Introducing .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI)

.NET MAUI is:

• Multi-platform native UI
• Deploy to multiple devices across mobile & desktop
• Using a single project, single codebase
• Evolution of Xamarin.Forms
• .NET 6

Build Status

Private	Public

Maui.sln

SDKS required

• Install the SDKs listed here https://github.com/xamarin/net6-samples

• And/or run the following

dotnet tool install Cake.Tool -g

Running

IDE

• If you have Visual Studio 16.9 P4 installed you can open Maui.sln and run it from there.

.NET 6

You can run a Cake target to bootstrap .NET 6 in bin\dotnet and launch Visual Studio:

dotnet cake --target=VS-NET6

NOTE: VS Mac is not yet supported.

You can also run commands individually:

# Provision .NET 6 in bin\dotnet
dotnet build src\DotNet\DotNet.csproj
# Builds Maui MSBuild tasks
.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build Microsoft.Maui.BuildTasks-net6.sln
# Builds the rest of Maui
.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build Microsoft.Maui-net6.sln
# (Windows-only) to launch Visual Studio
.\eng\dogfood.ps1

To build & run .NET 6 sample apps, you will also need to use .\bin\dotnet\dotnet:

.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build src\Controls\samples\Controls.Sample.Droid\Maui.Controls.Sample.Droid-net6.csproj -t:Run
.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build src\Controls\samples\Controls.Sample.iOS\Maui.Controls.Sample.iOS-net6.csproj -t:Run

Try out a "single project", you will need the -f switch to choose the platform:

.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build src\Controls\samples\Controls.Sample.SingleProject\Maui.Controls.Sample.SingleProject.csproj -t:Run -f net6.0-android --no-restore
.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build src\Controls\samples\Controls.Sample.SingleProject\Maui.Controls.Sample.SingleProject.csproj -t:Run -f net6.0-ios --no-restore

Note that --no-restore is a workaround until dotnet#15485 is fixed in a future preview.

Current News

April 9, 2021 - Announcing .NET Multi-platform App UI Preview 3

April 9, 2021 - Xamarin Podcast - .NET MAUI Q&A

March 11, 2021 - Announcing .NET 6 Preview 2

Watch our March 2021 .NET Community Standup report for the latest information about our progress on .NET MAUI and .NET 6.

Additional live streams and presentations:

• February 25, 2021 - David Ortinau and Maddy Leger at .NET Conf: Focus on Windows: The Future of Client App Development in .NET 6
• January 28, 2021 - David Ortinau at .NET Frontend Day: A .NET MAUI Progress Report
• September 19, 2020 - Shane Neuville at ReactiveUI Virtual Conference: Dual Screen, .NET MAUI, and RxUI
• October 3, 2020 - James Clancey at Xamarin Expert Day: .NET MAUI MVU
• October 3, 2020 - David Ortinau at Xamarin Expert Day: Introducing .NET MAUI
• December 2, 2020 - Javier Suarez Ruiz at MonkeyConf: .NET MAUI Handlers (Spanish)

Status: Active Development

While Xamarin.Forms continues to be actively supported through November 2022, we are making evolutionary changes based on customer research of what would be most beneficial. Current areas of focus are:

• Porting renderers to handlers (spec)
• Adapting layouts for handlers
• WinUI 3 preview 3 early spike (branch)
• Mac Catalyst early evaluation (wiki)

Active development is happening today to build Android and iOS SDKs against .NET 6. Samples may be found here.

Goals

• Improve app performance
• Improve simplicity of control extensibility
• Improve simplicity of contributing
• Enable developer options to use Model-View-Update (MVU) and Blazor

Roadmap

.NET MAUI and mobile SDK support will ship in concert with .NET 6. At present we do not have a shipping schedule for .NET 6.

Milestones

• .NET MAUI previews Q4 2020 through Q3 2021
  • Renderer architecture revisions
  • Source solution and project simplification
  • Complete approved proposals
  • Implement MVU (experimental)
• .NET MAUI release candidate September 2021
• .NET MAUI general availability November 2021

Xamarin.Forms vs .NET MAUI

	Xamarin.Forms	.NET MAUI
Platforms
Android	API 19+	API 21+
iOS	9-15	10+
Linux	Community	Community
macOS	Community	Microsoft
Tizen	Samsung	Samsung
Windows	UWP Microsoft WPF Community	Microsoft*
Features
Renderers	Tightly coupled to BindableObject	Loosely coupled, no Xamarin.Forms dependencies
App Models	MVVM	MVVM
	RxUI	RxUI
		MVU **
		Blazor **
Single Project	No	Yes
Multi-targeting	No	Yes
Multi-window	No	Yes
Misc
.NET	Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android, Mono, .NET Framework, ...	.NET 6+
XAML Hot Reload	Experimental: SDK 4.x & Visual Studio 2019 prior to version 16.9 Feature Complete: SDK 5.x & Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9 or newer	Yes
.NET Hot Reload	iOS/Android – No UWP – Limited support for runtime edits using .NET “Edit & Continue”	Yes
Acquisition	NuGet & Visual Studio Installer	dotnet
Project System	Franken-proj	SDK Style
dotnet CLI	No	Yes
Tools
Visual Studio 2019	Yes	Yes
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac	Yes	Yes
Visual Studio Code	No	Experimental***

^* The Windows implementation is expected to be WinUI 3, pending GA release.

^** These app models are experimental.

^*** Visual Studio Code will work by virtue of .NET unification, however not all experiences that make .NET MAUI development delightful (intellisense for example) may be enabled at the time of .NET 6 release.

FAQs

Do you have questions? Do not worry, we have prepared a complete FAQ answering the most common questions.

How to Engage, Contribute, and Give Feedback

Some of the best ways to contribute are to try things out, file issues, join in design conversations, and make pull-requests. Proposals for changes specific to MAUI can be found here for discussion.

See CONTRIBUTING

Code of conduct

See CODE-OF-CONDUCT