MAUI

[tig]

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/introducing-dotnet-maui-one-codebase-many-platforms/

I've been very lightly thinking about how terminal UI apps could be built with MAUI.

I have an itch to dive deeper. Before I do, have any of y'all also been thinking about this?

If I had to sum up my vision, it'd be

"Build an app using .NET MAUI and easily have it run as a native terminal UI app on any platform Terminal.Gui is supported on."

Would people actually be interested in this, or is just a solution looking for a problem?

Y'all are probably aware that PowerShell's built-in terminal UI components (namely Out-ConsoleGridView') are already built using Terminal.Gui. The traditional GUI components of PowerShell (e.g. Out-GridView`) are built using Avalon. The PowerShell team has stated they are abandoning these and will use MAUI in the future. This sounds like an ideal place to start Terminal.Gui work on MAUI as it's a very real customer.

[tig]

See here for more on Powershell: PowerShell/ConsoleGuiTools#101

[tznind]

This definitely sounds interesting. What would be required to add this support? Would it be something like this (but for the MAUI UI API layer):

https://github.com/jsuarezruiz/xamarin-forms-gui.cs

If I've understood correctly reading the docs on MAUI that you linked. Is the goal to write xaml and have it run either a OS app (e.g. in windows) or in terminal gui?

I think its a cool idea if it can be pulled off. I currently have an app where there are 2 parallel implementations of many UIs (one WinForms and one Terminal.Gui) and have briefly looked into how they might be merged. At the time I was thinking about writing a terminal gui implementation of Eto but didn't get much beyond tinkering.

[BDisp]

I have a pull request there a long time ago :-) It is more or less similar. The Xamarin will be supersede with the MAUI. But much of integration will be as the WebConsole is being managed.

[RokeJulianLockhart]

Are you suggesting that if this proposition is accepted, one codebase might be possible to render via the terminal and outside of it, graphically?

I ask because I'm searching the easiest way to make a graphical interface to my PowerShell scripts that is cross-platform and supports the terminal, too. If this might provide that, I'll leave myself subscribed since this is a long-term goal anyway.

[BDisp]

Are you suggesting that if this proposition is accepted, one codebase might be possible to render via the terminal and outside of it, graphically?

No, the changes in the Terminal.Gui was to overpass the run loop. Now it's possible to interact with any driver that is passed to the Application.Init that doesn't support SyncronizationContext. The WebConsole (https://github.com/Blazor-Console/HACC) uses the Blazor.Canvas to render to the screen. So, for MAUI probably must be implemented more or less like the https://github.com/jsuarezruiz/xamarin-forms-gui.cs.

I ask because I'm searching the easiest way to make a graphical interface to my PowerShell scripts that is cross-platform and supports the terminal, too. If this might provide that, I'll leave myself subscribed since this is a long-term goal anyway.

I would like to see that :-)

[tznind]

I think this would be an incredible feature to be able to build with MAUI and compile for terminal as well as desktop/mobile.

Does anyone have an idea on the roadmap features we would need to support this? I don't know nearly enough about MAUI to understand whats needed but is it something like?

1. Implement required core features in gui.cs (e.g. Layouts?)
2. Fork https://github.com/jsuarezruiz/xamarin-forms-gui.cs and update for MAUI?
3. Add all the controls that are missing from xamarin-forms (tree view etc)

[BDisp]

I think this would be an incredible feature to be able to build with MAUI and compile for terminal as well as desktop/mobile.

I also would like to see all this integrated with the Terminal.Gui.

Does anyone have an idea on the roadmap features we would need to support this? I don't know nearly enough about MAUI to understand whats needed but is it something like?

1. Implement required core features in gui.cs (e.g. Layouts?)

I think is better implement all the require integration on the gui.cs to be more easily create new MAUI app with the Terminal.Gui Api.

2. Fork https://github.com/jsuarezruiz/xamarin-forms-gui.cs and update for MAUI?

I already tried that, by replacing all the Xamarim.Forms Api to the MAUI Api, but I get a bunch of errors that is not very easy to fix. I think that will be later issued a migration tool, but I don't know when.

3. Add all the controls that are missing from `xamarin-forms` (tree view etc)

I hope that could be implemented a script that could map all the Terminal.Gui core to the MAUI.

MAUI have a template that can also create a desktop/mobile from a Blazor app. For the WebConsole (https://github.com/Blazor-Console/HACC) that may be possible.