Sands of MAUI: Issue #156

Welcome to the Sands of MAUI—newsletter-style issues dedicated to bringing together the latest .NET MAUI content relevant to developers.

A particle of sand—tiny and innocuous. But put a lot of sand particles together and we have something big—a force to reckon with. It is the smallest grains of sand that often add up to form massive beaches, dunes and deserts.

.NET developers are excited with the reality of .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI)—the evolution of modern .NET cross-platform developer technology stack. With stable tooling and a rich ecosystem, .NET MAUI empowers developers to build native cross-platform apps for mobile/desktop from single shared codebase, while inviting web technologies in the mix.

While it may take a long flight to reach the sands of MAUI island, developer excitement around .NET MAUI is quite palpable with all the created content. Like the grains of sand, every piece of news/article/documentation/video/tutorial/livestream contributes toward developer experiences in .NET MAUI and we grow a community/ecosystem willing to learn and help.

Sands of MAUI is a humble attempt to collect all the .NET MAUI awesomeness in one place. Here’s what is noteworthy for the week of August 26, 2024:

.NET 9 Update

.NET is constantly evolving and the next big milestone is already cooking. Following the successful launch of .NET 8 last November, .NET is back on its annual release cycle—say hello to .NET 9 with Preview 7 now out. Comprehensive release notes highlight most of the enhancements in .NET 9 Preview 7 across .NET Libraries, Runtime and SDKs. Set to be released at .NET Conf in November 2024, .NET 9 focuses on client apps, cloud-native apps and intelligent app development.

Developers can expect significant investments in performance, productivity and security, as well as advancements across the .NET platform. Tooling will get better with Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code with the C# Dev Kit, and cloud deployments will get easier using Azure services. Microsoft will continue to work with developers looking for ways to use C# skills to build next generation of intelligent apps, and to rapidly invest in AI.

Along with .NET 9 Preview 7 release come fresh new bits for .NET MAUI. The team is continuing work on core fundamentals of the .NET MAUI SDK to improve overall product quality. The .NET MAUI bits for .NET 9 Preview 7 introduces HybridWebView—a smart web view for hosting web content and enabling easy communication between .NET and JS. Additional enhancements include native platform Handlers, MainPage being obsolete, UI performance tuning, app lifecycle hooks and UI enhancements throughout the framework. Developers can get started with Preview 7 today—.NET 9 promises great things for the ecosystem.

VS Code Extensions

.NET MAUI is the evolution of modern .NET cross-platform development stack, allowing developers to reach mobile and desktop form factors from single shared codebase. With increased stability and a rich ecosystem, there are lots more developers building cross-platform apps with .NET MAUI—many seeking consistent building experiences from Windows/macOS/Linux developer machines. The answer is Visual Studio Code, and the .NET MAUI developer experience in VS Code is constantly getting better. James Montemagno produced a video that might help—essential Extensions for .NET MAUI development in VS Code.

VS Code is the uber-popular lightweight code editor that works seamlessly across Windows/macOS/Linux—it brings a rich Extensions ecosystem and provides consistency of developer experiences. James begins with the basics of showing of VS Code Profiles—various Extensions can selected to support certain types of development. The must-have for cross-platform mobile/desktop development is the .NET MAUI Extension—built on top of C# Dev Kit and the C# extension, which brings in a Solution Explorer, C# Hot Reload, powerful C# IntelliSense and much more.

James walks through a list of various other VS Code Extensions that help with .NET MAUI development—like for easy launching of iOS/Android simulators, Apple Privacy Manifest editors and easy archival/publishing of .NET MAUI apps. With all the right Extensions, VS Code is the defacto cross-platform editor for .NET MAUI development, and James showcases the ideal .NET MAUI development/debugging/deployment experience in VS Code for streamlined developer productivity.

Reusable Components

.NET MAUI is built to enable .NET developers to create cross-platform apps for Android, iOS, macOS and Windows, with deep native integrations, platform-native UI and hybrid experiences. Real-world mobile/desktop apps, however, often need complex UI—they also need to be heavily customizable and reusable throughout the app. Thankfully, .NET MAUI offers the functionality to enable developers to combine content views with bindable properties toward reusable UI, and Héctor Pérez wrote up an excellent article—bindable properties and control templates in .NET MAUI.

Hector starts off with a piece of reusable ContentView—a custom control to show download progress, with a LinearProgressBar from Progress Telerik UI for .NET MAUI lighting up the UI. Developers need to able to control both the appearance and behavior custom controls—this can be achieved by combining content views with bindable properties.

Hector dives into the mechanics of defining a bindable property—this allows extending a Common Language Runtime (CLR) property by using a BindableProperty type instead of a field. Such properties can then be used for data binding, for assigning default values, validating property values and adding callbacks to execute actions when property values change. Hector showcases the developer experience of defining bindable properties for the downloader UI component, and then binding it to observable data to demonstrate usage—kudos for the solid writeup.

Community Standup

The .NET MAUI team hosts monthly Community Standup livestreams to celebrate all things .NET MAUI and provide updates—a wonderful way to bring the developer community together. David Ortinau and TJ Lambert hosted the August .NET MAUI Community Standup, with special guest Matt Goldman, with the topic easy to guess—MAUI UI July.

After the usual coverage of community contributions and platform updates, it was time to bring on Matt to talk about the MAUI UI July initiative. Based on an idea originally started for Xamarin by Steven Thewissen, MAUI UI July is a month-long community-driven event where anyone got to share enthusiasm and passion for .NET MAUI.

MAUI UI July happened throughout July 2024 and saw some incredible contributions from the .NET MAUI developer community. Inspiration comes easy when you see others pull off awesome UI with .NET MAUI cross-platform apps. Kudos to Matt for running with MAUI UI July—a wonderful platform for .NET MAUI developers to learn from each other.

.NET Conf: Focus on AI

It is the age of artificial intelligence. AI is slowly changing the way we live and work, and AI’s popularity is driving adoption in enterprise and consumer apps. AI presents a huge opportunity for .NET developers to infuse apps with solutions powered by Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). There was a big learning opportunity recently for .NET developers—.NET Conf: Focus on AI happened on August 20, 2024.

.NET Conf: Focus is a series of smaller live events that are delivered throughout the year, each focusing on specific things developers can do with modern .NET. On August 20, .NET Conf: Focus on AI took a stab at lowering the barrier to entry toward leveraging AI. Topics included AI models, RAG and Semantic Search, integrating LLMs into .NET Blazor/Aspire apps and real-world stories from customers.

Sessions were delivered by wonderful speakers who took time to introduce concepts, before diving deep into the world of AI, exploring how .NET developers can leverage AI libraries and features to build smarter applications, enhance productivity and provide better user experiences. This one-day virtual event was packed with insightful sessions from industry experts and community leaders—a must-watch for any .NET developer looking to enhance their apps with modern AI.

That’s it for now.

We’ll see you next week with more awesome content relevant to .NET MAUI.

Cheers developers!