News

.NET MAUI Release Candidate Ships with 'Go Live' Support

.NET MAUI, Microsoft's tardy "evolution" of Xamarin.Forms, has shipped as a Release Candidate with "go live" support for production-ready applications.

.NET Multi-platform App UI is tardy because it was supposed to ship with .NET 6 last November but "slipped the schedule," with the dev team playing catch-up ever since in a series of previews. .NET MAUI is expected to hit General Availability status next month.

The cross-platform development framework evolves the mobile-centric Xamarin.Forms with Windows and macOS desktop app support, adding to the Android and iOS platform SDK support. That opens up several new app building approaches, including Blazor Hybrid for creating interactive client-side web UI with .NET in an ASP.NET Core app.

Thus it has more than 40 layouts and controls, including all the Xamarin.Forms UI controls along with new ones such as BlazorWebView, Border, GraphicsView, MenuBar, Shadow and Window.

.NET MAUI
[Click on image for larger view.] .NET MAUI (source: Microsoft).

Now, developers who have been waiting some five months for production-ready .NET MAUI tooling can get it with the new Visual Studio 2022 v17.2 Preview 3 by making sure ".NET MAUI (preview)" is checked under the "Mobile Development with .NET workload" during installation.

Sample Podcasting App Running on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows
[Click on image for larger view.] Sample Podcasting App Running on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows (source: Microsoft).

Microsoft has already used it to build the .NET Podcasts - Sample Application (pictured above) on GitHub, running on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows while showcasing both native app UI as well as the aforementioned Blazor Hybrid. In response to a reader question, principal program manager David Ortinau even said he hopes the dev team for mobile Office applications will be strongly tempted to switch from React Native to .NET MAUI as the latter offering matures.

More information can be found in:

  • The project's release notes, which detail a whopping 200-plus "What's Changed" items in RC1
  • "Build your first app" documentation
  • "Migrating to RC1" guidance
  • A new .NET MAUI - Workshop that shows how to integrate native features while building a complete app
  • The April 12 announcement post

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

  • Full Stack Hands-On Development with .NET

    In the fast-paced realm of modern software development, proficiency across a full stack of technologies is not just beneficial, it's essential. Microsoft has an entire stack of open source development components in its .NET platform (formerly known as .NET Core) that can be used to build an end-to-end set of applications.

  • .NET-Centric Uno Platform Debuts 'Single Project' for 9 Targets

    "We've reduced the complexity of project files and eliminated the need for explicit NuGet package references, separate project libraries, or 'shared' projects."

  • Creating Reactive Applications in .NET

    In modern applications, data is being retrieved in asynchronous, real-time streams, as traditional pull requests where the clients asks for data from the server are becoming a thing of the past.

  • AI for GitHub Collaboration? Maybe Not So Much

    No doubt GitHub Copilot has been a boon for developers, but AI might not be the best tool for collaboration, according to developers weighing in on a recent social media post from the GitHub team.

  • Visual Studio 2022 Getting VS Code 'Command Palette' Equivalent

    As any Visual Studio Code user knows, the editor's command palette is a powerful tool for getting things done quickly, without having to navigate through menus and dialogs. Now, we learn how an equivalent is coming for Microsoft's flagship Visual Studio IDE, invoked by the same familiar Ctrl+Shift+P keyboard shortcut.

Most   Popular

Subscribe on YouTube