As per title, I would like to deploy my application without its Visual Studio project. I would prefer to place all executables/images/manifests in one directory and deploy it without needing the source or opening Visual Studio.
There is a way to do that for XNA apps, but it doesn't work for Silverlight apps for some reason. Other people had the same problem.
EDIT I know Phone Developer Tools are free and I am not trying to eliminate VS from my workflow. I just want to be able to grab the latest binary from the build server and quickly run it up in demo situations.
When you install the latest developer tools you get an application called "XAP Deployment" which can install a pre-built XAP onto either the emulator or the phone.
How to: Use the XAP Deployment Tool for Windows Phone
Visual Studio Express is free, and I think you can get a version of VS2010 now too.
Related
I wrote a small APP using Visual C# and want to donate it, but since I installed Visual Studio in order to develop it, I don't know if the folks installing my APP need to install the C# runtimes or if they are already there.
Also, as I understand it, the.NET run code does come with Windows. Is this correct?
Thank YOU!
I have (2) PCs and used them both to develop by using Visual Studio. Haven't tested w/ a PC that doesn't have it.
I am trying to generate the ipa file in order to publish it to the Apple Store but Visual Studio (2015 Community Edition) doesn't create it.
I followed the steps from the official Xamarin docs but it doesn't work, I tried selecting "AdHoc", "Release" and "AppStore" (with iPhone platform selected), I have the last Xamarin updates in my Windows and Mac build hosts, the build process ends succesfully but the ipa file doesn't appear in the **Bin > iPhone > Ad Hoc (or Release) folder.
I am using the distribution profile.
I would really appreciate any help.
A combination of clearing the bin/iPhone/Ad-Hoc folder, changing the build number, restarting Visual Studio, and re-connecting to the Mac resolved this for me.
I am completely new to mobile app development and basically c#,.net developer.Recently i got a requirement to develop a iPhone application.Some experts suggested me to use icenium extension for visual studio and Phonegap. I want to know how to use/install phonegap for this and how does phonegap helps me to develop this application?what are the basic difference between icenium and phonegap as i know both helps to develop cross platform apps.
Telerik AppBuilder (formerly known as Icenium) is a set of IDEs and cloud-based build tools that allow you to use PhoneGap/Cordova to build cross-platform apps. You should read up on it and use their free trial here: http://www.telerik.com/appbuilder
Check out the Multi-Device Hybrid Apps (Preview) from Microsoft.
Don't you just love their naming conventions...
I haven't had a chance to try it myself as it requires VS2013 and Windows 8.1, but it looks promising.
Use Nomad. (Visual studio extension which integrates Adobe Phonegap Build)
Update:
From http://vsnomad.com/
Retiring Nomad
When we made Nomad free, we hoped the support load would be
manageable. However, we’ve found our users still expect a lot of
support for free tools. We don’t want to give our users false
expectations, so we think it’s better that they find another solution
with full support. For this reason, we will retire Nomad on September
1st this year.
Alternatives to Nomad
Nomad uses the open-source Cordova framework. This means you can move
Nomad projects to other vendors that use Cordova, including:
PhoneGap Build (Adobe)
Instead of using PhoneGap Build via Nomad, you can interact with it directly using the PhoneGap Build command line.
Multi-Device Hybrid Apps (Microsoft)
A Visual Studio extension that adds PhoneGap support.
AppBuilder (Telerik)
A Visual Studio extension similar to Nomad.
I know about Monotouch and I have virtual MacOS and Monodevelop/Monotouch installed.
However, is it better to build an iPhone application in Monotouch on Mac OS X or it's as easy as to build iPhone app in Visual Studio and port it to iPhone via Monotouch?
Is there anyone who tried porting c# project to iPhone? How different was it from building the app on mac os using monodevelop/monotouch?
ps. my favourite helper utilities does not exist on mac os and that's the reason for this Q
As mentioned, to compile your applications and upload them for appstore use, or debug using the simulator you'll need to use MonoDevelop on a Mac.
However it is possible to write a large portion of the code in Visual Studio 2008 or 2010.
I've written 6 Monotouch apps that are selling badly in the appstore, using primarily Visual Studio. The reason I use Windows and VS2010 is I'm a lot slower with the Mac keyboard, have my Visual Studio setup for speed, and a PC that is about twice the processing power.
Here's a few gotchas and tips:
Copy the monotouch DLLs from your Mac to Windows (search for "monotouch.dll" on the Mac), stick all the DLLs in a static place and reference them in your project. It should then compile in VS.
Make sure you keep 2 project files - a MonoDevelop and a Visual Studio one. I tried converting manually and also wrote a converter to go between the two but it breaks so often it's easier to just keep two files.
You can also convert the Mono XML documentation (it's in a different format to the Microsoft .NET XML documentation format) for Visual Studio intellisense. The link below has a download for the XML documentation I generated for Monotouch 2.1.
Avoid using a shared drive for development. This make compilation on the Mac very slow - stick to copying the files using a USB stick or ideally use an online source control site like bitbucket.org
I found it was quite fast with a single keyboard, monitor and mouse and a KVM switch going between PC and Mac.
For the layout (either XIB or C#) you'll have use your Mac, or write the bare bones in VS first.
I've written a fair amount on the process here.
You simply can't develop a MonoTouch application just using Visual Studio. You have to use the OSX tools to build the code and create the package for the phone. There's no way to work around that, and the easiest way to do it is using MonoDevelop.
What me and other developers have done in the past is to develop some of the C# libraries for the apps using Visual Studio, because even though MonoDevelop is pretty good, its still far from being as good as VS. Refactoring code, for example, is much easier with tools like Resharper, etc.
When developing the App in Visual Studio, there's a lot of things you'll have to deal with; for example:
You simply cannot run a build from Visual Studio: VS doesn't know how to build the kind of project necessary for the iPhone, and it doesn't have all the libraries that exist in the iOS SDK.
there's no visual editor to create the XIB files you you probably want to create for your app.
You'll have to do a lot of extra work here and there to get the VS to even open the solution (like copy lib files from OSX to Windows, create separate projects, etc) (although I think Novell Mono tools for VS may help a little on this one.
So here's what I've been doing for the last 6 months:
Break down the application into different projects for business logic and UI logic
You should be able to build, compile and even test the business logic from VS. Just remember not to use any UI libraries, or external libraries not available in MonoTouch
Use MonoDevelop to build the UI code part of the app. Being able to quickly run the app to test helps a lot.
Every once in a while, if you feel you need to to a big cleanup, open the code in Visual Studio, and do the refactorings; although you won't be able to build anything, the code checker in VS will help to make sure the code is still valid.
Hope it helps!
This has actually changed with new MonoTouch release rebranded as Xamarin.iOS that offers tight Visual Studio integration. You still need a Mac for building and testing but you can work from VS without much hurdle.
They even hooked up the debugger:
In this screenshot, VS and OS X run on the same computer, but they don't have to, given that there is a local network connection between them.
Read more here:
Xamarin iOS for Visual Studio allows iOS applications to be written and tested on Windows computers, with a networked Mac providing the build and deployment service.
Developing for iOS inside Visual Studio provides a number of benefits:
Creation of a single cross platform solution for iOS, Android and Windows applications.
Using Visual Studio tools (such as Resharper and Team Foundation Server) for all your cross-platform projects, including iOS source code.
Using the familiar (for existing Visual Studio developers) code editor, keyboard shortcuts, etc.
Xamarin.iOS for Visual Studio supports configurations where Visual Studio is running inside a Windows virtual machine on a Mac (eg. using Parallels or VMWare).
Note that Visual Studio integration is available in Business edition which is $999 per license.
(The license is perpetual per person but you only get free upgrades for a year.)
The MonoTouch home site states:
Please note that MonoTouch requires a
Mac, Apple's iPhone SDK and you must
be part of Apple's iPhone Developer
Program to test and deploy your
software on a device and to
redistribute your code.
I think some of the problems you are going to have using Visual Studio are
you won't be designing with the native UI controls
the emulator used for testing will be different
you may end up using API calls that aren't available in the MonoTouch libraries
I would stick with using MonoDevelop on the Mac.
Since you need the Apple's iPhone SDK (which is only available for OS X) installed to develop with MonoTouch you will be limited to developing on a Mac.
MonoDevelop is quite a good IDE, and its integration with Interface Builder and the iPhone/iPad simulator makes developing for iPhone with MonoTouch a pretty nice experience.
I tried to run the directx samples from ..\Windows Mobile 6 SDK\Samples\PocketPC\CPP\win32\directx\d3dm\tutorials on a Samsung Omnia and on the emulator and it doesn't work because of a deployment error.
I am using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and have installed Windows Mobile SDK Standard and Professional refresh.
The device is correctly plugged in and set up for active sync (I know this because other samples work, also a creating Win32 smart device application and running it works).
When I try to run a directx sample application it compiles without errors but the message:
" There were deployment errors, Continue? Yes/No" appears
If I manually copy the application from the debug folder to the device and run it from there, it works.
The same deployment error message appears if I try it on an emulator. Other applications are deploying successfully.
Is there any way to make the deployment work? Maybe there is an obscure option I need to set...
What I do is:
Connect the Mobile device to the PC,
Open Visual Studio 2008,
Open a directx sample project,
Click Run (in Debug or Release mode).
The problem with the deployment is that the file msvcr80.dll could not be found.
It was specified at the deployment options as an additional file "Project->Properties->Configuration Properties->Deployment" then "General->Additional files"
with the paths msvcr80.dll|$(BINDIR)\$(INSTRUCTIONSET)\|%CSIDL_WINDOWS%|0;
Removing it makes the deployment successful. I have only tested this on a Windows Mobile 6.1 device and with the D3DM reference driver on an WM6.1/WM6 emulator.
What I haven't figured out is where does $(BINDIR)\$(INSTRUCTIONSET) point to.
Also I don't know why msvcr80.dll is in the addition files if it is not actually needed.
Is there actually a msvcr80.dll compiled for Windows Mobile platform on an ARM cpu?
I was able to resolve this issue after doing some low-level Sysinternals Debugging. It was trying to deploy NETCFv35.Messages.EN.cab to the device and in my case it was deleted for some reason. Re-installing .NET CF fixed the issue for me. Wish VS 2008 said what file was missing instead of a generic message. Hope this helps you too.