Create Your First Tizen IoT .NET Application

The Tizen .NET framework allows you to easily and efficiently create applications for Tizen. Study the following instructions to help familiarize yourself with the Tizen .NET application development process. With the instructions, you can create and run a basic .NET application, which displays some texts on the screen without any user interaction.

  1. Before you get started with developing Tizen applications, set up the development environment.

  2. Create a Project using Visual Studio.

    This step shows how you can use a predesigned project template that creates all the basic files and folders required for your project.

  3. Build Your Application.

    After you have implemented code for the features you want, this step shows how you can build the application to validate and compile the code.

  4. Deploy and Run Your Application.

    This step shows how you can deploy and run the application on the reference board.

  5. Understand Your Application.

    This step explains the controls used in the application and the default structure of the basic files.

  6. Package Your Application.

    This step shows how you can package your application.

Create a Project

The following example shows you how to create and configure a basic Tizen .NET application project in Visual Studio. An application project contains all the files that make up an application.

The following figure illustrates the output of the application.

Application running on the reference board

The application screen displays a message, Welcome to Xamarin Forms! and there is no user interaction.

To create a new Tizen .NET project:

  1. Launch Visual Studio 2019.

  2. In the Visual Studio menu, select File > New > Project.

    Create a new project

    A New Project window appears.

  3. Select C# from languages and Tizen from platforms, select Tizen XAML App (Xamarin.Forms) template and click Next.

    Select a template

    Configure the project properties and click Create. You can enter Project name, Location, Solution, and Solution name.

    Select a template

    The Tizen Project Wizard pop-up window appears.

  4. Select the profile, Common and click OK.

    Tizen Project Wizard

The following figure illustrates a solution with the common project created and displayed in the Solution Explorer view:

Project Structure

  • The <projectname> project contains the Xamarin.Forms code shared across platforms.
  • A common project titled <projectname>.Tizen is added. It contains code to instantiate your common application within the Tizen framework.

The .xaml file in the portable project already contains simple Xamarin.Forms code that makes a basic UI.

Build Your Application

After you create the application project, you can implement the required features. In this example, only the default features from the project template are used, and no code change is required.

When your application code is ready, build the application. The building process performs a validation check and compiles your files. You must sign the application package with an author certificate when building the application. If you have not yet registered a Tizen certificate in Visual Studio, see Certificate Manager.

There are two different ways to build the application:

  • In the Visual Studio menu, select Build > Build Solution.
  • In the Solution Explorer view, right-click the solution name and select Build.

Tizen .NET applications are always deployed as installable packages. The package files have the .tpk file extension, and the process of generating a package is controlled by the manifest file. The Visual Studio template generates the manifest file (tizen-manifest.xml) to the top level of the <projectname>.Tizen project.

For this example application, the default manifest is sufficient. If you want to make any change in the application, such as changing the application icon or installing resources that are used by the application at runtime, see Package Your Application.

After you build the application, deploy and run it.

Deploy and Run Your Application

To run the UI application, you must first deploy it to the reference board with the headed image installed. Deploying means transferring the package file (.tpk) to the target and invoking the Tizen Package Manager to install it.

To deploy and run the application on the reference board:

  1. Connect the reference board to your PC.

  2. Once you connect the reference board, you can deploy the application by clicking the reference board instance in the Visual Studio toolbar. Make the Tizen project as a start-up project with Set as StartUp Project.

    Deploy your package

    In the Visual Studio toolbar, you can select the reference board from the drop-down list to change the deployment target.

  3. If the deployment is successful, the application icon is visible on the device screen. Click the icon to launch the application.

    The following figure shows the launched application on the reference board:

    Application running on the reference board

Visual Studio uses the Smart Development Bridge (SDB) to communicate with the reference board. If you encounter a problem with detecting the device in Visual Studio, you can check the SDB manually:

  1. In the Visual Studio menu, select Tools > Tizen > Tizen Sdb Command Prompt.

  2. In the command prompt, enter sdb devices.

    Device detection

    A list of attached devices appears.

If you face any issue during deployment, it is recommended to manually install the application using SDB:

  • IoT application:

    
                
    bash
    
                
    
                    
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    $ sdb install <path-to-package>/org.tizen.example.CrossTemplate1.Tizen-1.0.0.tpk

Understand Your Application

The C# code from your first application displays a label centered on the screen, containing the Welcome to Xamarin Forms! text. This CrossTemplate1 application created from the template is set up and ready to be built and run by Visual Studio right after you create it, as described above.

The Xamarin.Forms controls used to create the user interface of a Tizen .NET application can be broadly categorized into four groups:

  • Pages represent screens within an application. The UI of an application is built from one or more pages and with a navigation mechanism, if needed. The navigation scheme is specified by the INavigation interface. Many pages are of the ContentPage type, which describes the view of a single screen.
  • Layouts are containers used to compose views into logical structures. Some available types are absolute, grid, relative, and stack layouts; each provides mechanisms, such as orientation, spacing, and padding, to control the layout. The StackLayout class is a basic layout where you can simply stack controls on top of, or side-by-side, one another. Layouts can also be bundled with and nested into each other.
  • Views are the controls displayed on the user interface, such as labels, buttons, and text entry boxes.
  • Cells are specialized elements used for items in tables and lists, which help describe how the items must be rendered.

The following shows the portable code portion of the Tizen Xamarin.Forms project MainPage.xaml file, generated by the template:


                
xml

                

                    
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
             x:Class="CrossTemplate1.MainPage">
    <ContentPage.Content>
        <StackLayout>
            <Label Text="Welcome to Xamarin Forms!"
                VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" 
                HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" />
        </StackLayout>
    </ContentPage.Content>
</ContentPage>

This application is constructed with the following Xamarin.Forms controls:

  • There is the ContentPage where you set up the view to display. You assign what you want to display to the Content property of the ContentPage.
  • The StackLayout is added. This layout positions (“stacks”) its child elements in a single vertical (default) or horizontal line.
  • The Label is added, whose Text property is the message you want to display.

The code does not show the instantiation of the App class. Since application launching is platform-specific, the launching part, including the instantiation of the App class and the declaration of the Main() function (required as the entry point of every C# program), happens in the <projectname>.Tizen project, in the matching file there. The following example shows the content of the <projectname>.Tizen.cs file:


                
C#

                

                    
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using System;
using Xamarin.Forms;

namespace CrossTemplate1
{
    class Program : global::Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Tizen.FormsApplication
    {
        protected override void OnCreate()
        {
            base.OnCreate();

            LoadApplication(new App());
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var app = new Program();
            Forms.Init(app);
            app.Run(args);
        }
    }
}

Package Your Application

A Tizen .NET application is deployed in the form of an installable package, with the package file extension .tpk. A Tizen .NET package has a relatively simple structure: internally it is a ZIP file with content that matches the directory layout of the project.

The package contains the following:

  • The shared directory, which is for items that are considered system-wide (shareable).

    The application icon is packaged in the shared/res directory on installation, and the icon appears on the home screen with the icons for the other applications. You can either replace the icon (which is just a copy of the default Tizen logo) with one of your own using the file name generated by Visual Studio, or put a new icon in the same project directory and update the package manifest to indicate the new name.

  • The res directory, which is for application-private resources.

    If the application needs a file to open at runtime, it can be placed here.

  • The bin directory, which contains the generated application executable.

  • The lib directory, which contains the generated application support code.

    If you use Nuget libraries, they are imported in the lib directory.

  • The package manifest, which defines the application properties and is used at the installation time.

  • Two signature files (author and distributor), which are checked at the installation time.

The following figure shows the layout of the platform-specific (Tizen) project:

Project layout

It includes the lib, res, and shared (with a res subdirectory containing an image file) directories, and the tizen-manifest.xml file. There is also the bin directory, which Visual Studio only shows if you select the Show all files option for the solution. These pieces all go into the package.

Package generation (and in fact installation) is controlled by the tizen-manifest.xml package manifest file. The following figure shows the .tpk file for the initial application to illustrate how the combination of the directory layout and the package manifest leads to the actual package.

Package content

When packaging your application, you also need to consider whether any feature or privilege declarations are needed in the manifest file and how to place any language-specific files.

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