(Very) quickstart .NET Maui with Visual Studio Code

This tutorial describes how to install the .NET Maui and create your first app in only a few minutes. Maui means "Multi-platform App UI", it is a framework from Microsoft to develop user interfaces which can run in any platform.

Installation

• You will need .NET SDK. In my case I installed .NET 8.0 SDK

• Please install Visual Studio Code

• Then install maui workload using powershell:

dotnet workload install maui

After a few minutes the installation is finished:

...Installing Microsoft.Maui.Graphics.Win2D.WinUI.Desktop.Msi.x64 ....Done
Successfully installed workload(s) maui.

• Finally install the Visual Studio Code extension "MAUI" (the extensions "C#" and "C# Dev Kit also get installed automatically)

Create a demo-app

• In the Visual Studio Code command palette (F1), run ".NET New Project"

• Choose ".NET MAUI App":

• After having selected a location, an example project will be initialized

Execute and debug your program

• Open the project file (MauiApp1.csproj) and execute "Run and Debug" from the tab having the same name on the left side.

• The app starts:

Debug your program

Set a breakpoint (example: in the method "OnCounterClick") and start the program again. After executing the app again, you can debug step-by-step:

Problems

After trying to debug directly from the class file, I got the following error:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\packs\Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Windows\34.0.85\tools\Xamarin.Android.Tooling.targets(70,5): error XA5300: The Android SDK directory could not be found. Install the Android SDK by following the instructions at: https://aka.ms/dotnet-android-install-sdk [C:\ws\MauiApp1\MauiApp1.csproj::TargetFramework=net8.0-android]