Getting resource Missing errors when compiling a xamarin forms app

There is a file 2A3A8A6D6826EF6CC653030E7D695C41.zip in the folder C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Xamarin\zips  that downloads the first time you compile a Xamarin forms android app.  If this file does not download properly you get 55 errors about missing resources on the android project.  Deleting the file from the folder will cause it to download again when compiling which resolves the resource missing errors.  The file size at the time of this posting should be 220K some people with the issue had a file size of about 16K

 It would be nice if Xamarin had a better notification if this file does not download properly.

How to enable long file names in windows 10

If you have the Anniversary update windows 10 pro or greater you can enable long file names in group policy.

Search for group policy editor and open it up. Under local computer policy --> Computer Configuration --> Administrative Templates --> System --> File System you will find Enable Win32 Long Paths set it to enabled.

NuGet does not show packages after Visual Studio 2015 Update 2

I recently updated my computer to have Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 and the anniversary sdk ctp for windows 10. I noticed I no longer was seeing any packages when I tried to add a nuget package. It turns out the url which goes at the top of the package locations was missing. Once I added it back everything worked fine.

https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

FreshMVVM getting started the missing step

I have been playing around with FreshMVVM and found I like it a lot. It is very light weight and fairly easy to use.
There is one thing missing from the FreshMVVM quick start that I felt should blog about. You need to put everything in a fresh navigation container if you want the pages and page models to resolve and of course be able to navigate.
http://www.michaelridland.com/xamarin/freshmvvm-quick-start-guide/
In the app class this is how you need to set MainPage to an instance to show the first page.

    public App()
    {
        // The root page of your application
        var homePage = FreshMvvm.FreshPageModelResolver.ResolvePageModel<HomePageModel>();
        var navConatiner = new FreshMvvm.FreshNavigationContainer(homePage);
        MainPage = navConatiner;
    }

Ensure that this project has Microsoft.Bcl.Build installed and packages.config is located next to the project file

I received this error while building a UWP app.
Could not locate xxxx\packages.config. Ensure that this project has Microsoft.Bcl.Build installed and packages.config is located next to the project file.
I did check and see the package.config in the right directory and I did have Microsoft.BCL.Build. The only way to get this to work is to close visual studio delete the obj folder in the solutions directory. Once the obj folder is deleted and I reloaded the project in visual studio everything worked again.

Error : DEP1630 : Invalid "TargetOsVersion" property

I was trying to get the Wikipedia sample app for windows store 8 from GitHub to run in visual studio 2015. The app is a HTML app.
https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-win8-wikipedia
When trying to run the app I was getting the following error
DEP1630 : Invalid “TargetOsVersion” property
The solution was to edit the WikipediaMetroTest.jsproj with notepad and change the Visual studio version to 14.0

<VisualStudioVersion>14.0</VisualStudioVersion>

Targeting Mobile only in a windows universal app

To make your UWP app only target windows 10 mobile add the following to your app manifest

<Dependencies>

   <TargetDeviceFamily Name="Windows.Mobile" MinVersion="10.0.x.0" MaxVersionTested="10.0.y.0"/>
</Dependencies>

This MSDN article has more info
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn986903.aspx