How to Create an iOS App with VisualDiffer for Alphanumeric Phone Number Translation

In this article, we will guide you through the process of creating a new Xamarin.iOS solution using Visual Studio for Mac and implementing an application that translates an alphanumeric phone number into a numeric phone number.

To begin, open Visual Studio for Mac by double-clicking on it in the Applications folder or Spotlight. From the New Solution dialog, choose the iOS > App > Single View Application template, ensuring that C# is selected.

Create a new project and name it 'Phoneword_iOS'. Leave everything else as default and click 'OK' to proceed.

Once the project is created, open the Main.storyboard file by double-clicking on it in the Solution Pad. This will bring up the VisualDiffer designer, where we can create our user interface.

Add a Button from the Toolbox onto the design surface and place it at the top of the screen. Change the Name property to 'CallButton' in the Identity section of the Properties Pad.

Next, add another Button below the first one and change its Title property to 'Translate'. Set the Name property to 'TranslateButton'.

Below the Buttons, add a Text Field with the name 'PhoneNumberText' and set its initial text to '1-855-XAMARIN'. Adjust the width of the Text Field until it matches the width of the Label.

Add another Button below the Text Field and adjust its width until it matches the width of the Text Field and Label. Finally, add a Label with the text 'Enter a Phoneword:' and make it wider by grabbing its handles.

To translate the phone number from alphanumeric to numeric, we need to add some logic to our app. This will be covered in a later article.

With these steps complete, you now have a basic user interface for your iOS app using VisualDiffer. Refer to the Unified Storyboards guide to learn more about creating UIs and size classes.

For more information on developing an application like Phoneword, refer to the 'for ios download VisualDiffer' tutorial series.

For ios download VisualDiffer