Avalonia brings Linux, browser support to Microsoft's MAUI cross-platform app solution

Microsoft's MAUI (Multi-platform App UI), the official .NET solution for cross-platform desktop and mobile apps, will get Linux and browser support via Avalonia, a third-party framework. MAUI is an evolution of Xamarin Forms, a cross-platform framework for .NET first developed outside Microsoft and acquired in 2016 along with …

[DarkwavePunk]

What?

Who asked for this? What problem is it trying to solve? I read the article, but it sounds like any other framework waffling promise.

[abend0c4]

Re: What?

People who want to develop cross-platform applications (which is mostly people who used to develop traditional Winforms business applications but don't want necessarily to be dependent on Windows).

Avalonia has actually proved to be reasonably popular while Microsoft has been flailing around, unable to get a grip on its future UI strategy. Given their tardiness and the bitter taste left by the imposition of Windows 11, a more pertinent question might be "what's the point of MAUI?".

[DarkwavePunk]

Re: What?

Thanks. I'm from the early Java App era. It makes some sense but also chasing one's tail.

[trevorde]

Unknown unknowns

Filed a bug on Avalonia over a year ago and it's still open :-( Unfortunately, it's a complete blocker for this project. Luckily, it's a personal project, so more annoying than life threatening. i'm going to look at Uno (https://github.com/unoplatform/uno) which will, no doubt, have a different set of bugs.

[Ian 70]

Re: Unknown unknowns

I had to look into Avalonia and MAUI for mobile development at work. Getting a straight answer out of the Avalonia team was near impossible so I had to ditch it as an option.

[d3Xt3r]

Re: Unknown unknowns

Biggest issue with Uno right now is that it doesn't support Wayland, which means you'd be using XWayland and this results in some random annoying bugs. A Wayland support issue was raised a year ago but there's been seemingly no activity, which is disappointing.

[cookieMonster]

Xojo

Not connected with the company, but I have used this for small personal projects on Linux. It is cross platform, might be worth looking into. The Linux version does (or did when I used it) allow you to build binaries, other platforms require a license.

YMMV

[An_Old_Dog]

The Meta-Problem

The meta-problem with all this is the strong tendency of OS programmers to build mountains of access methods and APIs, of third parties to build frameworks, and of application programmers to wrongly-believe that using these are the The Way to do things programmatically.

It's not a OS-provider-specific thing, and it isn't microcomputer-specific; mainframes and minicomputers have/had their equivalents.

All these (sometimes Jenga-tower-like) mountains of code provide bug-breeding grounds and exploitable flaws.

K.I.S.S.

If I find myself needing to display a video clip and sound from inside a program I'm writing, I'm not going to use the API dejour (Macromind Shockwave, Macromedia Flash, Apple QuickTime, Video for Windows, DirectX version-whatever, Video4Linux, Video4Linux2, etc.).

I will invoke a video player already installed on the system to do that job for me.

[FIA]

Re: The Meta-Problem

It's the programmers default compulsion to write a 'framework'.

I've done it, and am currently trying hard not to do it on a new project I'm working on.

My current thing is: 'Just use the client library.... any abstraction I write will subconciously mirror whatever the 'first' implemenetion is so just use it rather than abstract it....'

[Bryan W]

Re: The Meta-Problem

Must be nice to call your own requirements. What's that like? Writing a program the way you want and forcing others to use it your "proper" way?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's cross-platform app solution

If only there was such innovation from wayback ;)

[Oblivium]

"Microsoft's MAUI (Multi-platform App UI), the official .NET solution for cross-platform desktop and mobile apps"...

For this week, anyway.

Can we expect the same lumpen, worse than GDI in Windows 3.1 redrawing and rendering?