Supported PCL Profiles in Xamarin for Visual Studio
posted on 14 May 2014
| Visual Studio
| Xamarin
2016/06/09 Update:
As of the Xamarin 4.1 release two new profiles were added:
Profile 44 (.NET Framework 4.5.1, Windows 8.1) (netstandard 1.2)
Profile 151 (.NET Framework 4.5.1, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8.1) (netstandard 1.2)
My Profile Notes page has been updated with the details of these new profiles.
Original Post:
Xamarin is continuing their rapid development pace and has released several updates to their Xamarin for Visual Studio tools since my last post on PCL Profiles & Xamarin.
Most notably, if you're on the Alpha or Beta channel, they have released a 2.0 build of Xamarin for Visual Studio which unifies the iOS and Android installers into a single package and adds support for several new PCL profiles.
Here are all of the currently supported PCL profiles in the 2.0 release (No SupportedFramework Fix required):
Profile 5 (.NET Framework 4, Windows 8)
Profile 6 (.NET Framework 4.0.3, Windows 8)
Profile 7 (.NET Framework 4.5, Windows 8) (netstandard 1.1)
Profile 14 (.NET Framework 4, Silverlight 5)
Profile 19 (.NET Framework 4.0.3, Silverlight 5)
Profile 24 (.NET Framework 4.5, Silverlight 5)
Profile 37 (.NET Framework 4, Silverlight 5, Windows 8)
Profile 42 (.NET Framework 4.0.3, Silverlight 5, Windows 8)
Profile 47 (.NET Framework 4.5, Silverlight 5, Windows 8)
Profile 49 (.NET Framework 4.5, Windows Phone Silverlight 8) (netstandard 1.0)
Profile 78 (.NET Framework 4.5, Windows 8, Windows Phone Silverlight 8) (netstandard 1.0)
Profile 92 (.NET Framework 4, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1)
Profile 102 (.NET Framework 4.0.3, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1)
Profile 111 (.NET Framework 4.5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1) (netstandard 1.1)
Profile 136 (.NET Framework 4, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
Profile 147 (.NET Framework 4.0.3, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
Profile 158 (.NET Framework 4.5, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
Profile 225 (.NET Framework 4, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1)
Profile 255 (.NET Framework 4.5, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1)
Profile 259 (.NET Framework 4.5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
Profile 328 (.NET Framework 4, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows Phone Silverlight 8) (netstandard 1.0)
Profile 336 (.NET Framework 4.0.3, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
Profile 344 (.NET Framework 4.5, Silverlight 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
Now what profile should you choose?
My advice:
- If you're starting a brand new cross platform mobile .NET app today and looking to use a PCL for common code in your app, you should probably use Profile 111 as it offers access to a lot of APIs not available in the other profiles.
- If you're creating a library for consumption by a broad range of existing cross platform mobile .NET applications, you should look at Profile 259 as it has broad reach and access to .NET 4.5 functionality.