At last month’s Build conference Microsoft began to discuss their intentions regarding their recent acquisition of Xamarin. Now in conjunction with Xamarin’s Evolve developer conference, Xamarin has made good on their promise to release their Xamarin SDK as an open source project. This SDK will now be available under the MIT license, similar to other Microsoft projects in the .NET ecosystem.
Xamarin SDK will join Xamarin.Forms on GitHub as the company adjusts to new its role as a member of Microsoft Corporation. Xamarin.Forms provides developers with the ability to use a single codebase to target Android, iOS, and Windows Phone devices. Alongside the switch to an open license, Xamarin.Forms is also getting a couple of new abilities. These include the ability to real-time preview within the IDE for forms layouts, themes, data pages that can be generated automatically from a template, and the ability to mix in iOS and Android specific controls within a common Xamarin.Forms application.
Thanks to improved integration with Visual Studio, Xamarin SDK users will be able to connect their iOS-based devices to their PCs, allowing them to deploy code directly. Complementing this functionality is a separate ability run apps targeting iOS on a simulator in Visual Studio, so no need to switch devices when making quick program checks. When it comes to testing your app both the simulator and the direct connection option allow you to record and playback test scripts. Simply use your app and the Test Recorder will record your steps for easy test automation.