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.NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

avaloniaui.net

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Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#111

Post by LeFantome »

lpln3452 wrote: post #77

If it runs on Avalonia anyway why choose MAUI? If you have the option just use Avalonia. MAUI is unfinished and its docs is awful. Do you want to build an app using MAUI? Unless you build an app that barely deviates from the template, expect to desperately search through decade old Xamarin documentation and figure out the details through painful trial and error. Good luck.

They addressed this.

It is a way to get people choosing the "official" path (ie. choosing MAUI) to experience Avalonia. They are hoping you come for the MAUI and stay for the Avalonia and become an Avalonia developer.

As for, why choose the Avalonia version of MAUI, there are three reasons: - Linux support (the big one I think) - Drawn framework (same renderer on all platforms) - WASM support (probably useful sometimes but not the real draw)

They are making a big deal of WASM here because it is easy to demo. We can all go into it and run it. But do we want to use it for our apps?

As for, why not Avalonia directly? To loop back to the beginning, it is because you do not yet know Avalonia and trust it. The Avalonia team is hoping this helps with that.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#112

Post by LeFantome »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #29

A toolkit announcing “Linux support” is pretty ambiguous. Does it mean Xorg support? Wayland support? Framebuffer support? The announcement provides no clue about this.

They are not announcing Linux support for Avalonia. It has long supported Linux.

What they are announcing is being able to run MAUI on Avalonia such that you can run your MAUI apps on any Avalonia supported target. This includes both Linux and WASM, neither of which is supported by MAUI directly.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#113

Post by munchler »

lpln3452 wrote: post #77

If it runs on Avalonia anyway why choose MAUI? If you have the option just use Avalonia. MAUI is unfinished and its docs is awful. Do you want to build an app using MAUI? Unless you build an app that barely deviates from the template, expect to desperately search through decade old Xamarin documentation and figure out the details through painful trial and error. Good luck.

This is what mystifies me about this announcement. Avalonia already works fine on Linux, allowing anyone to build a cross-platform .NET GUI application.

MAUI is supposed to be a wrapper around native widgets. The fact that they had to use Avalonia under the covers to get it to work on Linux seems to defeat the point. (Avalonia is a complete UI toolkit, like Qt or Flutter, that owns the entire stack from XAML to pixels.)

https://avaloniaui.net/maui-compare

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#114

Post by LeFantome »

maxrmk wrote: post #27

Took more than a minute to load on my macbook. Ouch! I really love C# and the .net ecosystem, but they just haven't made it work for web.

.NET works amazingly on the web. This is just not the UI framework you would use.

There is ASP.NET of course and Razor Pages. We all use apps built with these every day without even realizing it. There are other great frameworks as well.

I do not even see Blazor as a real web technology but of course it is positioned that way.

MAUI is a "cross-platform" and frankly mobile first UI framework. It was never meant for the web.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#115

Post by oaiey »

mattfrommars wrote: post #25

In the .NET ecosystem, I have noticed people to shame .NET MAUI because Microsoft themselves don't use this framework - Microsoft Team is built on Electron and not MAUI. Why build a product on MAUI when Microsoft aren't too sure about it.

The answer to that is well known: Windows division builds WinUI/Win32 as their native C++/COM API, Office division went to React on their path to the web and the dev division fills gaps (WPF) and provides tools for external and internal devs (Maui for cross platform uis).

It is history not the lack of will. At one point the windows division was in shambles (remember vista) and WPF pops up. At another point, the windows and dev division have no answers to the office group (because you know who uses non win tech) so they went react. And then external devs screamed: where is the .net cross platform story so Microsoft acquired xamarin and later form Maui out of it.

It is history not lack of trust. But the outcome is the same: lackluster support for all UI toolkits.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#116

Post by LeFantome »

weq wrote: post #64

It seems like alot of people in this thread dont undestand the dotnet stack. MAUI, Native UIs, and WASM are all interchangable. Your cross platform app could literly be built out of everyone of of these components at once. MAUI is not required for use-cases generally when you have a webUI, its really targetting at the simple UI, write-once, run anywhere crowd. Once you outgrow it, you can move to native integrations…

I agree that, despite all the complaining, code re-use and longevity on .NET is second to none.

Where there is intense confusion in these comments is in thinking that MAUI is a web application framework. MAUI is "cross-platform" as you say but really mobile first with desktop brought along for the ride. It is in no-way intended to be a web application tech.

Avalonia has created an Avalonia back-end for MAUI which means running MAUI apps wherever Avalonia is supported, and that includes WASM. So now you can run MAUI apps in a browser. You can but that does not make MAUI web tech.

I can run Windows 95 in a browser. That does not make Win32 a web API.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#118

Post by munchler »

LeFantome wrote: post #111
lpln3452 wrote: post #77

If it runs on Avalonia anyway why choose MAUI? If you have the option just use Avalonia. MAUI is unfinished and its docs is awful. Do you want to build an app using MAUI? Unless you build an app that barely deviates from the template, expect to desperately search through decade old Xamarin documentation and figure out the details through painful trial and error. Good luck.

They addressed this. It is a way to get people choosing the "official" path (ie. choosing MAUI) to experience Avalonia. They are hoping you come for the MAUI and stay for the Avalonia and become an Avalonia developer. As for, why choose the Avalonia version of MAUI, there are three reasons: - Linux support (the big one I think) - Drawn framework (same renderer on all platforms) - WASM support (probably useful sometim…

Thank you for explaining this. I didn't even realize this was an Avalonia project until you pointed it out. I like Avalonia (and love .NET in general), but I think the messaging on this needs a lot of work. Avalonia is creating unnecessary cognitive dissonance by emphasizing MAUI, which is a competing project after all.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#119

Post by fuzzzerd »

password4321 wrote: post #50
latentsea wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never build a frontend on a .NET technology. Period. They always end up unsupported in the end. Just use standard web technologies and thank yourself later. I've been a .NET dev for a decade now and that's what I've learnt.

Except WinForms, spectacular for Windows-only utility GUIs.

> spectacular

Not exactly the word I'd use, since it really hasn't changed since VB4, but it's definitely reliable and stable.

Re: .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

#120

Post by LeFantome »

js4ever wrote: post #4

Too little, too late. Desktop apps are mostly dead.

MAUI is first and foremost a mobile UI framework. It was built for iOS and Android. The desktop is added on as a bonus so that you can target macOS and Windows as well.

If you are building a Windows desktop application though, Microsoft does not want you to use MAUI. You use MAUI because iOS and Android are your top platforms and you want to target macOS and Windows without writing dedicated applications.

Linux has always been missing. This Avalonia port fills that gap.

You would not target the web with MAUI either. I guess "you can" now because WASM is one of the platforms that Avalonia supports. Again, I guess you might if you already have a MAUI app and do not want to create one for the web. But you would never set out to create a MAUI app for the web.

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