.NET MAUI Cross-Platform Application Development. Leverage a first-class cross-platform UI framework to build native apps on multiple platforms

400 Pages·2023·4.741 MB·English

by  R. Ye

.NET MAUI Cross-Platform
Application Development
Leverage a first-class cross-platform UI framework to build
native apps on multiple platforms
Roger Ye
BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI
.NET MAUI Cross-Platform Application Development
Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing
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First published: February 2023
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ISBN 978-1-80056-922-5
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To my family: my wife Bo Quan and my daughter Yuxin Ye,
and the memory of my father and my mother.
– Roger Ye
Contributors
About the author
Roger Ye is a software engineering manager who has worked in the software industry for many years.
Roger started his career as a software engineer in embedded system development at companies such
as Motorola, Emerson, and Intersil. During this period, he wrote two books about embedded system
programming, Embedded Programming with Android and Android System Programming.
In 2013, Roger joined McAfee as a software engineering manager. He recently started working at
EPAM Systems, moving from system programming to application programming. His first book on
application programming is on .NET MAUI.
I want to thank the team at Packt, who worked very hard with me to keep to schedule.
About the reviewers
Glenn Stephens is a software developer and product designer, implementing solutions for the mobile-,
desktop-, and cloud-centered worlds we all live in. Glenn has worked in many different roles, such
as managing director, chief executive officer, solution architect, software development manager, and
programmer; has worked in fields spanning high-end security, e-health, education, and finance; and
has won several awards along the way. Glenn has a bachelor’s degree in computer science, an MBA
with a specialization in e-business, and a Graduate Certificate in Arts in theatre and performance.
He considers himself a lifelong learner.  
An author, speaker, and product builder, he has been writing code since the 80s, with the musical
taste to match. When he’s not working, he enjoys playing the piano, reading, and spending time with
his children.  
Rohit Vinod Kelkar is an artist, a techie, and an experienced mobile application developer who is
enthusiastic about cross-platform mobile application technologies. He has expertise in technologies
such as Xamarin, Flutter, native iOS, and .NET as a full stack developer. He was an early adopter of
.NET MAUI and works with a community of developers to share updates and blog about the technology.
He also shares an interest in consulting and helping products in their initial stages. 
Siddharth Singh has over 12 years of software development experience, having worked on a variety
of platforms such as Windows, web, and mobile applications. Having worked at Expedia, Adobe,
and Salesforce, his experience ranges from COM-/ASP-based legacy apps to React/ASP.NET Core
modern applications. While working on Xamarin apps, he developed a passion for the Microsoft
cross-platform framework. 
He currently works at Microsoft as a senior developer for Azure Data Factory, writing data integration
applications. When not at work, you can find him reading about theoretical computer science and
artificial general intelligence.

Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Part 1: Exploring .NET MAUI
1
Getting Started with .NET MAUI 3
An overview of cross-platform Using Xamarin for mobile development 9
technologies 3
Xamarin.Forms 10
Native applications 4 Xamarin.Essentials 10
Web applications 4
Moving to .NET MAUI 12
Backend services 4
.NET MAUI Blazor apps 14
Cross-platform technologies 4
Choosing XAML versus Razor in .NET MAUI 15
A comparison of .NET, Java, and JavaScript 5
Development environment setup 15
Exploring the .NET landscape 7
Installing .NET MAUI on Windows 16
.NET Framework 7
Installing .NET MAUI on macOS 17
Mono 7
.NET Core 8 What you will learn in this book 19
.NET Standard and portable class libraries 8 The app that we will build in this book 19
Summary 20
Further reading 20
2
Building Our First .NET MAUI App 21
Technical requirements 21 Setting up a new .NET MAUI project 23
Managing the source code in this book 21 Creating a new project using Visual Studio 23
viii Table of Contents
Creating a new project using the dotnet Building and debugging 43
command 27 Windows 44
App startup and lifecycle 27 Android 44
iOS and macOS 45
Lifecycle management 29
Scaffolding a Model-View-
Configuring the resources 36
ViewModel project 47
App icon 37
Migrating and reusing a Shell template from
Splash screen 37
Xamarin.Forms 49
Setting custom font icons 38
Visual Studio project template 54
Summary 56
3
User Interface Design with XAML 57
Technical requirements 58 Stacked 69
Creating a XAML page 58 Controls in .NET MAUI 70
Layouts in .NET MAUI 71
XAML syntax 60
Navigation in the master-detail UI design 74
Element 60
Attribute 62 Supporting multiple languages –
XML namespaces and XAML namespaces 62 localization 81
Creating a .resx file 81
XAML markup extensions 66
Localizing text 83
Master-detail UI design 67
Summary 85
Side-by-side 69
Further reading 86
4
Exploring MVVM and Data Binding 87
Technical requirements 87 Improving the data model and service 98
Understanding MVVM and MVC 88 KPCLib 99
MVVM in PassXYZ.Vault 89 PassXYZLib 102
Updating the model 103
Data binding 90
Updating the service 103
Binding mode 94
Changing notifications in viewmodels 96
Table of Contents ix
Binding to collections 104 Further reading 111
Summary 111
5
Navigation using .NET MAUI Shell and NavigationPage 113
Technical requirements 113 Tabs 122
Implementing navigation 114 Shell navigation 125
INavigation interface and NavigationPage 114 Improving our model 133
Using the navigation stack 115 Understanding the data model and its services 134
Manipulating the navigation stack 116 Improving the login process 137
Using Shell 117 The Command interface 140
Flyout 119 Summary 143
6
Introducing Dependency Injection and Platform-Specific Services 145
Technical requirements 145 Using built-in MS.DI DI service 151
A quick review of design principles 146 Connecting to the database 160
Exploring types of design principles 146 Initializing the database 162
Using design principles 147 Performing CRUD operations 163
Using DI 149 Summary 172
Dependency Service 149 Further reading 172
Part 2: Implementing .NET MAUI Blazor
7
Introducing Blazor Hybrid App Development 175
Technical requirements 175 Creating a new .NET MAUI Blazor
What is Blazor? 176 project 182
Learning about Blazor Server 176 Generating a .NET MAUI Blazor project with
the dotnet command line 183
Understanding Blazor Wasm 177
Exploring Blazor Hybrid 179