Xamarin Mobile Development for Android Cookbook

Using DownloadManager

If we wish to download files or resources but do not need fine control over the actual download, we can hand the task over to the DownloadManager instance.

How to do it...

We can use the DownloadManager instance to initiate, cancel, and query downloads:

1. As with normal HTTP requests, we need to request permission to access the Internet:

   [assembly: UsesPermission(Manifest.Permission.Internet)]

2. Then, we get hold of DownloadManager so that we can work with it:

   var manager = DownloadManager.FromContext(this); 

3. Once we have the manager, we can start downloads using the Enqueue() method with a DownloadManager.Request instance:

   var request = new DownloadManager.Request(Uri.Parse(uri));
   long downloadId = manager.Enqueue(request);

4. We can also ...