Professional iPhone Programming with MonoTouch and .NET/C# (Paperback)

iPhone applications offer a hot opportunity for developers. Until the open source MonoTouch project, this field was limited to those familiar with Apple’s programming languages. Now .NET and C# developers can join the party. Professional iPhone Programming with MonoTouch and .NET/C#is the first book to cover MonoTouch, preparing developers to take advantage of this lucrative opportunity.

This book is for .NET developers that are interested in creating native iPhone applications written in .NET/C#. These developers want to use their existing knowledge. While .NET developers are always interested in learning, they also recognize that learning Objective-C and the specifics of the iPhone can be overwhelming. Those developers interested in MonoTouch will recognize that the cost of MonoTouch is easily made up by the ability to quickly target the iPhone using a language that they are already familiar with.

This book is designed for .NET developers that want to target the iPhone. It is designed to help you get up to speed with the iPhone, not to really teach you about the .NET Framework or C# language, which we assume you already know.

This book is designed with introductory material in Chapters 1 thru 4. You should read Chapters 1 thru 4 sequentially. These chapters introduce the MonoTouch product, the basics of developing with MonoTouch and MonoDevelop, and finally, the basics of presenting data to a user with screen and data controls and how to develop a user interface for the iPhone. Once you are comfortable with these concepts, you can typically move from one chapter to another and not necessarily have to read the chapters sequentially.

• Chapter 1 "Introduction to iPhone Development with MonoTouch for C# Developers"This chapter looks at how the largest segment of developers can target the smartphone with the highest mindshare, and that the smartphone is growing faster in marketshare than any other device.
• Chapter 2 "Introduction to MonoTouch"gives you a firm foundation in MonoTouch, MonoDevelop, Interface Builder, debugging, and deploying.
• Chapter 3 "Planning Your App's UI: Exploring the Screen Controls"teaches you about creating your application's UI and specifically how the UI on the iPhone can differ from UIs that you might have created before. You also explore the Input & Value objects from the Interface Builder Objects Library.
• Chapter 4 "Data Controls" shows the Interface Builder Objects Library Cocoa Touch classes for Controllers, Data Views, and Windows, Views, & Bars.
• Chapter 5 "Working with Data on the iPhone"looks at the SQLite database engine as well as strategies to store data off the device on a central server through SOAP and REST (using XML and JSON) without tying up the user interface.
• Chapter 6 "Displaying Data Using Tables"looks at displaying information in a table, using tables for navigation, taking advantage of UITableView's built-in editing features, and adding a search bar to a table.
• Chapter 7 "Mapping"covers CoreLocation and MapKit, using Location Services, and adding maps and geocoding to your application.
• Chapter 8 "Application Settings"focuses on application settings, and looks at two aspects of settings for your MonoTouch app: the Info.plist and your settings bundle. It covers what settings you might want to set in your Info.plist and why, and then looks at what code it takes to read and use the settings that you save in the settings bundle. And it also takes you through the building of the settings that you might have in a social media-type application. Going through each step, you will examine the Root.plist inside the Property List Editor and see the settings dialog that will result from it.
• Chapter 9 "Programming with Device Hardware" covers accelerometer device orientation, and proximity detection support, networking, and developing with battery life in mind.
• Chapter 10 "Programming with Multimedia" discussing integrating images and the image picker, watching and recording videos, playing and recording audio, and using animation
• Chapter 11 "Talking to Other Applications"discusses the ways you can use MonoTouch to talk to other applications on the iPhone, both Apple-built applications and those downloaded from the App Store. It also provides helpful ways of accessing the iPhone's Address Book and the iPod music library.
• Chapter 12 "Localizing for an International Audience" first defines internationalization and localization, then shows displaying translated text and images, formatting dates, times, and numbers, then extracting text for translation.
• Chapter 13 "Programming the iPad" the capabilities of the iPad are, what new APIs and controls have been introduced that you can use in iPad-specific applications, and how to build applications that can work on both iPad and iPhone devices.
• Chapter 14 "Just Enough Objective-C" provides you with a reference and introduction to Objective-C that will help you acquire an ability to comprehend Objective-C which is something that will come in very handy.
• Chapter 15 "The App Store: Submitting and Marketing Your App"discusses all things App Store. First, it talks about the process that you need to go through before you are ready to submit - this includes final testing with Ad-Hoc builds and a presubmission checklist. Next it addresses actually submitting to the App Store, and then finally what to do with your app after it's in the App Store. This chapter also touches on alternative monetization strategies such as ads or in app purchases.

.NET C# 開發人員進入 iPhone 應用程式領域所需的知識

iPhone 應用程式為開發人員提供了一個熱門的機會。在開源的 MonoTouch 專案之前，這個領域只限於熟悉蘋果程式語言的人。現在，.NET 和 C# 開發人員也可以加入這個派對了。《Professional iPhone Programming with MonoTouch and .NET/C#》是第一本涵蓋 MonoTouch 的書籍，讓開發人員能夠利用這個有利可圖的機會。

這本書適用於有興趣使用 .NET/C# 撰寫原生 iPhone 應用程式的 .NET 開發人員。這些開發人員希望能夠運用他們現有的知識。雖然 .NET 開發人員總是有興趣學習，但他們也意識到學習 Objective-C 和 iPhone 的細節可能會讓人感到壓倒性。對於有興趣使用 MonoTouch 的開發人員來說，他們會意識到 MonoTouch 的成本很容易通過使用他們已經熟悉的語言快速開發 iPhone 應用程式而收回。

這本書旨在幫助 .NET 開發人員進入 iPhone 領域。它旨在幫助您快速掌握 iPhone，而不是真正教您 .NET Framework 或 C# 語言，我們假設您已經熟悉這些。

這本書的前四章是入門材料。您應該按順序閱讀第一章到第四章。這些章節介紹了 MonoTouch 產品，使用 MonoTouch 和 MonoDevelop 開發的基礎知識，以及如何使用屏幕和數據控制項向用戶呈現數據以及如何為 iPhone 開發用戶界面的基礎知識。一旦您對這些概念感到舒適，您通常可以從一章跳到另一章，不一定需要按順序閱讀。

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  第一章「為 C# 開發人員介紹使用 MonoTouch 開發 iPhone 應用程式」本章介紹了最大的開發人員群體如何針對市場份額最高的智能手機進行開發，以及智能手機在市場份額上的增長速度超過其他任何設備。


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  第二章「介紹 MonoTouch」為您提供了 MonoTouch、MonoDevelop、Interface Builder、調試和部署的基礎知識。


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  第三章「規劃應用程式的用戶界面：探索屏幕控制項」教您如何創建應用程式的用戶界面，特別是 iPhone 上的用戶界面與您之前可能創建的界面有何不同。您還將探索 Interface Builder 對象庫中的輸入和值對象。


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  第四章「數據控制項」介紹了 Interface Builder 對象庫中的 Cocoa Touch 類別，包括控制器、數據視圖和窗口、視圖和工具欄。


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  第五章「在 iPhone 上處理數據」介紹了 SQLite 數據庫引擎以及在不阻塞用戶界面的情況下將數據存儲在中央服務器上的策略，包括使用 SOAP 和 REST（使用 XML 和 JSON）。


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  第六章「使用表格顯示數據」介紹了在表格中顯示信息，使用表格進行導航，利用 UITableView 內置的編輯功能，以及向表格添加搜索欄。


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  第七章「地圖」涵蓋了 CoreLocation 和 MapKit，使用位置服務，以及向應用程式添加地圖和地理編碼。


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  第八章「應用程式設置」專注於應用程式設置，並介紹了兩個方面的 MonoTouch 應用程式設置：Info.plist 和設置包。它介紹了您可能想在 Info.plist 中設置的設置以及原因，然後介紹了讀取和使用保存在設置包中的設置所需的代碼。它還將引導您完成在社交媒體類型應用程式中可能具有的設置的構建過程。通過每個步驟，您將檢查 Property List Editor 中的 Root.plist，並查看由此產生的設置對話框。