Make your Xamarin.Android app Responsive

Something i saw in novices mobile developers are that all the instructions they made they put it on the main thread so when you make that in a long hard work their apps goes down.

In C# there are two ways to do this

1. Threads (Parallels)

ParallelButton.Click += (sender, e) => {
    showHUD = ckbHUD.Checked;
    Task.Factory.StartNew(()=>{
     if(showHUD)
      AndHUD.Shared.Show(this, "Downloading Image via Parallel", -1, MaskType.Clear);
     var httpClient = new HttpClient();
     byte[] imageBytes  = httpClient.GetByteArrayAsync("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Big_size_chess_6759_CRI_08_2009_Langosta_Beach.jpg").Result;
     return imageBytes; 
    }).ContinueWith(res=>{
     string documents = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
     string localPath = System.IO.Path.Combine (documents, "image.png");
     File.WriteAllBytes (localPath, res.Result);
     var localImage = new Java.IO.File (localPath);
     if (localImage.Exists ()) {
      var imgBitmap = BitmapFactory.DecodeFile (localImage.AbsolutePath);
      RunOnUiThread(()=>{
       LabelSize.Text = string.Format("Size: {0} MB", ConvertBytesToMegabytes(res.Result.Length));
       ImageDonwloaded.SetImageBitmap (imgBitmap);
      });
     }
     if(showHUD)
      AndHUD.Shared.Dismiss(this);
    });
   };

2. Async/Await method

AsyncButton.Click += async (sender, e) => {
    showHUD = ckbHUD.Checked;
    if(showHUD)
     AndHUD.Shared.Show(this, "Downloading Image via Async/Await", -1, MaskType.Clear);
    var httpClient = new HttpClient();
    byte[] imageBytes  = await httpClient.GetByteArrayAsync("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Big_size_chess_6759_CRI_08_2009_Langosta_Beach.jpg");
    string documents = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
    string localPath = System.IO.Path.Combine (documents, "image.png");
    File.WriteAllBytes (localPath, imageBytes);
    var localImage = new Java.IO.File (localPath);
    if (localImage.Exists ()) {
     var imgBitmap = BitmapFactory.DecodeFile (localImage.AbsolutePath);
     LabelSize.Text = string.Format("Size: {0} MB", ConvertBytesToMegabytes(imageBytes.Length));
     ImageDonwloaded.SetImageBitmap (imgBitmap);
    }
    if(showHUD)
     AndHUD.Shared.Dismiss(this);
   };

If you see in the example we download a picture and then we save it to the app folder and after this we put the image into a imageview.

Note: when you use task a task(parallel) if  your expect to affect and ui element you need to implement the RunOnUiThread(()=>{});

Full Exmple at Github: https://github.com/AlejandroRuiz/Mono/tree/master/Responsive

remember if you have a question feel free to ask me, Happy Code  #CSHARPLOVERS