TideMonkey: Development Diary 0

I am publicly committing to developing “TideMonkey,” a tide-prediction application that will run on (at least) iOS and watchOS.

TideMonkey will be based on Xtide, an excellent piece of software developed by David Flater. At the moment, my hope is that it will be a very loose port, or what …

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GameplayKit path-finding in iOS 9 with Xamarin.iOS

Easy-peasy, lemon-squeazy:

[code lang="csharp"]
var a = GKGraphNode2D.FromPoint (new Vector2 (0, 5));
var b = GKGraphNode2D.FromPoint (new Vector2 (3, 0));
var c = GKGraphNode2D.FromPoint (new Vector2 (2, 6));
var d = GKGraphNode2D.FromPoint (new Vector2 (4, 6));
var e = GKGraphNode2D.FromPoint (new Vector2 (6, 5));
var f = GKGraphNode2D.FromPoint (new …

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FizzBuzz with iOS 9 GameplayKit Expert System in C# with Xam.iOS

OK, so this is silly, but:

[code lang="csharp"]
var clearRule = GKRule.FromPredicate ((rules) => reset, rules => {
output = "";
reset = false;
});
clearRule.Salience = 1;

var fizzRule = GKRule.FromPredicate (mod (3), rules => {
output += "fizz";
});
fizzRule.Salience = 2;
var buzzRule = GKRule.FromPredicate (mod (5), rules => {
output += "buzz";
});
buzzRule.Salience = 2;

var outputRule = GKRule.FromPredicate …

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Why You Should Watch WWDC Session Streams

From an editorial perspective, one thing that is clear about WWDC is that the main audience for the sessions is not the developers in attendance, but the much more diverse, more diffuse, and more transient on-line audience that will view the videos over the next months and even years.

WWDC …

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How to: Handoff to a Xamarin iPhone app from Apple Watch

# How to: Handoff to a Xamarin iPhone app from Apple Watch

There are two ways to activate the parent (aka container) app from an Apple Watch app. You can either directly activate the container app using WKInterfaceController.OpenParentApplication or you can use Handoff.

Using Handoff is a little more complex …

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Programming WatchKit with F#

Disclaimer: This is just a hack. I’m not in any position to make announcements about stuff, but Xamarin loves F# and I’m sure that better solutions than this are forthcoming. But this was fun to get running, so…

Xamarin just released it’s Preview of Watch Kit support …

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Xamarin.Forms Programming in F#

Things are kind of busy what with Evolve being only 40 days away and iOS 8 coming down the pipe, but I thought I'd share the easy hack that allows you to program Xamarin.Forms with F#.

(Of course, Xamarin loves F# and official support and templates and documentation and …

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Exploring HealthKit With Xamarin: Provisioning and Permissions Illustrated Walkthrough

One of the more interesting frameworks in iOS 8 is Health Kit, system-wide persistent storage for health-related information. I'm just beginning to explore the namespace myself, but thought I'd walk through the steps you need to manipulate Health Kit with Xamarin.

Because health-related information is so sensitive, developing for Health …

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Local Notifications in iOS 8 With Xamarin

As of iOS 8, the user has to provide explicit permission for apps to respond to local notifications. This means that now, the first time the program is run, you need to run code such as:

[code lang="fsharp"]
//F#
UIUserNotificationSettings.GetSettingsForTypes(
UIUserNotificationType.Alert
||| UIUserNotificationType.Badge
||| UIUserNotificationType.Sound,
new NSSet …

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iOS 8, Scene Kit @ 60FPS, programmed in F#, using Xamarin.iOS

I have the best job in the world:

[code lang="fsharp"]
namespace SceneKitFSharp

open System
open MonoTouch.UIKit
open MonoTouch.Foundation
open MonoTouch.SceneKit
open MonoTouch.CoreAnimation

type MySceneKitController () =
inherit UIViewController()

override this.ViewDidLoad () =
let scene = new SCNScene ()

//Positions everyone!
let boxNode = new SCNNode ()
boxNode.Geometry \<- new SCNBox(
Width = 1 …

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