Xamarin Workbooks is intended to create various types of materials, such as guides and teaching aids, as it allows a combination of documentation and C# code in the same document. The tool is also useful for experimenting with various types of APIs for Console, iOS, Android and Mac. Luckily, there are multiple sample projects available online. However, its help documentation is not so good.
When you start Xamarin Workbooks you are prompted to choose the type of workbook you intend to create. Then, it opens a simulator specific for the framework you have chosen, which will let you get instant results of your work. There is also the code editor, which has most of the characteristics of similar tools, such as code completion, syntax coloring, inline live-diagnostics, and multi-line statement support. An important component of your project is Nugget Packages, which are intended to help you build native UIs for the selected framework from a single shared C# codebase. Fortunately, these packages are downloadable at no cost. Once you are done working, the results of your work can be shared as packages with the .workbook extension, which contain the actual workbooks in Markup language.
All in all, Xamarin Workbooks can create books that are enriched with code, which makes them perfect for experimenting, learning and teaching. The product is open-source and available for free. However, you should be aware that official builds of Xamarin Workbooks collect usage data and send it to Microsoft, which may affect your privacy. Moreover, it is a shame that the product has not been updated since 2018, which has led some to speculate about a possible death of this project.
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