Is this project is dead ?

[manishbisen]

There is no any activity or progress on this project repo from long time.

What is the future of this project ?

[Suriman]

Good question! I have the same.

[jsuarezruiz]

The project is not dead!. But now is in an experimental phase. We are validating if it is an interesting option to include with .NET MAUI. The main PRs and changes are to keep itup to date with the latest versions of .NET MAUI as well as validate possible questions related to accessibility, performance etc.

Until the experimental phase is passed, there is no detailed dedication time reserved.

[RChrisCoble]

I hope this project is not dead. In my UC we need drawn controls intermixed with graphics, and was hoping this was the solution. Also would like to use this with Blazor.

[manishbisen]

@jsuarezruiz I guess this is the most demanded feature in .net maui & to compete with competitor like flutter.
Still why Microsoft is validating it as interesting option to include with .net maui ?

[PandaTechMobile]

Very interested in this project so I hope it continues. Great work btw!

[jsuarezruiz]

@jsuarezruiz I guess this is the most demanded feature in .net maui & to compete with competitor like flutter. Still why Microsoft is validating it as interesting option to include with .net maui ?

Decisions are based on many different types of metrics. From your comment here, to the interest in the repository or many interviews with developers and companies. Collecting the data and analyzing it correctly takes time. If you want to share your feedback with more details, I encourage you to do it here or share it with teammates like @davidortinau

[TripleView]

i like this project

[Mephisztoe]

@jsuarezruiz, you say "The main PRs and changes are to keep itup to date with the latest versions of .NET MAUI". So is the latest nightly build available through the documented nuget feed (as of writing this would be 6.0.101-nightly.253) compatible with .NET MAUI RC1 and all its breaking changes since P14?

[jsuarezruiz]

@jsuarezruiz, you say "The main PRs and changes are to keep itup to date with the latest versions of .NET MAUI". So is the latest nightly build available through the documented nuget feed (as of writing this would be 6.0.101-nightly.253) compatible with .NET MAUI RC1 and all its breaking changes since P14?

This PR include support for .NET MAUI RC2 #106, but need to update CI to generate the new packages.

[AgPeHaJIuH1]

i like this project!!!

[codymullins]

@jsuarezruiz would like to try this out, any kind of ETA on getting this new package released?

[jsuarezruiz]

@jsuarezruiz would like to try this out, any kind of ETA on getting this new package released?

Yesterday we merged a PR to use .NET MAUI GA versions. The build is running and the nightly working. The latest package have been created today.

[molesmoke]

@jsuarezruiz Great work, love this project. Long may it continue!

[eramrit78]

i like this project

[tcsaddul]

Same here. I've been looking for a UI library like this for a long time - no XAML needed. In the Javascript world, there is QooxDoo UI framework (No HTML/CSS needed) which does the same for a very long time. Unfortunately, the QooxDoo UI is not known to many so it is not very popular but we are very successful with it in all our large software projects.

[aliessmael]

I like this project

[StepKie]

Looking forward to this project very much, hopefully this will find its way into the default MAUI graphics library.

One question though @jsuarezruiz: Currently I can only build from source, the nuget nightly feed is not working for me?!

[cyberdarius]

This is how the real MAUI should be: a real alternative to Flutter.

This project should be absolutely a top priority, together with MAUI Linux host, and MAUI Linux Blazor Hybrid.

[psandgren]

I join the crowd in wanting this in MAUI. Go go go!

[svkgit]

In my opinion this should be the future direction of MAUI.

[KonstantinKellermann]

In my opinion it is more than necessary. If you look at the numbers of Xamarin.Forms.Visual.Material package: 1.7 million downloads, current version 7.3 thousend downloads.

[MattBDev]

I really hope this project isn't dead. I hope work continues on this project or that it gets merged into the main .NET MAUI project. It would be nice to know which direction this project may be heading in.

[timahrentlov]

This project and the drawn principles upon which it rests are much needed.

Consider this excellent tabs project https://github.com/roubachof/Sharpnado.Tabs for MAUI. Because of the abstraction principle of MAUI, no desktops is supported yet.

The story is the same for other 3rd party controls. It is symptomatic.

With drawn controls, it wouldn't be.

[juwens]

Please continue the work on this project as main project for Maui.

It’s currently unbelievable how hard it is, to write controls which look and feel the same on all three platforms (Android, iOS, Windows). And the reason is, that every small information and binding must be projected to a native control, and there is always some unexpected errors in this projections. This leads to endless try-and-error session for some controls.

Do you want to know which controls worked without an issue and looked and behaved identical on all platforms? The Skia controls we’ve created.
i really wish that all of the app would work this flawless.

[StepKie]

Again, bumping and agreeing with everyone above. @jsuarezruiz, you see that users really like this project and what it brings to the MAUI ecosystem.
Would you mind giving us a quick update what the MAUI team' s plan regarding this project or related functionality looks like? We are kind of in the dark here, this project is in the github.com/dotnet namespace, and you are a XF team member, but there is no clear indication why this repository is "kind of separate" from the main dotnet/maui repo?

[jsuarezruiz]

Again, bumping and agreeing with everyone above. @jsuarezruiz, you see that users really like this project and what it brings to the MAUI ecosystem.
Would you mind giving us a quick update what the MAUI team' s plan regarding this project or related functionality looks like? We are kind of in the dark here, this project is in the github.com/dotnet namespace, and you are a XF team member, but there is no clear indication why this repository is "kind of separate" from the main dotnet/maui repo?

I would love to share more details or information, but I have nothing new to share. I really think that having drawn pixel perfect controls has potential, I continue to experiment with ideas (templated drawn controls in AlohaKit https://github.com/jsuarezruiz/AlohaKit) or tooling (figma to Maui Graphics https://github.com/jsuarezruiz/figma-to-maui-graphics). In this library I am pending to solve any possible doubt or problem in its viability (a11y, performance, speed to adapt to changes, etc). However, to take any kind of step there are many dependencies and decisions to be made that take time and require many steps. I know that PMs try to do their best to make decisions based on data and in the most adequate way possible. There are meetings with customers where data is taken, surveys, etc. At the moment, all I can share is:

• Personally I keep exploring ideas and creating options. If this gets past the experimental phase, this approach can get code or ideas from AlohaKit, etc.
• I keep the library up to date for those who want to try.
• The library is still in an experimental phase and we continue to capture any feedback. I read and share the feedback from this thread. Thank you very much to all.

[juwens]

@jsuarezruiz thanks for giving us an update, even if there is not much new information. It's always helpful, to see that there is still (at least some) "life" in it. 👍
Sad to hear, that the PMs don't see this as an important topic for MAUI :-/

[StepKie]

Thanks @jsuarezruiz for your response and all your work, also glad to see that this is not abandoned. I hope the PMs will listen that this has a higher priority since it affects nearly everyone designing a MAUI UI. In my opinion, it should be given at least more weight than some of the more niche improvements talked about in recent .NET MAUI podcasts.

I really think that entries/text fields as shown on the main material.io site on text fields are quite standard and should be easy to implement in MAUI. It is one of the basic building blocks of designing a good-looking UI, which is quite difficult to achieve with the standard controls (having to combine Entry, Label and Animations into a custom control).

[akhanalcs]

I love this so much! And 'From Figma to AlohaKit UI' is amazing! 🔥🤩
I hope it gets out of Experimental phase soon. 😊

[cordasfilip]

Why not use Avalonia it does the same thing and works in the browser?

[timahrentlov]

Unfortunately, Avalonia still does a poor job of targeting mobile. But yes, it is superior to MAUI

[Suriman]

And Uno Platform too.

[cordasfilip]

Unfortunately, Avalonia still does a poor job of targeting mobile. But yes, it is superior to MAUI

Has nothing to do with Maui vs Avalonia. They do graphics pixel perfect rendering with c# you can render it in MAUI.

[cordasfilip]

And Uno Platform too.

Uno uses native controls Avalonia is a flutter like rendering engine.

[StepKie]

Since this has been stalling for a while, anyone following this issue/repo I'd like to point to https://github.com/enisn/UraniumUI or https://github.com/mdc-maui/mdc-maui as alternatives (I did not find them right away, so maybe this comment helps some other people ...)

[cyberdarius]

Reading the latest .NET 8 MAUI preview release notes show me that MAUI is already dead.
It will be only used for mantaining old xamarin.forms projects and blazor hybrid embedding.

Microsoft has no intention to invest in a flutter like alternative. It's really sad.

Time to consider Uno or Avalonia or ... Flutter

[tcsaddul]

There is hope: https://github.com/jonathanpeppers/spice

[davidortinau]

Reading the latest .NET 8 MAUI preview release notes show me that MAUI is already dead. It will be only used for mantaining old xamarin.forms projects and blazor hybrid embedding.

Microsoft has no intention to invest in a flutter like alternative. It's really sad.

Time to consider Uno or Avalonia or ... Flutter

If a Flutter experience is your aim, then Uno and Avalonia are more aligned to that goal. .NET MAUI is first and foremost native UI, with the option to layer in drawn UI as desired, and as such the work described in the release notes and on our roadmap is aligned with improving that experience.

[cyberdarius]

Thanks @davidortinau for your time responding to my post.

Xamarin.Forms and MAUI native UI are a good goals in theory, but in the past years of the project until now it resulted practically to be a real pain to manage/maintain/performance/customize ... finding the common apis, creating hacks over hacks that lead to frustration, time and poor performances. XF and MAUI teams has done an insane work, and I understand that it's really difficult to develop new features, breaking old, stay updated with the various platforms sdks and UIs. Microsoft don't help you either with WF, WPF, WinUI UWP, WinUI Reunion ...

The flutter/avalonia approach of drawn UI, IMHO is more efficient, more maintainable and future proof, as we can see from flutter success: from nothing to near every platform with 60fps performance in short time and with a very large community.

See this project of drawn controls; Spice cross platform framework that @tcsaddul posted up https://github.com/jonathanpeppers/spice; AlhoaKit UI, UraniumUI, mdc-maui, Photino and SpiderEye for blazor hybrid embedding (even with linux support), demonstrates this needs and this possibility very well: that few developers in a short time shows that this is an efficient and viable solution.

I understand the needs to maintain the old xamarin.forms codebase and to move forward but IMHO, MAUI needs also a flutter approach of drawn UI, otherwise ... it will be the next silverlight.

Microsoft marketing sells MAUI as "Multi platform UI" and probably many users misundertands or they expects some other type of product from MAUI. I respect you and I understand that you are not in a simple position for the many expectations.

So I thank you for pointing clear that MAUI is first and foremost native UI, but we will not be using this "Xamarin++" MAUI for our next projects, even for native ui.

[juwens]

@davidortinau
Definitely what @cyberdarius said.
We need drawn controls as soon as possible in MAUI. Not “as third party thing”.
I work in a large LOB project, which is on the brink of failing cause of xamarin’s/Maui’s never ending rendering bugs. The heck, we started writing our own drawn controls for simple things like image with skia, because it’s less pain to write controls from scratch, than to workaround maui bugs which change with every release or just simply do not get fixed.

[cordasfilip]

@davidortinau You can embed avalonia controls in Maui app they do custom rendering using skia exactly what you want.

[jadenrogers]

@davidortinau You can embed avalonia controls in Maui app they do custom rendering using skia exactly what you want.

Any source as to how? Googled didn't come across a guide for MAUI

[cordasfilip]

@davidortinau https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/AvaloniaMauiHybrid

[molesmoke]

@cordasfilip Hey, that's great. Thanks for sharing! Probably getting a bit off topic, but the other way round would be awesome too if it were possible. To me the thing that MAUI is missing is a Linux framebuffer backend and/or GTK4 + Wayland, maybe a Maui Graphics backed reference for more options to match Avalonia's platform coverage. Though using Android for embedded is acceptable for my use cases.