Getting Started

Target audience

This course is for all software developers who want to learn how to use .NET MAUI to build native applications and deploy them to devices running Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

Because .NET MAUI is cross-platform, this course will be equally helpful to desktop and mobile app developers. With .NET MAUI, both of these application types can even be built from the same codebase. Having all the code for all native application types in the same repository significantly saves time and development costs.

The primary audience for this course are .NET and C# developers since .NET MAUI runs on .NET and uses C# as its primary programming language. However, any developer who is familiar with any other object-oriented programming and wants to learn how to build native applications will benefit from this course too.

Another type of audience that will benefit from this course are mobile application developers specializing in Xamarin.Forms. .NET MAUI is an evolution of Xamarin.Forms, which is another cross-platform mobile application–building technology based on .NET. This course will demonstrate how MAUI is different from Xamarin.Forms and how a Xamarin.Forms project can be migrated to MAUI.

Prerequisites

Since .NET MAUI is based on .NET and uses C# as its primary language, some understanding of both C# and .NET is required. A basic knowledge of these is sufficient. Any domain-specific language, such as XAML, will be explained in the course.

Although MAUI is used for building native applications, no prior knowledge of native application development is required. With features like Blazor integration, which will be explained in the course, the learning curve of MAUI will be gentle for those with prior web development experience but no mobile or desktop application development experience. Even though MAUI has its own language for building user interfaces, we can also build these using standard web development tools, such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and WebAssembly.

Learning outcomes

The aim of this course is to cover all fundamental aspects of .NET MAUI. By the end of this course, you will have learned how to develop any type of application on any platform that .NET MAUI supports. If you're already a Xamarin.Forms developer, you'll also learn how to migrate legacy Xamarin.Forms applications to MAUI.

Learning instruments

The individual lessons provided in each chapter contain a read-only code playground with an Android emulator. You'll still be able to look at the complete code of the application, but you won't be able to modify it. This is because the compilation of an Android app takes a substantial amount of time, therefore pre-cached Android executables are used to load applications quickly.

However, you'll still be able to practice what you've learned. Most chapters contain an interactive challenge to complete based on the material learned. Moreover, most chapters contain the "Try It Yourself" section, which contains fully interactive code playgrounds along with suggested mini-projects you can complete. Therefore, the course provides plenty of opportunities to practice what you've learned.