Android on Sam Debruyn

Easy localization in Flutter with continuous integration

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 22:08:59 +0200

Did you know Flutter has built-in support for l10n, also known as localization? I’ve been searching for an easy way to localize my app, but most of the blog posts I’ve found rephrased the official documentation on internationalization .

I live in Belgium where we have 3 official locales: Flemish (nl_BE), Belgian French (fr_BE) and German (de_BE). L10n is the process of supporting multiple locales. This mainly relates to translated resources and formatting differences. I18n (internationalization) means that you also support different countries and cultures (e.g. different timezones, understanding that seasons are not the same everywhere in the world, different symbols…). A great app in Belgium should be localized for at least Dutch and French.

Tips for developing Android JobScheduler Jobs

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 08:01:27 +0100

If your app has to sync some data in the background, you’ll definitely want to use the Android JobScheduler API to schedule a background job.

There are a few helpful libraries that make this task easier, but you can get away with using the JobScheduler API itself.

Optimize memory usage in Xamarin apps

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 16:32:42 +0200

This post has been translated to Russian by Denis Gordin . You can read the Russian version on the Russian website TechMedia . Thanks, Denis!

Xamarin is amazing in how it allows .NET developers to write apps for Android, iOS, MacOS… in C#. But that amazing capability comes with a prize and even the most simple apps can suffer from high memory usage. Let’s find out what happens and what we can do about it. The majority of my examples are based on Xamarin.Android, but you’ll quickly notice how this also applies to Xamarin.iOS.

Diagnosing memory issues with the Xamarin profiler

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 16:29:47 +0200

The Xamarin profiler is a must-have tool for every Xamarin developer. The profiler comes with a Xamarin business or enterprise license and is available as a standalone installer at xamarin.com/profiler .

To get started, make sure a debug version of your app is installed on a device or a simulator (works both for Android and iOS). Another way to start the profiler is to open the profiler via Run > Start Profiling in Xamarin Studio or Analyze > Xamarin Profiler in Visual Studio. Choose the Memory profiling template, make sure the correct app/activity is selected and press the red record button to start profiling.

Fix common binding errors with MVVM Light on Xamarin

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 20:02:53 +0100

There isn’t much documentation available for MVVM Light when it comes to Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. There are several overloads for the SetBinding method and using the wrong overload causes TargetInvocationException or TargetException like this one . It’s also possible that your bindings don’t update anymore after you set one binding using an incorrect syntax.

Dependency injection with Autofac and MVVM Light in Xamarin

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 18:59:37 +0100

You gotta have MVVM

A developer and his tools are inseparable. We all like SOLID and every (.NET) developer has his or her favourite dependency injection tool. There is a lot to choose from. I like Autofac because of the way it handles modules, the lifetime of a type and how it registers types.