Monday, July 7, 2014

Xamarin.Forms.Labs Version 1.1.0 Released

For the last several weeks several developers from around the globe have been working on a project to extend the functionality given in Xamarin.Forms to deliver more cross platform capabilities for Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8.  This project is called Xamarin.Froms.Labs.  Today we have released version 1.1.0 and it is now in Nuget for your use.

One of the largest improvements is in the structure of the packages themselves.  All platform specific packages are being depreciated in favor of single packages that install correctly for all supported platforms.

The 1.1.0 version includes the following package structure for use with Android, iOS and Windows Phone:
Xamarin.Forms.Labs - Core package containing PCL and platform specific dlls including custom controls, renderers and services.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Autofac - Includes PCL with extensions to use with Autofac.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Ninject - Includes PCL with extensions to use with Ninject.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.SimpleContainer - Includes PCL with extensions to use with Simple Injector.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.TinyIOC- Includes PCL and platform specific DLLs with extensions to use with TinyIOC
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Serialization.JsonNET - Includes PCL to use JsonNet with Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Serialization.ProtoBuf - Includes PCL to use ProtoBuf with Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Cryptography - Includes PCL to give cross platform cryptography with Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Caching.SQLiteNet - Includes PCL to enable cross platform caching using SQLite with Xamarin.Forms.

The following packages are being depreciated or not part of 1.1.0, primarily because of their platform specific nature:
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Droid
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.iOS
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.WP
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Serialization.ServiceStackV3
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Serialization.ServiceStackV3.Droid
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Serialization.ServiceStackV3.iOS
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.Serialization.ServiceStackV3.WP8
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.TinyIOC.Droid
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.TinyIOC.iOS
Xamarin.Forms.Labs.Services.TinyIOC.WP8

Information about the contents and features of Xamarin.Forms.Labs can be found on our wiki here:
Xamarin.Forms.Labs Wiki

The following bugs/features are part of 1.1.0:
-Changed structure of Nuget packages to remove platform specific packages.
-Corrected references in Nuget packages.
-XML documentation and source added to Nuget packages.
-ImageButton with no size specified no longer throws an exception.
-WebImage control added with Android and iOS implementations.
-Fixed Json serializer so default settings are no longer null.
-Changed ImageButton to use the standard Xamarin.Forms Source property for the image to display instead of a string Image property.  The Image property was removed as a result.  This is a breaking change.
- Fixed issue with HybridWebView callback not being called.
- Corrected issue where ViewFactory did not support mutliple Views with the same view model.
-Renderer support for Windows Phone added for the ExtendedLabel, ExtendedTextCell and the ExtendedViewCell.
- Renderer support for Android added for the ExtendedViewCell.
- Platform specific font properties on the ExtendedLabel are depreciated.
- RelayCommand depreciated.

If  you would like to know more about the Xamarin.Forms.Labs team, would like to contribute functionality, comment or enter a bug you can always go to our repository on GitHub: Xamarin-Forms-Labs.

Thanks and happy coding!