Getting Started

To get started with Crosslight mobile development, you need to prepare your development workstation with the required tools, SDK, as well as appropriate configuration. The following sections discuss the system requirements, supported development environments, and the preparation instructions.

System Requirements

  • iOS: Intel-based Mac with minimum 2GB of RAM running Mac OS X Lion or later.
  • Android: Intel-based Mac with minimum 2GB of RAM running Mac OS X Lion or later; PC running Windows 7 or later.
  • Windows Phone 8: PC with minimum 2GB of RAM running Windows 8 Pro or later.
  • WinRT: PC with minimum 2GB of RAM running Windows 8 Pro or later.

The following table lists the development tools requirements to support mobile development per platform.

Supported Development Environments

Mac OS X

  • iOS: iOS SDK, Apple Xcode, Xamarin Studio, Xamarin for iOS
  • Android: Android SDK, Xamarin Studio, Xamarin for Android
  • Windows Phone 8: not supported
  • WinRT: not supported

Windows

  • iOS: Xamarin for iOS, Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio 2012
  • Android: Xamarin for Android, Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio 2012
  • Windows Phone 8: Windows Phone 8 SDK, Silverlight, Visual Studio 2012 or later
  • WinRT: .NET Framework for Windows Store, Visual Studio 2012 or later

Although you can compile iOS apps with either Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio in Windows, you still need a Mac for testing and debugging. Click here to learn more about connecting to a Mac remotely for testing and debugging.

Crosslight for iOS and Android are built on newer Xamarin Platforms that based on Mono 3.0 framework. The following list describes the minimum required versions of Xamarin Platforms.

  • Mono 3.2.1
  • Xamarin Studio 4.0.11
  • Xamarin.iOS version 6.4.1
  • Xamarin.Android version 4.8.1

If you already installed Xamarin Studio, you can check the version in the Xamarin Studio menu, then choose About Xamarin Studio. If the versions are lower than specified above, please install the latest updates. From the Xamarin Studio menu, choose Check for Updates.

If you do not have Xamarin Studio installed, please download the latest installer from Xamarin website.

Preparing Your Development Environment

If you prefer to develop on a Windows-based computer, please follow the instructions below in sequential order.

  • Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Professional Edition or higher

    For more information about Visual Studio and the download link, please visit Visual Studio website.

  • Install Intersoft Mobile Studio 2013

    If you have installed Intersoft Premier Studio 2013, then the Mobile Studio should have been installed by default. Otherwise, you may want to install Mobile Studio 2013 individually by downloading the web setup. For more information, please visit Intersoft Studio website.

  • Install Xamarin Studio for Windows

    When installing Intersoft Mobile Studio 2013, you will be prompted whether you want to automatically download and install Xamarin Studio. If you wish to install Xamarin Studio manually, please download a trial copy from Xamarin web site.

Make sure that Xamarin iOS, Xamarin Android, and Xamarin integration for Visual Studio 2012 are checked during installation.

  • Configure Xamarin Build Server for testing and debugging iOS apps

    While developing iOS apps with Visual Studio, you may want to test and debug your apps directly from within the Visual Studio environment. Due to the strict code signing and provisioning process of Apple application development, you will need a Mac that acts as the build server. To learn how to configure Visual Studio to remotely connect to a Mac for build server integration, please see Introduction to Xamarin.iOS for Visual Studio article.

For more information about installing Xamarin iOS on Windows, please see Installing Xamarin.iOS on Windows article.

If your primary development targets are specifically for iOS and Android platform, you may develop entirely on an Intel-based Mac computer. Please follow the instructions below to get started.

  • Install Apple XCode

    Xcode is required for developing iOS apps. Xcode is available from the Apple App Store and can be downloaded for free.

To deploy applications to a device or submit them to App Store, an Apple Developer Account is required. Please click here to enroll to iOS Developer Program. For more information about device provisioning, see Device Provisioning article.

  • Install Intersoft Mobile Studio for Mac

    Make sure you download the Mac version of Intersoft Mobile Studio setup to install Crosslight for Mac. The setup will install the Crosslight assemblies, samples and documentation.

In many occasions, you may want to combine both Mac and Windows to support your mobile development which is fully supported. For examples, you may want to work with iOS and Android development on Mac, and at the same time debugging the Windows Phone counterpart with Visual Studio on Windows. To go with this approach, configure a Windows operating system as a virtual machine on your Mac through a desktop virtualization software, then step through the instructions above for both operating system.

For more information about Crosslight features and benefits, please visit Crosslight Overview.

Other Resources

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