Amazing Community-Built Plugins for Xamarin

Over the holidays we challenged our community to create some brand new plugins for Xamarin that would not only help other developers add new features to their mobile apps easily, but also entitle the plugin creator to a spectacular Xamarin Swag Bag! Our amazing developers in the community stepped up in a big way and created over twenty brand new plugins that range in functionality from maps and notifications to new controls for Xamarin.Forms. Here are some highlights:

Messaging

Looking to make a phone call, send a SMS, or even an e-mail from your shared code? Carel Lotz’s Messaging plugin has you covered across all of your Xamarin and Windows apps.

Device Motion

If you need access to device sensors such as the accelerometer or gyroscope, be sure to grab Rendy’s Device Motion plugin that features a simple cross-platform API.

Lamp

Phill’s simple but elegant Lamp plugin for Xamarin enables you to turn a device’s LED off and on with a simple cross-platform command.

Sockets

If you’re like me, then you’ve probably had fun messing around with TCP and UDP listeners and clients in a few of your apps. Ryan’s brand new Sockets plugin now handles all of your sockets needs from shared code, and even includes UDP multicast!

Xamarin.Forms Plugins

In addition to all the great cross-platform plugins that were created, there were also a few Xamarin.Forms specific plugins and controls developed over the holidays. Here are a few: store rating plugin, SVG control, toast notifications, compass, and barcode scanner.

So Many More!

The plugin extravaganza doesn’t stop with the plugins featured here; just search for “Plugin for Xamarin” on NuGet to browse all of the other entries and plugins that you can use in your Xamarin mobile apps.

We want to thank everyone that created a brand new plugin over their holiday break and will be contacting you directly through Twitter and GitHub so you can claim your prize.

Keep the Plugins Coming

An exciting aspect of creating your first plugin is that you also get to learn new skills and tools such as NuGet and GitHub. Our Visual Studio Templates for Plugins and Google+ Hangout walkthrough help simplify the entire process and provide a great starting point so that anyone can create plugins for Xamarin.

If you didn’t have a chance to enter during the holiday contest, don’t worry! We still want to thank any developer that creates a new plugin for Xamarin in the month of January with some Xamarin goodies (while supplies last). Once you have published your plugin on NuGet, simply email us at plugins@xamarin.com. We can’t wait to see what you build!