When you are developing on an emulator, you may want to look at the files created by the application. Each emulator and SDK tools have different capabilities on reading and writing files to disk. You may want to do this to open a SQLite Database, or to change the hosts file in Windows Mobile Emulator.
Windows Mobile Emulator
If the emulator is not already running, you can start it from the command line (rather than from within Visual Studio for Mac) to view its output. Typically, Android emulator AVD images are stored at the following location: /.android/avd. You can launch the emulator with an AVD image from this location by passing in the folder name of the AVD. JetBrains Rider supports creating and working with Xamarin applications for both Android and iOS. Although currently JetBrains Rider does not provide a designer or a previewer for Xamarin forms, you can still benefit from code analysis, coding assistance, and debugging features in C#, VB.NET, and other languages, as well as from general IDE features, such as the integrated VCS client.
Windows Mobile Emulator, I have found to be the most cumbersome. You must shutdown the emulator, and load the VDD separately to see what is stored locally.
Open up HyperV and ensure the image you want to open is stopped.
Next, go to the Settings for this Emulator, select the Hard Drive and copy the location of its Virtual Hard Disk.
Open Disk Management and select Action > Attach a VHD.
Copy the virtual hard disk’s location and press OK.
Locations
El capitan 10.11 dmg. The hard drive will now be available for you to browse. The folder structure is very similar to a Windows installation.
Visual Studio Android Emulator
There are multiple ways to access vhd for Android. You can use the same method as above or you have two other options. Apple el capitan installer.
Install App
You can install a file explorer app on your Android device to browse through files. There are a lot to choose from, search File Explorer on Google Play Store on your emulator.
Xamarin Android Emulator Tutorial
Android SDK Tools
Open the Android Device Monitor
From here you can select your emulator and open the files as needed in the File Explorer.
Locations
iOS Simulator
The iOS simulator runs on a Mac, even if you are building via Windows. IOS is much simplier to access than the others as it is just stored in a directory on the main disk drive.
First you will want to find your DeviceId. On your Mac, go to Hardware > Device > Manage Devices.
Then find your simulator and record the Device Identifier.
Now to get to your file location in iOS 8 and above, fill in the below. Regarding the ApplicationId, I normally look through a few folders until I find the right one.
Locations
Xamarin Android Emulator Mac M1
-->Xamarin products rely upon the platform SDKs from Apple and Google totarget iOS or Android, so our system requirements match theirs. This pageoutlines system compatibility for the Xamarin platform and recommendeddevelopment environment and SDK versions.
Take a look at the installation instructionsfor more information on obtaining the software and required SDKs.
Development environments
Download os x el capitan dmg. This table shows which platforms can be built with differentdevelopment tool & operating system combinations:
| macOS | Windows | |
|---|---|---|
| Development Environment | Visual Studio for Mac | Visual Studio |
| Xamarin.iOS | Yes | Yes (with Mac computer) |
| Xamarin.Android | Yes | Yes |
| Xamarin.Forms ^ | iOS & Android | Android, Windows/UWP (iOS with Mac computer) |
| Xamarin.Mac | Yes | Open project & compile only |
^ Other platforms are also available.
Note
To develop for iOS on Windows computers there must be aMac computer accessible on the network,for remote compilation and debugging. This also works if you have Visual Studiorunning inside a Windows VM on a Mac computer.
macOS requirements
Using a Mac computer for Xamarin development requires the following software/SDK versions. Checkyour operating system version and follow the instructions for the Xamarin installer.
Xamarin Android Player Download
| Recommended | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | macOS Mojave (10.14) | Xcode 10 requires macOS High Sierra (10.13) or newer. |
| Xamarin.iOS | iOS 12 SDK | The iOS 12 SDK ships with Xcode 10. |
| Xamarin.Android | Android 6.0 / API level 23 | You can still target older Android versions while using the latest SDK, or you can build against older versions of the SDK if required. |
| Xamarin.Forms |
| |
| Xamarin.Mac | macOS Mojave (10.14) SDK | The macOS Mojave (10.14) SDK ships with Xcode 10 and is required to build apps that use the newest macOS APIs. |
Note
Xcode can be installed (and updated) ondeveloper.apple.com or via the Mac App Store.
Testing & debugging on macOS
- Xamarin mobile applications can be deployed to physical devices via USBfor testing and debugging (Apple Watch apps are deployed first to thepaired iPhone).
- Xamarin.Mac apps can be tested directly on the development computer.
| Testing Notes | |
|---|---|
| Xamarin.iOS |
|
| Xamarin.Android | Follow these instructions to configure your device, or use an emulator:
|
| Xamarin.Forms | Xamarin.Forms apps for iOS and Android can be deployed to the relevant platforms as described above. |
| Xamarin.Mac | Xamarin.Mac apps can be tested directly on the development computer. |
Warning
Xamarin.Mac 4.8 only supports macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or higher.Previous versions of Xamarin.Mac supported macOS 10.7 or higher, butthese older macOS versions lack sufficient TLS infrastructure to supportTLS 1.2. To target macOS 10.7 or macOS 10.8, use Xamarin.Mac 4.6 orearlier.
Windows requirements
Using a Windows computer for Xamarin development requires the following software/SDK versions.Check your operating system version (and confirm that you are not using an Express version ofVisual Studio - if so, consider updating to a Community edition).The Visual Studio 2019 and Visual Studio 2017 installer includes an option to install Xamarin automatically (the Mobile development with .NET workload).
| Recommended | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 | The minimum operating system version is Windows 7. Xamarin.Forms UWP support requires Windows 10. |
| Xamarin.iOS | iOS 10 SDK (installed on a Mac) | To build iOS projects on Windows requires:
|
| Xamarin.Android | Android 6.0 / API level 23 | You can still target older Android versions while using the latest SDK, or you can build against older versions of the SDK if required. |
| Xamarin.Forms |
| |
| Xamarin.Mac | Xamarin.Mac projects (macOS desktop apps) can be opened in Visual Studio and compiled to check for errors, but Mac applications cannot currently be built for distribution in Visual Studio. |
Xamarin Android Emulator Hosts File
Note
- Xamarin for Visual Studio supports Visual Studio 2019 or Visual Studio 2017 (Community, Professional, and Enterprise).
- To use the latest Android and iOS SDKs requires the latest version of Visual Studio. For specific version requirements, refer to the Xamarin.Android release notes and Xamarin.iOS release notes.
- To develop Xamarin.Forms apps for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) requiresWindows 10 with Visual Studio 2017. Visual Studio 2019 is recommended.
Testing & debugging on Windows
Download Xamarin Android Emulator
Xamarin mobile applications can be deployed to physical devices via USBor wirelessly for testing and debugging (iOS devices must be connected tothe Mac computer, not the computer running Visual Studio).
| Testing Notes | |
|---|---|
| Xamarin.iOS |
|
| Xamarin.Android | Follow these instructions to configure your device, or use an emulator:
|
| Xamarin.Forms | Xamarin.Forms apps can be deployed to the relevant devices and emulators as described above. The iOS app can only be tested via the connected Mac hardware; and the Windows tablet/desktop apps for UWP can be tested directly on the development computer. |
Installation instructions
The latest Xamarin release for macOS can be downloaded with Visual Studio for Mac. For Windows,follow the Visual Studio installation instructions.
A complete list of our current product releases is available on thewhat's new page. Thispage also links to the release notes.
Specific installation instructions for each platform are available here:
There's also additional information aboutXamarin.Forms supported platforms.