May 5, 2019

Microsoft Cognitive Services With Xamarin.Forms

The accompanying sample is a todo list application that provides functionality to:

Tasks are stored in a local SQLite database. For more information about using a local SQLite database, see Working with a Local Database.

The TodoListPage is displayed when the application is launched. This page displays a list of any tasks stored in the local database, and allows the user to create a new task or to rate the application:

New items can be created by clicking on the + button, which navigates to the TodoItemPage. This page can also be navigated to by selecting a task:

The TodoItemPage allows tasks to be created, edited, spell-checked, translated, saved, and deleted. Speech recognition can be used to create or edit a task. This is achieved by pressing the microphone button to start recording, and by pressing the same button a second time to stop recording, which sends the recording to the Bing Speech Recognition API.

Clicking the smilies button on the TodoListPage navigates to the RateAppPage, which is used to perform emotion recognition on an image of a facial expression:

The RateAppPage allows the user to take a photo of their face, which is submitted to the Emotion API with the returned emotion being displayed.

Understanding the Application Anatomy

The Portable Class Library (PCL) project for the sample application consists of five main folders:

FolderPurpose
ModelsContains the data model classes for the application. This includes the TodoItem class, which models a single item of data used by the application. The folder also includes classes used to model JSON responses returned from different Microsoft Cognitive Service APIs.
RepositoriesContains the ITodoItemRepository interface and TodoItemRepository class that are used to perform database operations.
ServicesContains the interfaces and classes that are used to access different Microsoft Cognitive Service APIs, along with interfaces that are used by the DependencyService class to locate the classes that implement the interfaces in platform projects.
UtilsContains the Timer class, which is used by the AuthenticationService class to renew a JWT access token every 9 minutes.
ViewsContains the pages for the application.

The PCL project also contains some important files:

FilePurpose
Constants.csThe Constants class, which specifies the API keys and endpoints for the Microsoft Cognitive Service APIs that are invoked. The API key constants require updating to access the different Cognitive Service APIs.
App.xaml.csThe App class is responsible for instantiating both the first page that will be displayed by the application on each platform, and the TodoManager class that is used to invoke database operations.

NuGet Packages

The sample application uses the following NuGet packages:

  • Microsoft.Net.Http – provides the HttpClient class for making requests over HTTP.
  • Newtonsoft.Json – provides a JSON framework for .NET.
  • Microsoft.ProjectOxford.Emotion – a client library for accessing the Emotion API.
  • PCLStorage – provides a set of cross-platform local file IO APIs.
  • sqlite-net-pcl – provides SQLite database storage.
  • Xam.Plugin.Media – provides cross-platform photo taking and picking APIs.

In addition, these NuGet packages also install their own dependencies.

Modeling the Data

The sample application uses the TodoItem class to model the data that is displayed and stored in the local SQLite database. The following code example shows the TodoItem class:

public class TodoItem
{
  [PrimaryKey, AutoIncrement]
  public int ID { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public bool Done { get; set; }
}

The ID property is used to uniquely identify each TodoItem instance, and is decorated with SQLite attributes that make the property an auto-incrementing primary key in the database.

Invoking Database Operations

The TodoItemRepository class implements database operations, and an instance of the class can be accessed through the App.TodoManager property. The TodoItemRepository class provides the following methods to invoke database operations:

  • GetAllItemsAsync – retrieves all of the items from the local SQLite database.
  • GetItemAsync – retrieves a specified item from the local SQLite database.
  • SaveItemAsync – creates or updates an item in the local SQLite database.
  • DeleteItemAsync – deletes the specified item from the local SQLite database.

Platform Project Implementations

The Services folder in the PCL project contains the IFileHelper and IAudioRecorderService interfaces that are used by the DependencyService class to locate the classes that implement the interfaces in platform projects.

The IFileHelper interface is implemented by the FileHelper class in each platform project. This class consists of a single method, GetLocalFilePath, which returns a local file path for storing the SQLite database.

The IAudioRecorderService interface is implemented by the AudioRecorderService class in each platform project. This class consists of StartRecordingStopRecording, and supporting methods, which use platform APIs to record audio from the device’s microphone and store it as a wav file. On iOS, the AudioRecorderService uses the AVFoundation API to record audio. On Android, the AudioRecordService uses the AudioRecord API to record audio. On the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), the AudioRecorderService uses the AudioGraph API to record audio.

Invoking Cognitive Services

The sample application invokes the following Microsoft Cognitive Services:

Ref
https://developer.xamarin.com

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