Maui-Gen

Maui-Gen is a template based code generator for building the scaffolding needed for a data driven .Net Maui application. Using a data schema to describe the required data fields, Maui-Gen then generates the Models, Views, View model and List, edit, detail pages, populated with form elements needed to edit and read the data from the model, as well as SqlLite Crud service for data storage and retrieval. Maui-Gen also creates supporting files and injects singleton and route data where needed.

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introduction

After moving one of my Xamarin app over to Maui I found myself staring from scratch and this meant recreating Models Model Views Pages ect. I found this to be time consuming i did speed up the process a bit by creating templates but this only worked as a staring point and still had to edit to fit the requirement.

So i decided to write Maui-Gen a tool to help save time writing underlying code needed for Maui data entry forms. I found this a really useful tool so i decided to put it out there for other to use.

Its not pretty or well polished but more of a proof of concept. If there is the interest, then will look at investing the time.

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Warning

You can apply changes directly to a .net Maui project but at this point i would strongly advised to only do this on a newly created project, so that it does not break your hard work or make sure your project is back up so can restore it.

Use at you own risk on existing project.

a safer option is to generate the code to a new folder and then copy the files over.

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When to use Maui-Gen

• When you need to create data entry forms in a .NET Maui application

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Requirements

Maui-Gen Cli

you will need to install go 1.20 https://go.dev/doc/install

.NET Maui development environment

Below are the tools you will need to create and build a .NET Maui application. The MAUI App Accelerator will install the required components such as Maui Community Tool Kit, SQLlite that Maui-Gen needs.

Visual Studio

• Visual Studio 2022 community
• MAUI App Accelerator Addon, Make setting up project easier

Nuget Packages to add to project

• sqlite-net-pcl
• SQLitePCLRaw.core
• SQLitePCLRaw.bundle_green
• SQLitePCLRaw.provider.sqlite3
• SQLitePCLRaw.provider.dynamic_cdecl
• SQLiteNetExtensions
• SQLiteNetExtensions.Async

How to install

Below are the steps required to install and configure maui-gen ready for use.

1. Install maui-gen

To install Maui-gen run the command below

go install github.com/Mrpye/maui-gen

2. Copy templates to the home directory

Run the command below, this will copy the templates to your home directory so that you can add your own customization and look at some data schema examples.

maui-gen init all

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How to use Maui-Gen

Below will take you thought the steps needed to be performed so that the code genrated by Maui-Gen will run.

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Create a New .NET MAUI Project and configure

First you will need to create a new project in Visual Studio using the MAUI App Accelerator this will install the required components and setup your project ready for Maui-gen.

1. Create a new .Net Maui project in Visual Studio

Open Visual Studio and create a new project this will start the project selection menu.

2. Create project using MAUI App Accelerator

Select the MAUI App Accelerator to start the project wizard.

3. Configure the MAUI Project

Enter the project name and solution name.

• Make a note of the path where the project will be created
• Also solution Name this will be the namespace we will use later.

4. Select the version of .NET to use

Select the .NET version to use either .Net 6 or .NET 7.

5. Select MVVM Toolkit as the coding style

Select the MVVM Toolkit

6. Select Flyout Menu for Navigation Style

You can select Flyout or Tabs

7. Click next on Pages

You can just click next on the pages.

8. Configure Features

Add the following libraries:

• MAUI Community Toolkit
• sqllite-net-pcl

9. click Next to create the project

MAUI App Accelerator will create the project

10. Add the route comment to the project

So that Maui-gen knows where to inject the route code it uses the following comment

//<%REGISTER_ROUTE%>

• You will need to add this to the file AppShell.xaml.cs
• Add the comment just below the InitializeComponent and save changes.

public partial class AppShell : Shell
{
	public AppShell()
	{
		InitializeComponent();

        //<%REGISTER_ROUTE%>
    }
}

11. Add the singleton comment

So that Maui-gen knows where to inject the singleton code it uses the following comment

//<%REGISTER_SINGLETON%

• You will need to add this to the file AppShell.xaml.cs
• Add the comment just below the builder.Services.AddSingleton<MainViewModel(); and save changes.

public static class MauiProgram {
    public static MauiApp CreateMauiApp() {
        var builder = MauiApp.CreateBuilder();
        builder
           .UseMauiApp<App()
            .UseMauiCommunityToolkit()
            .ConfigureFonts(fonts = {
                fonts.AddFont("OpenSans-Regular.ttf", "OpenSansRegular");
                fonts.AddFont("OpenSans-Semibold.ttf", "OpenSansSemibold");
            });

        builder.Services.AddSingleton<MainViewModel();

       //<%REGISTER_SINGLETON%

        builder.Services.AddSingleton<MainPage();

        return builder.Build();
    }
}

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Use Maui-gen to build the data forms using specified schema.

1. Set the output directory

First we need to tell Maui-gen where to output the generated code to. In this case we are pointing it to the DemoMauiApp created earlier.

Note! Make sure it is the directory where all the code is, see below.

Run the following command to set the output directory. This is where Maui-gen will output the code to.

Adjust the path to point to your project.

maui-gen set output "C:\projects\Net\DemoMauiApp\DemoMauiApp"

2. Set the data schema to use

Under your home directory where the Maui-gen templates are saved are some example schemas. we are going to set maui-gen to use one of these schemas.

maui-gen set schema "C:\Users\[user]\.maui-gen\examples\person_and_pet.yaml"

3. Check the paths are correct

You can check what paths are set by using the following command this will open the config file in notepad.

maui-gen set edit

4. Install Nuget Packages

You will need to install the following packages into the project.

• Use the maui-gen install tool

maui-gen nuget install --output [project_path]

• Or if you set the output using the maui-gen set output then you can just use

maui-gen nuget install

• Or add each package using the nuget install in Visual Studio

SQLitePCLRaw.core
SQLitePCLRaw.bundle_green
SQLitePCLRaw.provider.sqlite3
SQLitePCLRaw.provider.dynamic_cdecl
SQLiteNetExtensions
SQLiteNetExtensions.Async

• Or open command prompt and cd to the project directory then paste the following code into the command prompt.

cd C:\projects\Net\MauiGenDemoApp\MauiGenDemoApp

dotnet add C:\projects\Net\MauiGenDemoApp\MauiGenDemoApp package SQLitePCLRaw.core
dotnet add package SQLitePCLRaw.bundle_green
dotnet add package SQLitePCLRaw.provider.sqlite3
dotnet add package SQLitePCLRaw.provider.dynamic_cdecl
dotnet add package SQLiteNetExtensions
dotnet add package SQLiteNetExtensions.Async

5. Generate the code based on the data schema

Finally we are ready to generate the code you will need to pass in the project root namespace this is the ? "solution name" you entered when creating the Maui project.

you can also change the name space in the Data Schema file

name_space: "DemoMauiApp"
resources:
  - App
  - Enums
  - AppShell
  - MauiProgram

maui-gen build --namespace "[solution name]"

6. Run the Maui Project

Now that the code has been generated your can goto you Visual studio and you will see lots of new folders and files have been created.

You can now simple run the project and you should see.

Main Menu

Edit Person Form

List Person Form

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Documents

maui-gen CLI documents

# Run maui-get to build template documents
maui-gen gen_docs

You can find the generated documents here.

• C:\Users[User].maui-gen\documents\maui-gen.md

# Run maui-get to build template documents
maui-gen gen_template_docs

You can find the generated template documents here.

• C:\Users[User].maui-gen\template_doc/Templates.md

Videos

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Examples

Example Pictures

Main Menu

Edit Person Form

List Person Form

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TODO

This is just a proof of concept to see if it draws any attention if it does then i'll put some time into it.

If you do use it I would be interested to hear what you think about it.

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History

v0.1.0

• First Release

v0.1.1

• Added CLI Doc
• Embedded the template and examples (need to run maui-gen init all)
• Updated the project structure

v0.1.2

• Fix the template path not using parameters or config

v0.1.3

• Added nuget package install cmd

v0.1.4

• Added template function to inject other templates
• Added Template Auto Generating documentation maui-gen gen_template_docs

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License

Maui-gen is Apache 2.0 licensed.