.NET MAUI All-in-One Templates - Support for NuGet CPM and Nightly Builds
Firstly, .NET MAUI 9 Preview 5 has just been released. The changelog can be found here. Notably, a new Blazor Hybrid Web template has been introduced in this version.
In short, this new template abstracts the Razor components into a distinct Razor Class Library (RCL). Furthermore, it provides the ability to create Blazor Web projects within the same solution and refers to the shared RCL.
The concept of abstracting the Razor components is already facilitated by the Hybrid project templates within the All-in-One template pack.
dotnet new mauiapp -o MyApp -dp Hybrid -rcl
Will review the modifications and cover them in a distinct article.
Abstracts the Shared components as a separate .NET MAUI Class Library
As we all know .NET MAUI is an evolution of Xamarin.Forms. The underlying architecture transitioned from Renderers to Handlers. The project structure is unified. But for the projects that are getting migrated and developers coming from Xamarin.Forms background would feel at home with the classic multi-project solution structure.
To effectively support this, the All-in-One project templates introduced an option to abstract the Shared components as a separate .NET MAUI Class Library.
The topic for this June month’s .NET MAUI community standup is VS Code Updates.
Of late, VS Code has incorporated many new features, such as XAML IntelliSense and Hot Reload, as the end of support for VS for Mac is quickly approaching (Aug 31, 2024).
Update: The community links for this month’s standup are here.
David highlighted using MAUI Nightly Builds in the standup. Projects in the All-in-One templates pack already support utilizing the Nightly builds from version 4.6 onwards. However, setting up the package source from the CI feed involves a few manual steps as detailed in the earlier article.
But, automation is the need of the hour. The upcoming release of templates pack v5.6, scheduled for this week, will streamline the process by eliminating manual steps, ensuring seamless functionality when selecting the Nightly builds option upon project creation. Cool 😊.
Update: v5.6 has just been released. Consult this article for further details.
Remember to join live on Thu, Jun 6 at 17:00 UTC. Click the link to access the timing in your local/preferred time zone. Note, it’s back at the same time.
Happy coding. Stay connected as we continue to learn and share the experiences from this exciting journey of being a .NET developer.
In a shocking revelation, Microsoft has announced the discontinuation of support for the Windows Subsystem for Android™️ (WSA). Consequently, from Wed, Mar 5, 2025, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all associated applications and games reliant on WSA will no longer receive support.
Effective Mar 6, 2024, Amazon Appstore will no longer be available for download on Windows 11 devices via Microsoft Store. 😞
Windows Subsystem for Android - Advanced Settings - Developer Mode
Windows Subsystem for Android™️ (WSA) enables your Windows 11 device to run Android applications.
Even though optimization techniques such as Intel HAXM are available, there is a marginal performance tradeoff when using the Android Emulator.
The Subsystem has been designed to function as an integral OS component, providing superior performance compared to the Android Emulator.
From my perspective, the only drawback of using WSA is the lack of support for Google Play Services (as it works with Amazon Appstore). So any apps that rely on those services, WSA might not be the best fit. So continue to use the Android Emulator or the Physical device.
VS Code - .NET MAUI - Select Startup Project and Debug Target
In August 2023, Microsoft made an official announcement regarding the retirement of Visual Studio for Mac, scheduled to take place by August 31, 2024 (in another 6 months), as stated in a blog post here.
In the same blog post, Visual Studio Code along with the C# Dev Kit is projected as a viable alternative for cross-platform .NET development. For further information on the C# Dev Kit, refer to this article.
And for .NET MAUI too, there’s an officially supported extension hosted on VS Marketplace. To know more about this, take a look at this article. C# Dev Kit is a dependency for this .NET MAUI extension.
In light of the recent announcements, the article has been updated to incorporate info on support for JetBrains Rider IDE at the conclusion.
Even though the All-in-One item templates have the same set of features in VS2022 and on the CLI. The CLI has its own limitations and here are the notable ones:
The namespace resolution is not on par with its VS counterpart
On CLI – Defaults to the root namespace
Whereas in VS to the exact folder where the item is created
A lot of (repeated) typing is required
The underlying reason is CLI’s named parameters design
Windows Forms and WPF are proven solid frameworks for creating high-performance Windows desktop client applications.
Blazor, a framework for full-stack web development with C# and Razor.
When these two technologies come together, then it’s certainly a delight for the .NET developers as it paves the way to leverage the skills they’re already familiar with and an option to modernize the existing applications.
Yes, another RC in such a short span of two weeks’ time. A more polished version and most importantly Samsung Tizen joins the .NET MAUI bandwagon. And it seems one more RC to follow before the GA release later this month.
