Hello Everyone, in this article, we are covering Visual Studio App Center services with complete guidelines of installation for Xamain iOS.
What is Visual Studio App Center?
Visual Studio App Center is the one-stop solution for all the different services like HockeyApp, Xamarin Test Cloud, Xamarin Insight, Azure Mobile Engagement, Azure App Service, Code Push etc, all of them seamlessly integrated to make the development and shipping of application much easier.
Platform Support:
- Android
- iOS
- UWP
- macOS (preview)
Framework Support:
- JAVA
- Objective C/ Swift
- Xamarin
- React Native
Get Started with Microsoft App Center
1. Add NuGet packages to your solution
If you are a Mac user, add both App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes.
For Windows, install Microsoft.AppCenter.Analytics and Microsoft.AppCenter.Crashes packages.
If you use the App Center SDK in a portable project, you need to install the packages in both the portable and the iOS projects.
2. Start the SDK
Inside your app’s AppDelegate.cs, add the following using statements.
using Microsoft.AppCenter;
using Microsoft.AppCenter.Analytics;
using Microsoft.AppCenter.Crashes;
using Microsoft.AppCenter; using Microsoft.AppCenter.Analytics; using Microsoft.AppCenter.Crashes;
In the same file, add the following in the FinishedLaunching() method.
AppCenter.Start(“{Your Key}“,
typeof(Analytics), typeof(Crashes));
AppCenter.Start(“50bfef1f-8372-4ae2-b772-3bc9424e433a”, typeof(Analytics), typeof(Crashes));
3. Explore data
Now build and launch your app, then go to the Analytics section. You should see one active user and at least one session! The charts will get more relevant as you get more users. Once your app actually crashes, you will have Crashes data show up as well. You can look at the Troubleshooting section if you don’t see any data.
4. Use additional services
App Center’s distribution service enables your testers to get in-app updates when a new version of the app is available. To leverage the full power of distribution, add the distribute SDK Module to your application by following the steps from our distribute documentation. Your testers will be prompted with a dialog within the app that notifies them to update their current version to the latest release.
App Center’s push service enables you to send push notifications to users of your app from our portal. To use it, follow the steps from push documentation.
Note: Visual Studio app center is compatible with iOS Deployment target 9.0 or greater. Please change the deployment target in info.plist. WIth older deployment target you may get errors.
Services
You can create the build whenever the code pushes in the repository(GitHub, or Git Repos on Bitbucket and Visual Studio Team Services).
You can run your tests on various device configurations.
Install the app via email distribution lists for testing as we do from the play store or an app store.
It collects all the crash traces according to the number of users.
The feature can be used to collect rich behavioral analytics data same as google analytics.
Push the notifications to the users. You can create segments as well you can schedule the notifications too.
Pricing
Facing Error: Native linking failed, duplicate symbol:*?
Solution: It’s also possible to ask the linker directly to remove unused code by adding -gcc_flags -dead_strip to the additional mtouch arguments in the project’s iOS Build options.
Happy Coding!!
