The latest update to the open source NFC / NDEF library brings a wealth of new features, further extending the large amount of use cases where the library makes NFC app development easier.
After several alpha and beta releases, the latest stable release has just been pushed to the NuGet online package source for easy integration into your own C# projects. It includes the following changes from the previous stable version:
- New supported NDEF record types:
- Business card records (vCard): Windows 8 (depends on integrated vCard library) / Windows Phone 8 (no 3rd party dependencies)
- iCalendar records: Windows 8 (alpha version, depends on 3rd party DDay.iCal library)
- MIME / Image records: Windows 8
- New: Windows 8.1 Demo app
- New: TagGenerator utility app (console-based) to create files containing NDEF messages
- Changed structure: core NDEF library + platform-specific extension library to enable real-life use cases (e.g., converting a WinRT Contact to a vCard record)
- Added: HERE Maps navigation schemes for Geo records
- Added: Power and screen rotation for WP Settings records
In addition, a few minor issues have been fixed and the source code documentation has been improved.
New Library Structure
The top-most priority for the NDEF library is to add value to real-life use cases. This is why we have split the library into two distinct parts:
- Core NDEF Library: remains a portable class library that can be used in any C# / .net application and contains all of the record classes including base classes for the platform-specific extension records
- Platform-Specific Extension Library: integrates with classes of the respective host platform to directly integrate with associated features. This allows for example to take a Contact from the user’s address book and directly write that to an NFC tag. The image record class allows de/encoding images with common image formats, like JPEG or PNG – allowing developers to directly show an encoded image parsed from a tag on the app UI.
Along with the new structure, a Windows 8.1 demo app has been added to the library, so that you can test creating and parsing NDEF records also on Windows-based tablets and PCs.
More Information & Download
We will provide more information about many of the powerful new library features in upcoming blog posts.
You can update / download the NFC / NDEF library right away:
- Download the library source code package, including documentation and two demo apps
- NFC / NDEF Library in the NuGet Gallery
- NFC / NDEF Extension Library in the NuGet Gallery
- More information for developers about the library