How to use Charles Proxy in Xamarin to capture network traffic (including SSL)

Capturing network traffic between your application and your server is a handy way of checking and debugging the data you are sending and what comes back from the server. Charles Proxy shows network calls in a sequence or as a tree structure, including headers and all kind of http information like response times and payload size. It even allows you to simulate adverse network conditions and throttling, ie: an unstable 3g connection.

Fixing push notifications on Android 8. Aka channels

Upgrading your target SDK to 26+ (Android 8) can break your push notifications all of a sudden. Fortunatelly it´s very easy to fix.

Android 8 adaptative (vector) icons

Once we change the target android version to 26 or higher, the app icon suddenly gets messed up, from a full size icon to a tiny, hard to notice thing inside a white shape (a circle on the default Google launcher). I delayed upgrading to 26+ because of this, and also beacuse I didn´t understand how the new adaptative icons work. But it´s about time, so here we go.

UIStackView magic

When Apple realized a LinearLayout could be useful for developers...

Getting fancy with UIView anchors and state changes

If you prefer coded user-interfaces rather than designers (Xcode Interface Builder or Xamarin designers) you will surely like this API (available from iOS9+). It´s very readable, easy to maintain and feels more natural compared to the old one.

A simple page-indicator for your android view-pager

A bit of xml and C#. No 3rd party libs required

Large file downloads on Windows 10 mobile

Download safely in the background with progress feedback

UWP mobile side loading

Installing universal Windows apps outside of the store is a bit different than iOS or Android. HockeyApp documentation explains how to do it but they are missing some important (and perhaps frustrating) details that I will explain below.