Mobile Development with C#

Android

Now we can move on to building the Android version of the application. Unlike iOS, Android development can be done on either Windows or Mac OS X. In order to get started, you need to have the following software installed on your computer:

• Java JDK

• Android SDK

• MonoDevelop or Visual Studio 2010

• Mono for Android

If you’re developing on Mac OS X you can use the MonoDevelop IDE, which you saw previously in the iOS example. If you’re on Windows, you have the option of using either MonoDevelop or Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010. Xamarin provides a very useful all-in-one installer package that will download and install many of these prerequisites for you, which can make it much easier to get started. The most up-to-date instructions on how to install and configure all of these prerequisites are available on Xamarin’s website at http://docs.xamarin.com/android. The installer will create several emulator images with which you may test out your applications, but you are free to modify them or create new ones according to what you need. Refer to Appendix A for how to manage Android’s virtual devices.

Note

In order to use Mono for Android with Visual Studio, you must have one of the full versions of Visual Studio 2010 installed. Visual Studio 2010 Express doesn’t expose the plug-in architecture required to make Mono for Android work. If you’re on Windows and don’t have a full Visual Studio license, MonoDevelop is available for free.

Mono for Android

Now that the Android tools are all set up, let’s ...