How to upgrade Xamarin native Mac application project to Mac .NET macOS application project

Question

I find out 3 template in VS2022 for Mac, The first one is Mac .NET macOS Application, the second one is Mac .Net Mac Catalyst Application and the third one is Multiplatform .NET MAUI project.

In order to upgrade and migrate my Mac Xamarin native project to Microsoft new .NET architecture.

I have created a new project with .NET macOS Application, It's neither a .Net Mac Catalyst Application or a Multiplatform .NET MAUI Application.

I wonder if it's right to choose Mac .NET macOS Application project to upgrade my Xamarin Mac native application? And How to upgrade to Mac .NET macOS Application project. I think there are minimal changes than other two projects.

Do you give me some more supports or solution in migrating to Mac .NET macOS Application?

I don't have a stable experience in .NET macOS Application project with VS2022 for Mac, and I find some documents, some is .NET MAUI project, some is .Net Mac Catalyst Application,

exactly I wonder the description about .NET macOS Application.

In .NET macOS Application project, I can't find Build-> Mac->Bundle Signing in Project Properties window.

I want to get a feasible solution as soon as possible.

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Hello,

I wonder if it's right to choose Mac .NET macOS Application project to upgrade my Xamarin Mac native application? Do you give me some more supports or solution in migrating to Mac .NET macOS Application?

If you want to update your Xamarin.Mac project to a .Net Mac project, you can choose MacOS Application template.

To simplify the upgrade process, it's recommended that you create a new .NET project of the same type and name as your Xamarin native project, and then copying in your code.

Please see Xamarin Apple project migration - .NET MAUI | Microsoft Learn

And there are minimal changes than other two templates indeed.

Maccatalyst is new from Apple, which can bring ipad App to Mac. You can see Mac Catalyst Overview - Apple Developer

MAUI project is mainly with C# and XAML(similar to Xamarin.Forms to build cross-platform user interfaces). .NET.iOS/.NET.MacOS or Xamarin.iOS /Xamarin.MacOS will use all the native user interface objects provided by Apple. And you can add platform-specific source code and resources if you want to call the platform API. ( MAUI targets Mac uses Maccatalyst, it means you can call the Maccatalyst API.)

I wonder the description about .NET macOS Application

For now, all documents are for MAUI, there is not an official .NETMacOS doc, you can refer to the doc about Xamrin.Mac: Xamarin.Mac - Xamarin | Microsoft Learn A lot of docs apply to .NET.Mac.And you can also create a feature request at https://github.com/dotnet/docs-maui

If you have any other issues, please feel free to post here.

In .NET macOS Application project, I can't find Build-> Mac->Bundle Signing in Project Properties window.

Please go to Build->Mac Signing， refer to Mac app configuration - Xamarin | Microsoft Learn

Last but not least, Xamarin support will end on May 1, 2024 for all Xamarin SDKs. Android 13 and Xcode 14 SDKs (iOS and iPadOS 16, macOS 13) will be the final versions Xamarin will target.

For MAUI ( .NET.iOS and .NET.Mac), some file templates are not ready yet with VS and some features are in progress. And there are also some new features added, you can read the announce- Announcing .NET MAUI for .NET 7 General Availability - .NET Blog (microsoft.com) and MAUI Roadmap- Roadmap · dotnet/maui Wiki · GitHub

Best Regards,

Wenyan Zhang

---

If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.