CommonHelpers 1.0.7

CommonHelpers

This is a small NET Standard 2.0 helper library to reuse code that I write several times a day in demo projects.

Nuget: CommonHelpers on NuGet

Highlights

Collections

Special collection types that help in special scenarios (e.g. ObservableQueue and ObservableRangeCollection).

Common

This folder has some of the most frequently used classes (i.e. BindableBase, ViewModelBase, JsonHelper).

Extensions

Extensions for commonly used objects like string, DateTime, enum. There are also some special extensions for File, Exception and Color. Finally, there's a unqiue helper, HttpClientExtensions which provides download progress and helper method to POST image data.

MVVM

Platform agnostic MVVM classes like DelegateCommand and RelayCommand

Services

To make testing UI controls easier by quickly providing well formatted data from offline sample data and online API endpoints. This is really useful for quickly testing Load On Demand scenarios.

• BingImageService
• ComicVineApiService**
• SampleDataService
• XkcdApiService

Examples

Sample Data Service

var sampleDataService = new SampleDataService();

BarSeriesData.AddRange(sampleDataService.GenerateCategoricalData());
ScatterSeriesData.AddRange(sampleDataService.GenerateScatterPointData());
LineSeriesData.AddRange(sampleDataService.GenerateDateTimeMinuteData());
SplineAreaSeriesData.AddRange(sampleDataService.GenerateDateTimeDayData());
People.AddRange(sampleDataService.GeneratePeopleData());

BingImageService

using (var bingImageService = new BingImageService())
{
    var result = await bingImageService.GetBingImageOfTheDayAsync();
    image.Source = new UriImageSource{Uri = result};
}

ComicVineApiService

var comicVineService = new ComicVineApiService(ApiKeys.ComicVineApiKey, ApiKeys.UniqueUserAgentString);

var apiResult = await comicVineService.GetCharactersAsync(CurrentCharactersCount);
CurrentCharactersCount = apiResult.Offset + apiResult.NumberOfPageResults;
TotalCharactersCount = apiResult.NumberOfTotalResults;

var characters = apiResult.Results;

xkcd API Service

var xkcdService = new XkcdApiService();

// to fetch a comic, get the latest or pass a specific comic ID
XkcdComic xkcdComic;

if (lastXkcdComicNumber == 0)
{
    xkcdComic = await xkcdService.GetNewestComicAsync();
}
else
{
    xkcdComic = await xkcdService.GetComicAsync(lastXkcdComicNumber - 1);
}

lastXkcdComicNumber = xkcdComic.Num;

// This is an `ObservableQueue` (located in CommonHelpers.Collections)      
XkcdComics.Enqueue(xkcdComic);

** Note: Most services do not require an API key, just new up the class and go. To prevent any confusion, any services that need an API key will require it in the constructor.*