Comet VS MobileBlazorBindings

> the first, MVP-style, attempt will be using Electron.

Good choice.

If you want to stick to HTML...WebView2 is suppose to replace it, but it assumes your backend code is .NET or C++, instead of JS/Node.js. Microsoft Teams is using it.

If you want to use native Windows UI components from JS code, then React Native for Windows is recommended. Facebook Messenger is using it.

All approaches require C# or C++ modules to be used to interact with the Windows Platform. Or there is: https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge.

The recommended approach is WinUI 3 which would involve C#/C++ and XAML.

To SwiftUI/React/JetPack are called module-view-update (MVU). There is an MVU for C# called Comet. https://github.com/dotnet/Comet#key-concepts

The benefit at least with the approach instead of embedding Avalonia inside Maui is you could potentially use non xaml frameworks for ui as long as they support Maui as a target. Stuff like Comet or Blazor mobile bindings would be possible aside from xaml. Especially if they're coming from Blazor web or code based ui frameworks like flutter which makes it appealing.

That was using the experimental Comet extension and lib, based on .NET MAUI. You can find instructions here: https://github.com/dotnet/Comet

There are also experimental libraries for .NET MAUI, which let's you create UI only with C#: Comet, MauiReactor

The MVU library is called Comet. The lead developer recently left Microsoft but im still seeing commits on the repo which is a good sign!

Yeah the hybrid blazor stuff is interesting. So is https://github.com/dotnet/Comet.

The XAML API is definitely more compact overall which is unfortunate, mostly because a lot of the devs prefer XAML. I've always preferred code-based UI though. Theres some 2ndish/3rd party options with Comet, which changes the UI pattern to MVU and C# Markup, which might not be updated for MAUI yet.

All the C# parts for Hybrid (including the components themselves) are running natively. Only the UI part (e.g. html, css) under the Web View is running web tech (html, css) under a native webview of the platform. But you can also add native MAUI controls if you wanted to (either via XAML, or Comet) and mix and match as that webview control that Blazor uses is just a MAUI control.

There is an alternative using MAUI .Net Comet

It's difficult to imagine. But if the rumour has any merit, perhaps it simply means that there will be a push to consolidate on some blazor tech using stuff like https://github.com/dotnet/MobileBlazorBindings

There's Blazor Mobile Bindings but it's essentially experimental at the moment and isn't exactly active. From playing around with it though, it is pretty neat as you get the Blazor programming model but with native controls.

The benefit at least with the approach instead of embedding Avalonia inside Maui is you could potentially use non xaml frameworks for ui as long as they support Maui as a target. Stuff like Comet or Blazor mobile bindings would be possible aside from xaml. Especially if they're coming from Blazor web or code based ui frameworks like flutter which makes it appealing.

This is one reason I'd really love for them to push through on making alternatives to XAML like Blazor mobile bindings.

I'd say Blazor mobile bindings is also pretty interesting imo, unlike Hybrid it doesn't use Html and uses MAUI controls directly but still keeps the Blazor programming style and still uses razor to tie in C# and components.

Oleksandr has been contributing to the official experiment project, and singlehandedly updated it to support .NET MAUI. He even now has documentation on his fork.

I really hope Blazor Mobile Bindings takes off imo. I still care for native controls and if Mobile bindings does become a valid target, then you'll have an alternative to XAML when writing native components but using Razor syntax (which imo is less verbose). It'll be like how React does it (which is still pretty popular) where you have React web and also React Native which uses the platform's native controls underneath. Both aren't exactly the same but since the framework is similar (React, Blazor) it should be easy to swap between the two.

Yeah I really hope they'll productize Blazor Mobile Bindings (currently experimental), it's essentially using Xaml controls via Razor as the markup format instead and can use C# expressions (so less need for converters).

For example, in Android there's this file: https://github.com/dotnet/MobileBlazorBindings/blob/main/templates/BlazorHybrid-app/NewApp.Android/wwwroot/index.html

It means you can use Blazor's syntax to write MAUI apps, as an alternative to XML-like XAML syntax.