At day 2 of Build 2017, Microsoft announced a new feature for Xamarin. The company says the preview of Xamarin Live Player is now available. The service gives customers a live coding system that lets them develop and debug creations more rapidly and efficiently.
With the Live Player, developers can start iOS and Android creations quickly. All that is needed is an iOS or Android device and Visual Studio.
This is part of Microsoft's placement of the Xamarin SDKs within Visual Studio, an integration that happened last year. This allowed the SDKs to become open source. Since then, the company says it has been improve the experience with a focus on mobile developers.
By using the Xamarin Live Player, developers move a lot of time-consuming processes. For example, there is no need to install SDKs or emulators. All that is needed is the application on a mobile device.
Users pair the device with Visual Studio through a QR code. The debug process is a simple click, which is unchanged. Microsoft points out that a development app is loaded to the Live Player in seconds. This allows dev's to get working on changes instantly.
Furthermore, it is possible to use the Live Player to debug and setbreakpointss on a mobile device. One of the key features of the player if “Live Run,” which gives developers the tools to modify C# or XAML on the fly. This is achieved through the Live Run Current View mode, which works for single screen, view, or code parts.
Microsoft also introduced Visual Studio for Mac at Build 2017 yesterday. The Xamarin Live Player will be built into the Mac version instantly. The extension is also available for Visual Studio 2017, starting today. The related apps can be found in Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store.
Xamarin
Last year, Microsoft purchased Xamarin as part of its move to make all toolkits iOS exclusive. Since then, the service has become the umbrella for the company's bridging tools to help developers port apps to Windows platforms.
The service gives developer tools to create iOS, Android, and Windows 10 universal UI. This is achieved through a shared C# codebase. The idea is it gives dev's an easy way to port their existing apps to Microsoft's services.
