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.NET MAUI Finally Replaces Xamarin in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1

Late-arriving .NET MAUI has finally replaced Xamarin in Visual Studio 2022.

Specifically, .NET MAUI (.NET Multi-platform App UI) is now a project type among the five Desktop & Mobile options in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1, replacing the Xamarin-based option.

.NET MAUI is described by Microsoft as the evolution of mobile-centric Xamarin.Forms because it adds support for creating desktop apps.

That evolution took a big step this week, although workloads are still in preview themselves in VS 2022 17.3 Preview 1, shipping hot on the heels of the General Availability release of v17.2. That's because .NET MAUI, originally planned to debut with .NET 6 last November, "slipped the schedule," with the dev team playing catch-up ever since in a series of previews and release candidates. Now in RC3 status, .NET MAUI is expected to hit GA later this month, perhaps during Microsoft's big Build developer conference set for May 24.

Now, .NET MAUI is featured atop the "What's New" items in Preview 1:

What's New in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1
[Click on image for larger view.] What's New in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1

The big news was revealed in the GA announcement of Visual Studio 2022 17.2, where Microsoft provided a sneak peek at the first v17.3 preview.

"Today we're also releasing the first preview of the next release, Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1," Microsoft said in the May 10 post. "This is the main preview build that provides the tooling support for .NET MAUI development using Visual Studio."

The preview can be installed side-by-side with the 17.2 GA release.

"The .NET MAUI team is excited to bring this unified platform experience of development to Visual Studio 2022 and thanks to all of you that have provided feedback as you've come along for the .NET MAUI journey with us and endured the initial setup scripts, workload updates, etc," Microsoft continued. "If you are developing for .NET MAUI, Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1 is the tool that you want to get today as well."

Although developers could build .NET MAUI apps in previous Visual Studio 2022 previews, it's now the official choice among Desktop & Mobile projects. In v17.2, those options included "Mobile development with .NET -- Build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android or Windows using Xamarin.":

Desktop & Mobile Options in Visual Studio 2022 17.2
[Click on image for larger view.] Desktop & Mobile Options in Visual Studio 2022 17.2

In VS 2022 17.3 Preview 1, those options now include ".NET Multi-Platform App UI Development -- Build Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac apps from a single codebase using C# with .NET MAUI.":

Desktop & Mobile Options in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1
[Click on image for larger view.] Desktop & Mobile Options in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1

However, as noted, the new option is still in preview (though .NET MAUI has been production ready with go-live support for a while now). Developers now have three options for using .NET MAUI: basic .NET MAUI App, .NET MAUI Blazor App and .NET MAUI Class Library:

.NET MAUI Options in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1
[Click on image for larger view.] .NET MAUI Options in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 1

As depicted in a graphic above, other "What's New" items in Preview 1 include:

  • Show Tabs in Multiple Rows
  • Force Run to Cursor
  • All-in-one Search
  • Reopen Closed Documents

You can learn more about all of those and much more in the Preview 1 release notes.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.

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