MonoTouch: creating multiplatform apps using Portable Class Libraries

Question

My scenario: trying to port a small part of an application created by our company from native code (ObjC for iOS / Java for Android) to C-Sharp. The project will interact with o

Answer 1

You can use PCLs currently across many platforms, but it does require some small hacks to your setup.

These hacks are listed in http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/cross-platform-winrt-monodroid.html

Once you've got those working then the functionality available is quite broad - and it definitely includes things like String.Format

For the situations where the PCL profile is not broad enough, then you can use several techniques for extending them - see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsplaisted/archive/2012/08/27/how-to-make-portable-class-libraries-work-for-you.aspx . The technique I generally use is to use MvvmCross Plugins - which are basically PCL interfaces with platform specific implementations. But these plugins are generally at the level of 'make bluetooth work' rather than at the level of String.Format

I do lots of PCL work across WinRT, WP, WPF, MonoTouch and Mono for Android - see http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/p/mvvmcross-quicklist.html for lots of links to PCL work.

It's true that Xamarin have recommended not using PCLs for a couple of years, but that situation has now changed and the official support for PCLs is under way - see http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-future-is-portable.html

From a development perspective - especially from the point of view of using refactoring and testing tools - I don't hesitate to recommend you use PCLs now... especially for operations at the String.Format level. However, each project is unique... so it's not always the right answer.

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One important note: right now it's better to not reuse the PCL binary files across to the MonoTouch platform - for now, build your portable libraries against the specific MonoTouch library platform. See http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/almost-portable-binaries.html?m=1

Answer 2

Perhaps you want to look at the efforts other who have got PCLs working to a considerable degree with monotouch and monodroid.

For example see http://www.slideshare.net/cirrious/mvvm-cross-going-portable . You'll also find instructions on how to setup PCL support for MVVMCross here http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/mvvmcross-vnext-portable-class.html .

Xamarin has recently committed to providing far greater PCL support rather than some of the workarounds that people have been having to make, but it is worth the effort.