.NET MAUI Documentation

.NET MAUI: A Unified Cross-Platform Development Framework

Welcome to the overview of .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI), the evolution of Xamarin.Forms. .NET MAUI is an open-source, cross-platform framework for creating native mobile and desktop applications with C# and XAML from a single, shared codebase.

What is .NET MAUI?

.NET MAUI allows you to build applications for:

• Android
• iOS
• macOS (with Mac Catalyst)
• Windows

It simplifies cross-platform development by providing a unified API to access native UI controls and platform-specific features across all target platforms. This means you can write your application logic and UI once and deploy it everywhere, significantly reducing development time and maintenance effort.

Key Features

• Single Project Architecture: Manage all your platform-specific code, resources, and project settings within a single .NET project.
• Native UI Controls: .NET MAUI renders native UI controls on each platform, ensuring your app looks and feels native to the user.
• XAML Support: Leverage the declarative XAML language for designing your user interfaces, offering a powerful and flexible way to build UIs.
• C# and .NET: Utilize the full power of the C# language and the .NET ecosystem, including access to NuGet packages and modern C# features.
• Platform Extensibility: Easily extend your application with platform-specific code when needed, without compromising the shared codebase.
• Modern Development: Built on .NET 6 and beyond, .NET MAUI benefits from the performance improvements and features of the latest .NET releases.

How it Works

.NET MAUI abstracts the native UI frameworks of each target platform. When you define your UI using XAML or C#, .NET MAUI translates these definitions into the corresponding native UI elements at runtime. For example:

<Button Text="Click Me" Clicked="OnButtonClicked" />

This XAML element will be rendered as a native Button on Android, a UIButton on iOS and macOS, and a Button on Windows.

Getting Started

To start building your first .NET MAUI application, you'll need to have the .NET SDK installed, along with the .NET MAUI workload. You can install the workload using the .NET CLI:

dotnet workload install maui

Then, you can create a new project using Visual Studio or the .NET CLI.

Common Scenarios

• Enterprise Applications: Build internal business applications that need to run on multiple devices and operating systems.
• Consumer Applications: Develop engaging user-facing apps for app stores.
• Prototyping: Quickly prototype ideas and validate them across different platforms.

Conclusion

.NET MAUI empowers developers to create beautiful, high-performance native applications for a wide range of platforms from a single code base. Its modern architecture, extensive features, and deep integration with the .NET ecosystem make it an excellent choice for cross-platform development.