Building iOS using Xamarin in Visual Studio
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
Sounds like you need to write this up in an article. :rolleyes:
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
I didn't even bother trying this in Visual Studio, just installed Xamarin Studio on the Mac, coded, debugged, built and published the iOS and Android versions from there, much easier.. :)
Now is it bad enough that you let somebody else kick your butts without you trying to do it to each other? Now if we're all talking about the same man, and I think we are... it appears he's got a rather growing collection of our bikes.
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I didn't even bother trying this in Visual Studio, just installed Xamarin Studio on the Mac, coded, debugged, built and published the iOS and Android versions from there, much easier.. :)
Now is it bad enough that you let somebody else kick your butts without you trying to do it to each other? Now if we're all talking about the same man, and I think we are... it appears he's got a rather growing collection of our bikes.
If you ever want to write up your experience with creating provisioning profiles I'd name my dog after you.
cheers Chris Maunder
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If you ever want to write up your experience with creating provisioning profiles I'd name my dog after you.
cheers Chris Maunder
As I remember, it didn't seem that tricky using Xcode?
Now is it bad enough that you let somebody else kick your butts without you trying to do it to each other? Now if we're all talking about the same man, and I think we are... it appears he's got a rather growing collection of our bikes.
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
I don't want to sound discouraging or know-it-all, but I would recommend to stay away from Xamarin, phonegap and all the other cross-platform offerings. Both iOS and Android offer ways to build a javascript bridge between the webview and the code behind, which makes the UI portable. The system specific stuff can then be optimized on Android Studio or Xcode.
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
I feel your pain... well, almost. Never tried Xamarin, but the regular signing process also felt like a pain to me. Long long ago... in 2008. It was complicated and manual... but at least you knew that if you understood the process and remembered the steps you'd be fine. I'd create a certificate, setup a provisioning profile on the dev portal, add devices on the portal and then to the profile, download the profile and install it via xcode or the keychain access. Of course i'd have to add the profile to the device as well. I knew if i messed up it wouldn't work, but with a bit of practice you can get it right. I tried building iOS again recently and with xcode 'managing' everything, I have absolutely no control (or that's how it feels like), and no clue what's going wrong if something goes wrong. It's worse when you have to set up a CI server and people on the team, equally clueless, end up tampering the provisioning profiles! Sorry for the rant, your post just brought back very bad memories.
"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." -Ornette Coleman "Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently." -Anon.
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Sounds like you need to write this up in an article. :rolleyes:
Hahaha, in fact, several things which he has mentioned are really important troubleshoot fix. Definitely a good suggestion :thumbsup: and it would be really helpful if someone is having same hard times like him.
You can have all the tools in the world but if you don't genuinely believe in yourself, it's useless.
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I don't want to sound discouraging or know-it-all, but I would recommend to stay away from Xamarin, phonegap and all the other cross-platform offerings. Both iOS and Android offer ways to build a javascript bridge between the webview and the code behind, which makes the UI portable. The system specific stuff can then be optimized on Android Studio or Xcode.
Termi Nater wrote:
Both iOS and Android offer ways to build a javascript bridge between the webview and the code behind, which makes the UI portable.
Amen! TBH, that's what we ended up doing after two failed attempts with Xamarin and Phonegap.
You can have all the tools in the world but if you don't genuinely believe in yourself, it's useless.
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I don't want to sound discouraging or know-it-all, but I would recommend to stay away from Xamarin, phonegap and all the other cross-platform offerings. Both iOS and Android offer ways to build a javascript bridge between the webview and the code behind, which makes the UI portable. The system specific stuff can then be optimized on Android Studio or Xcode.
Xamarin gives you native app performance, unlike JavaScript crap.
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
I was considering looking at that some time ago but ran into a wall with it. Painful. What ever happened to the days when you could just WRITE A PROGRAM eh? Anyway ... if you're looking for an interesting approach to writing IOS/Android applications check out NSBASIC (www.nsbasic.com). I have only written a few "apps" (I hate that word) with it but it really has a lot of potential and you DON'T have to involve an App Store unless you want to. The NSBASIC IDE will run either on a Windows machine or a Mac. It's a really impressive approach, IMO. It essentially produces a Javascript application that runs in a somewhat "sandboxed" mode (if that's an appropriate term) on a mobile device. You can write for pretty much any format of mobile device out there.
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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I don't want to sound discouraging or know-it-all, but I would recommend to stay away from Xamarin, phonegap and all the other cross-platform offerings. Both iOS and Android offer ways to build a javascript bridge between the webview and the code behind, which makes the UI portable. The system specific stuff can then be optimized on Android Studio or Xcode.
Check out NSBasic (www.nsbasic.com). They really have an interesting approach to this. Seriously.
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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Xamarin gives you native app performance, unlike JavaScript crap.
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
I code in RemObjects Oxygene, a Pascal/Delphi syntax .Net language. With the RemObject's products, I can write in Pascal and make .net applications for Windows, Android, and iOs. You code specific to each platform, but can share libraries. Additionally they also support C#, and Silver (Swift) on all 3 platforms. And now they can also compile to native Win32 apps. In each case you use the native libraries for the platform and are not limited as to what you can do on that platform. Unlike the Xamarin approach where you write one codebase and target the different platforms. I haven't done the iOs bit, but they do a nice job on Oxygene and .Net for Windows. And I think they probably did a good job of interfacing to the Mac and the Xcode. You MIGHT want to check it out. FWIW, I LOVE the Oxygene language much more then C#. (Although you can mix languages in a single project as well, of you have something in one language that you don't won't to redo at all. They also let you paste C# code into Oxygene and it will do a decent job of translating. Can also just import a C# file. Have a look see.
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If you ever want to write up your experience with creating provisioning profiles I'd name my dog after you.
cheers Chris Maunder
It's such a bloody mess. Seriously. That whole experience is exactly what inspired me to write my blog post thanking Microsoft for just making things EASY, even though I know it comes across really fanboy-ish and I caught some flack for it. iOS and Android dev is just insanely frustrating in comparison. [Code Index] | Thank You Microsoft[^]
Blog: [Code Index] By Mike Marynowski | Business: Singulink
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
You got me at iOS and Xamarin.
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It
It is very simple. "Apple Hates Developers". There is no other explanation for XCode. The fun really starts when you try to publish. I won't ruin the experience for you with spoilers. Seriously, my advice is to first get a simple XCode app working and compiling. 90% of the issues are related to that part of the process. Then Xamarin should work like a charm.
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I'm almost at the point of defeat. To develop an iOS app using Visual Studio / Xamarin you need to connect to a host Mac running XCode. Getting Visual Studio to connect to the Mac involved physically setting up a new router since Wifi seemed to be a problem, then installing XCode. And Xamarin Studio. Or may this wasn't necessary - depends on the forum you read. And cursing. And then suddenly it worked. But then adding my Apple account to Xamarin requires installing fastlane which throws you to a terminal window in order to login to your account (but which? macOS or AppleID? Turns out AppleID), which then borks because you need to create an App-specific password, Which then doesn't work. So back to VS. I build, but the build fails because I need a code signing certificate. Back to the mac. Generate a CSR, create a cert, download the cert, install it in the keychain (the login one, it turns out), and try again.
error : No installed provisioning profiles match the installed iOS signing identities.
OK. Sigh. Xamarin help says to use the "Organiser" window in XCode, so I go there, and I see "Archives" and "Crashes". Nothing in Archives, but "Crashes", for some reason, offers me the chance to sign in with my Apple Id and from there I can see my signing identities and provisioning profiles. Except it's not offering to create a provisioning profile. So back to developer.apple.com to manually create a provisioning profile and we try again. No luck. OK. Let's step back and have another crack at adding an account to Xamarin. Looks like the issue is with 2FA and the Apple ID. I hear that VS Code solves this so I download VS code, install, run, add account. It works! I rebuild in Visual Studio on my Windows machine. It works! Oh - no it doesn't. No provisioning profile. So I hunt around, I try to manually create a profile but it's asking for my device ID (what's the ID of an emulator?) and I give up. A day lost. So I move to VS Code on the Mac and create a new project from the project templates and attempt to build / run. Except it doesn't even build. A new project generated by VS Code with zero changes doesn't even build out of the box. Looks like it's Android issues so I unload that portion and try the iOS. No provisioning profile. FFS. I know this stuff all works. Somehow. I'm just stunned beyond words that it's this painful, this complicated, this frustrating, this badly and misleadingly documented, and yet more patient people than I have worked through it. It