One of our popular Xamarin webinars is “Build Better Mobile Apps with Syncfusion and Xamarin,” presented by Product Specialist Aaron Melamed. Aaron shows participants how to improve their mobile applications with Syncfusion’s Xamarin controls. You can find a recording of the webinar here.
The following is a compilation of common questions we receive during the webinar.
Q. Does Syncfusion offer controls for accessing SQLServer databases, and Excel spreadsheets?
A. In Xamarin, you can make use of XlsIO for accessing spreadsheets: https://help.syncfusion.com/file-formats/xlsio/getting-started-create-excel-file-csharp-vbnet.
Q: Are there any controls for viewing Word, Excel, or PowerPoint docs?
A: Yes, you can find instructions for working with DocIO, PDF, XlsIO, and Presentation in our online documentation here.
Q. We are interested in taking a course on Xamarin—does Syncfusion provide one?
A. Our monthly webinars would serve as the closest things to a development course we provide. Please check our YouTube channel for all past webinars.
Q. If the PDFs are saved, are they removed automatically or do you need to code the removal?
A. Both with PDF class library and PDF viewer control, we won’t remove the saved copy of the PDF documents. They provide support to save the PDF document to stream; at the application level, the user can save it to storage.
Q. What is the link to the app used in this webinar?
A. https://github.com/AaronMelamed/Car-Demo-App
Q. Is there a minimum or maximum API version supported by the controls?
A. Yes. Please refer to the following documentation link:
https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/installation/system-requirements.
Q. How often do you release controls?
A. We do four major releases every year and a service package release every month.
Q. Is there any roadmap on future new controls for Xamarin?
A. Yes. Please refer to this page: https://www.syncfusion.com/products/roadmap/xamarin-forms.
Q: Hi, can you please explain the item template in the carousel more?
A: You can learn about the item template feature at this link:
https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/sfcarousel/populating-data#binding-the-data-with-custom-template
Q: Do the Xamarin.Forms controls support .NET Standard?
A: Yes, our controls support .NET Standard.
Q: Is the source available for download?
A: Yes, it is available for download.
Q: The list view shows up as blank when navigating back and forth between pages in a master detail page, only on Android, for some reason.
A: Make sure that all the steps are followed as explained in the following link: If you are still facing an issue, we request that you create a support ticket.
https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/listview/getting-started
Q: Is it possible to export the .pdf (file, DropBox, etc.), or open the .pdf with another viewer/app?
A: Yes, it is possible to open it in another viewer, like our Essential PDF Viewer.
Q: Can we use the app center with Syncfusion?
A: Yes. You can configure the application that refers to Syncfusion assemblies in the app center.
Q: Is there a table that shows which controls are available on which platform?
A: You can find the list of available Xamarin controls in the following link:
https://www.syncfusion.com/products/xamarin
Q: Will you be adding item drag reordering for list box in grid mode?
A: This is supported in the datagrid control.
Q: Are there also UWP controls included? So if I’m using the controls in my Xamarin.Forms app, is everything compatible with a UWP app?
A: Yes. Our Xamarin.Forms components include support for UWP as well.
Q: Do the Mac controls cover native Mac application development or Xamarin.Mac?
A: Currently the Mac controls only Xamarin.Mac, we have plans to extend this support in the future.
Q: What about custom PDF layouts, like with itextSharp?
A: Yes, custom PDF layouts are possible. Refer to the UG documentation for more details: https://help.syncfusion.com/file-formats/pdf/working-with-portfolio
Q: Where on your website can the Community License be found?
A: You can find it here:
https://www.syncfusion.com/products/communitylicense
Q: What about performance in list view? Is it better to use grid or stack?
A: It’s built from the ground up with an optimized view reuse strategy to achieve the best possible performance on the Xamarin platform, even when loading large data sets. Refer to the below links for advantages and key feature sets in list view:
https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/listview/overview#key-features
Q: Is it possible to use a Syncfusion API while developing an app using Android Studio?
A: No. It is not possible to develop Xamarin apps with Syncfusion controls using Android Studio.
https://www.syncfusion.com/ebooks/xamarin_forms_succinctly
Q: What is the best book to get started with Syncfusion?
A: You can check the help documentation at the following link for all of our controls:
http://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin
Q: Hi, is there any possibility you could share this demo solution as downloadable file?
A: This is the app used in this webinar: https://github.com/AaronMelamed/Car-Demo-App
Q: Can the PDF Creator make a PDF from HTML?
A: No, at present we do not have support to convert HTML to PDF in Xamarin platforms. There is however a good workaround in this forums post.
Q: Can the PDF Creator make a PDF form to capture values?
A: No. Since HTML to PDF conversion is not possible, we cannot achieve HTML form to PDF form. However, the HTML form to PDF form with values feature is supported in other platforms like Windows Forms, WPF, and web. It is available in our .NET Core platform. You can see the full feature set for the Xamarin PDF tool here.
Q: How often are existing controls updated or new controls released?
A: We release new features/controls based on the priority of requests quarterly.
Q: This is an extremely well laid out implementation of MVVM. Is there a similar implementation of this application for WPF?
A: You can refer to the showcase samples available in our WPF sample browser.
Q: Does grid control have grouping capabilities?
A: Yes, grid control has grouping capabilities. Please refer to the following UG link for more details:
https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/datagrid/grouping
Q: When working in Xamarin and Syncfusion, which approach is better: a PCL project or a class library project?
A: You can go with a shared project when you need to have more platform-specific code in the common project. Otherwise, you can use a PCL project. In both cases, Syncfusion controls will work properly.
Q: Will Syncfusion support its Xamarin.Forms controls in WPF, Mac, and Linux (GTK)? Do you have a scheduled date?
A: We have plans to support Mac and WPF, but no scheduled date.
Q: Do you plan to implement a ribbon in Xamarin.Forms? For desktop apps in Windows, Mac, and Linux (GTK)?
A: We do have plans, but not for the immediate future.
Q: Is there an application sample for schedule control?
A: You can check out the getting started sample with the step-by-step procedure at the following link:
https://help.syncfusion.com/xamarin/scheduler/getting-started
Q: Will you be providing a masked entry for phone numbers, SSN, etc.?
A: Yes we have added a new control called the TextInputLayout that supports masking.
Q: Does Syncfusion have controls for students?
A: We have a Community License that students and other eligible individual developers can apply for to use our controls for free.
Q: Is the Community License for Xamarin.Forms free? Is it possible to put a live app on app stores without any license?
A: Yes, it’s free. You can find more details about this at the following link. You need one of our licenses to publish to an app store.
https://www.syncfusion.com/products/communitylicense
Q: Is there any way to debug faster than using the emulator from Visual Studio?
A: You can use Xamarin live player for this purpose. But currently there is no support for custom controls in Xamarin live player. Recently, Google has released a quick boot emulator that launches and works faster. You can use this emulator instead of Xamarin live player while using custom controls.
https://www.jon-douglas.com/2018/01/03/android-emulator-quick-boot/
If you found this post helpful, please check out these free resources on developing with Xamarin:
We would love to hear about your projects and questions in the comments!
This post was originally published on January 25, 2018.