This page contains steps to build and run the .NET MAUI repository from source. If you are looking to build apps with .NET MAUI please head over to the links in the README to get started.
- Install VS 17.8 or newer
- Follow these steps to include MAUI
- Select the 20348 SDK option inside Individual Components or install 20348 manually. If you know you have 20348 installed but are still getting an error around this SDK missing, trying uninstalling and reinstalling the SDK.
- If building iOS with pair to Mac: Install current stable Xcode on your Mac. Install from the App Store or Apple Developer portal
- If you're missing any of the Android SDKs, Visual Studio should prompt you to install them. If it doesn't prompt you then use the Android SDK Manager to install the necessary SDKs.
- Install VS Code and dependencies
- Follow these steps, installing VS Code, MAUI extension, .NET8, Xcode, OpenJDK, and Android SDK
- For Xcode, you can install from the App Store or Apple Developer portal
Before opening the solution in Visual Studio / VS Code you MUST build the build tasks.
-
Do this to build the build tasks and launch Visual Studio, automatically opening the default solution:
dotnet tool restore dotnet cake --target=VS --workloads=global
-
OR do this to just build the build tasks. You can then launch Visual Studio manually and open the solution of your choosing:
dotnet tool restore dotnet build ./Microsoft.Maui.BuildTasks.slnf
-
Do this to build the tasks and open the Visual Studio Code codespace:
dotnet tool restore dotnet cake --target=VSCode --workloads=global
NOTE: --workloads=global
means use the normal (globally installed) .NET workloads.
- Microsoft.Maui.sln
- Kitchen sink solution. This includes all of the
Compatibility
projects and all of the platforms that we compile for. It is very unlikely you will need to use this solution for development.
- Kitchen sink solution. This includes all of the
- Microsoft.Maui-dev.sln
Microsoft.Maui.sln
but without theCompatibility
projects. Because we can't detect solution filters insideMSBuild
we had to create a separatesln
without theCompatibility
projects.
- Microsoft.Maui-windows.slnf
Microsoft.Maui-dev.sln
with all of the targets you can't build onWindows
removed (GTK/Catalyst). Default solution on Windows.
- Microsoft.Maui-mac.slnf
Microsoft.Maui-dev.sln
with all of theWindows
targets filtered out. Legacy solution for VS Mac.
- Microsoft.Maui-vscode.sln
- Solution for VS Code (VS Code doesn't support solution filters)
NOTE: IntelliSense takes a decent amount of time to fully process your solution. It will eventually work through all the necessary tasks. If you are having IntelliSense issues, usually unloading/reloading the maui.core
and maui.controls
projects will resolve.
As a general rule:
Use ‘main’ for bug fixes that don’t require API changes. For new features and changes to public APIs, you must use the branch of the next .NET version.
├── Controls
│ ├── samples
│ │ ├── Maui.Controls.Sample
│ │ ├── Maui.Controls.Sample.Sandbox
│ │ ├── Controls.Sample.UITests
├── Essentials
│ ├── samples
│ │ ├── Essentials.Sample
├── BlazorWebView
│ ├── samples
│ │ ├── BlazorWinFormsApp
│ │ ├── BlazorWpfApp
- Maui.Controls.Sample: Full gallery sample with all of the controls and features of .NET MAUI
- Maui.Controls.Sample.Sandbox: Empty project useful for testing reproductions or use cases
- Contols.Sample.UITests: Sample used for the automated UI tests
- Essentials.Sample: Full gallery demonstrating the library previously known as essentials. These are all the non UI related MAUI APIs.
These are tests that will run on an actual device
├── Controls
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── Controls.DeviceTests
├── Core
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── Core.DeviceTests
├── Essentials
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── Essentials.DeviceTests
├── BlazorWebView
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── MauiBlazorWebView.DeviceTests
- Controls.DeviceTests: .NET MAUI Controls Visual Runner for running device based xunit tests. This is useful for tests that require XAML features
- Core.DeviceTests: .NET MAUI Core Visual Runner for running device based xunit tests. This is for tests that don't require any MAUI Controls based features
- Essentials.DeviceTests: Visual Runner running all the .NET MAUI essentials xunit tests.
- MauiBlazorWebView.DeviceTests: Visual Runner for BlazorWebView tests.
These are tests used for exercising the UI through accessibility layers to simulate user interactions
├── Controls
│ ├── samples
│ │ ├── Controls.Sample.UITests
│ ├── tests
│ │ ├── Controls.AppiumTests
These are tests that will not run on a device. This is useful for testing device independent logic.
├── Controls
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── Controls.Core.UnitTests
├── Core
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── Core.UnitTests
├── Essentials
│ ├── test
│ │ ├── Essentials.UnitTests
The Integration test project under src/TestUtils/src/Microsoft.Maui.IntegrationTests
contains tests which build and/or run MAUI templates or other projects.
These tests can be ran using the test explorer in VS, or from command line with dotnet test
. Here's how to run an individual test with parameters from command line:
dotnet test src/TestUtils/src/Microsoft.Maui.IntegrationTests --logger "console;verbosity=diagnostic" --filter "Name=Build\(%22maui%22,%22net7.0%22,%22Debug%22,False\)"
You can find detailed information about testing in the Wiki.
--clean
- This will do a recursive delete of all your obj/bin folders. This is helpful if for some reason your repository is in a bad state and you don't want to go as scorched earth as
git clean -xdf
--android
--ios
--windows
--catalyst
dotnet cake --target=VS --workloads=global --android --ios
Note you will have to git clean -xdf
your project if you change or add platforms.
To build and run Blazor Desktop samples, check out the Blazor Desktop wiki topic.
To workaround a performance issue, all Resource.designer.cs
generation is disabled for class libraries in this repo.
If you need to add a new @(AndroidResource)
value to be used from C#
code in .NET MAUI:
-
Comment out the
<PropertyGroup>
inDirectory.Build.targets
that sets$(AndroidGenerateResourceDesigner)
and$(AndroidUseIntermediateDesignerFile)
tofalse
. -
Build .NET MAUI as you normally would. You will get compiler errors about duplicate fields, but
obj\Debug\net[current_sdk_version]-android\Resource.designer.cs
should now be generated. -
Open
obj\Debug\net[current_sdk_version]-android\Resource.designer.cs
, and find the field you need such as:
// aapt resource value: 0x7F010000
public static int foo = 2130771968;
-
Copy this field to the
Resource.designer.cs
checked into source control, such as:src\Controls\src\Core\Platform\Android\Resource.designer.cs
-
Restore the commented code in
Directory.Build.targets
.
This method will use the .NET and workload versions that are specific to the branch you are on, which is a good way to ensure compatibility.
Use dotnet-local.cmd
on Windows or dotnet-local.sh
on Unix to ensure that PATH
is set consistently.
You can run a Cake
target to bootstrap .NET SDK in bin\dotnet
and launch Visual Studio:
dotnet tool restore
dotnet cake --target=VS
There is also a VSCode
target for launching Visual Studio Code.
dotnet tool restore
dotnet cake --target=VSCode
--sln=<Path to SLN>
- This will pack .NET and then open a VS instance using the local pack. This is useful if you want to check to see if the changes in a branch will address your particular issues. Pack only runs the first time so you will need to explicitly add the
--pack
flag if you make changes and need to repack.
dotnet tool restore
dotnet cake --sln="<download_directory>\MauiApp2\MauiApp2.sln" --target=VS
--pack
- This creates .NET MAUI packs inside the local dotnet install. This lets you use the CLI commands with the local dotnet to create/deploy with any changes that have been made on that branch (including template changes).
dotnet tool restore
dotnet cake --target=VS --pack --sln="<download_directory>\MauiApp2\MauiApp2.sln"
Create new .NET MAUI app using your new packs
dotnet tool restore
dotnet cake --pack
mkdir MyMauiApp
cd MyMauiApp
..\bin\dotnet\dotnet new maui
..\bin\dotnet\dotnet build -t:Run -f net[current_sdk_version]-android
You can also run commands individually:
# install local tools required to build (cake, pwsh, etc..)
dotnet tool restore
# Provision .NET SDK in bin\dotnet
dotnet build src\DotNet\DotNet.csproj
# Builds Maui MSBuild tasks
.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build Microsoft.Maui.BuildTasks.slnf
# Builds the rest of Maui
.\bin\dotnet\dotnet build Microsoft.Maui.sln
# Launch Visual Studio
dotnet cake --target=VS