years of application development experience, but little to no iPhone or Mac development experience. This book teaches C#/.NET developers how to take their existing skills to the iPhone and shows them everything they need to know to build an enterprise class application using MonoTouch. The book assumes intermediate-level knowledge of C#/.NET. Some familiarity with n-tier application development will be helpful, but the book will include some primers in areas such as web services or database development where appropriate.

Author Biography

Michael Bluestein is a software developer, consultant, and active participant in the MonoTouch developer community. A former Principal Software Engineer at Dassault Systèmes Solidworks Corporation, he has developed software professionally since the early 1990s.

Table of Contents

Preface     xiii

The Audience for This Book     xiii

About the Sample Code     xiv

Acknowledgments     xv

About the Author     xvi

Introduction     1

How This Book Is Organized     1

Chapter 1: Hello MonoTouch     1

Chapter 2: iOS SDK via MonoTouch    2

Chapter 3: Views and View Controllers    2

Chapter 4: Common iOS Classes     2

Chapter 5: Tables and Navigation     2

Chapter 6: Graphics and Animation    2

Chapter 7: Core Location     3

Chapter 8: MapKit     3

Chapter 9: Connecting to Web Services    3

Chapter 10: Networking     3

Chapter 11: Saving Application Data    3

Chapter 12: iPad Development     3

Chapter 1 Hello MonoTouch     5

Setting Up Your Environment     5

Installing the iOS SDK and Apple Developer Tools     5

Installing MonoTouch     10

Creating a MonoTouch Application     14

Creating the User Interface     14

Adding Outlets     16

Developing on the Device     24

Provisioning for Development     24

Using the MonoTouch Debugger    29

Summary     31

Chapter 2 iOS SDK via MonoTouch     33

iOS SDK Overview     33

Objective-C Versus MonoTouch By Example     35

Getting the App Started from Xcode    36

Implementing the Same Functionality with MonoTouch     41

Comparing the AppDelegate Implementations     43

Implementing UIActionSheet via Xcode     46

Implementing UIActionSheet in MonoTouch     48

How MonoTouch Works     52

Memory Management     54

Summary     56

Chapter 3 Views and View Controllers     57

Structuring a MonoTouch Application to MVC     57

Working with Views and Controllers in Interface Builder     59

Adding Functionality to a View Controller and Its View     67

Working with Multiple Views and Controllers     71

Implementing a Custom UIView     75

Summary     80

Chapter 4 Common iOS Classes     81

User Interface Views and Controls    81

UISegmentedControl     81

UISlider    85

UISwitch     88

UIPageControl and UIScrollView     89

UIActivityIndicatorView     92

UIProgressView     94

UIImageView     95

UIWebView     97

ADBannerView     100

Device Capabilities    103

MFMailComposeViewController     103

MPMediaPickerController and MPMusicPlayerController     105

Address Book     108

UIImagePickerController    111

Summary     116

Chapter 5 Tables and Navigation    117

Introduction to UITableView and UITableViewController    117

What Are Tables Used For?     117

Displaying Data in a UITableView     119

UITableViewCell Parts and Styles     125

Using Tables and Navigation     128

Additional UITableView Customizations     144

Customizing Tables Further with Custom Cells    144

Adding Multiple Sections     148

MonoTouch.Dialog     153

Summary 155

Chapter 6 Graphics and Animation     157

Core Graphics     157

Core Graphics Fundamentals     157

Drawing Images     165

Drawing PDFs    170

Animation     180

UIView Animation     181

Core Animation    185

Summary     194

Chapter 7 Core Location     195

Introducing Core Location     195

Standard Location Service     197

Retrieving Heading Updates     207

Significant Location Changes     209

Region Monitoring    211

Background Location    214

Summary     216

Chapter 8 MapKit     217

Introducing MapKit     217

Adding Annotations     224

Map Overlays     233

Summary     240

Chapter 9 Connecting to Web Services    241

Connecting to REST-based Web Services     241

Connecting over HTTP     241

Parsing XML Results     244

Parsing JSON Results    247

Consuming SOAP-based Web Services     248

Using a .NET 2.0 Client Proxy    248

WCF under MonoTouch     250

Using CocoaTouch HTTP Classes     251

Using NSUrlConnection and Friends     252

Summary     254

Chapter 10 Networking     255

GameKit Networking     255

Core GameKit Networking Classes     255

Using GKPeerPickerController     264

GameKit Voice Chat    268

Bonjour    272

Summary    281

Chapter 11 Saving Application Data    283

The Notes Sample Application     283

SQLite     289

Serialization     295

Settings Bundle and NSUserDefaults     297

Summary     306

Chapter 12 iPad Development    307

Porting to iPad    307

iPhone Applications with Pixel Doubling    307

Universal Applications    308

Designing for the iPad     311

UISplitViewController     312

UIPopoverController    323

Summary     326

Index    327