Cannot find ClassLibrary(Xamarin.Forms) in Visual Studio 2017

Question

Iam learning Xamarin for the moment and iam following a tutorial and how to create a Xamarin project here is the link This So at certain point i can't find the ClassLibrary(Xamarin.Forms) in my visual studio only that can't find it didn't know why or where is the probleme i followed wisely the intall instruction but can't find it any help if possible please ScreenShot

Answer 1

Following the link to the tutorial you posted, I can deduce that it is an old tutorial (nearly a year over). If you really want to learn Xamarin, I would suggest you to learn it from Xamarin.University or from Xamarin Developer as over the year many changes took place such as Portable Class Libraries (PCLs) are considered deprecated in the latest versions of Visual Studio.

If you still want to follow the link of the tutorial, You can proceed with Cross-Platforms Apps(Xamarin.Forms) and select .Net Standard from Code Sharing Stragety. Then you are good to go.

Something worth reading in order to get familiar with xamarin and cross-platforms.

Answer 2

We already have Shared project in Xamarin.Forms solution so you not need to add PCL, until you have strong reason to do so. You can do all stuff with shared project too. The article you are following is using old Visual Studio 2015(Which is no longer recommended to use) why because lot many enhancement & fixes are there in Visual Studio 2017. Now when it comes to adding PCL you can add see screenshot

Answer 3

Portable Class Libraries are deprecated/outdated. Use the built in function "Cross-platform" as you have in your screenshot. Project for each platform will be created with a main library where you can have your generic code.