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Xamarin.GradleBindings - Adding Java libs to Xamarin.Android is as simple as "Adding Reference" in VS.

Link to extensions gallery: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/3a3257c7-473a-4790-9610-9a561eed0b8c

How do java developers add dependencies to their projects? Yes that's right, via gradle (something like this or that). As you can see some java-projects use those dependencies a lot so it'd be nice to use those huge amount of 3rd party libraries in your Xamarin project, right? I believe this Add-in for Visual Studio 2017 will help you with it:

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How to use

Step 1: Execute the command over "References" folder

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Step 2: Set an external dependency id and a name for Xamarin Android Binding Project (will be generated). This dialog will allow you to specify custom repositories as well soon.

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The Plugin executes gradle scripts and receives dependencies list (including transitive ones). At this step you can select or deselect needed binaries (transitive dependencies are deselected by default). NOTE: you'd better use "Xamarin Components" or directly NuGet for Support dependencies (v4, RecyclerView, AppCompact, etc..).

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Step 3: The binding project will be generated but you still may have to fix some issues via Metadata.xml because the Add-in is not smart enough. For our example you will have to change visibility of DialogBase class because it's private in Java and C# doesn't support deriving public classes from private ones. So just add it to the Transforms/Metadata.xml (more info here):

<attr path="/api/package[@name='com.afollestad.materialdialogs']/class[@name='DialogBase']" name="visibility">public</attr>

Step 4: Now you are ready to use them! i.e. the Material Dialogs:

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Enjoy!