Creating Hello World in Xamarin.Forms

To understand how a Xamarin.Forms application is put together, let's begin by creating a simple Hello World application.

Open Xamarin Studio and perform the following steps:

1. Create a new Multiplatform | App | Forms App project from the new solution dialog.
2. Name your solution something appropriate, such as HelloForms.
3. Make sure Use Portable Class Library is selected.
4. Click Next, then click Create.

Notice the three new projects that were successfully created:

• HelloForms
• HelloForms.Android
• HelloForms.iOS

In Xamarin.Forms applications, the bulk of your code will be shared, and each platform-specific project is just a small amount of code that starts up the Xamarin.Forms framework.

Let's examine the minimum parts of a Xamarin.Forms application:

• App.xaml and App.xaml.cs in the HelloForms PCL library -- this class is the main starting point of the Xamarin.Forms application. A simple property, MainPage, is set to the first page in the application. In the default...