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Tutorial: Create a .NET MAUI shell app

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This tutorial is part 2 of a series that demonstrates how to create a .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) shell app and prepare it for authentication using the Microsoft Entra admin center. In Part 1 of this series, you registered an application and configured user flows in your external tenant. In this tutorial, you'll add a custom Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) client helper to initialize the MSAL SDK, install required libraries and include an image resource.

In this tutorial, you'll;

  • Create a .NET MAUI shell app.
  • Add MSAL SDK support using MSAL helper classes.
  • Install required packages.
  • Add image resource.

Prerequisites

Create .NET MAUI shell app

  1. In the start window of Visual Studio 2022, select Create a new project.
  2. In the Create a new project window, select MAUI in the All project types dropdown list, select the .NET MAUI App template, and select Next.
  3. In the Configure your new project window, Project name must be set to SignInMaui. Update the Solution name to sign-in-maui and select Next.
  4. In the Additional information window, choose .NET 7.0 and select Create.

Wait for the project to be created and its dependencies to be restored.

Add MSAL SDK support using MSAL helper classes

MSAL client enables developers to acquire security tokens from an external tenant to authenticate and access secured web APIs. In this section, you download files that makes up MSALClient.

Download the following files into a folder in your computer:

  • AzureAdConfig.cs - This file gets and sets the Microsoft Entra app unique identifiers from your app configuration file.
  • DownStreamApiConfig.cs - This file gets and sets the scopes for Microsoft Graph call.
  • DownstreamApiHelper.cs - This file handles the exceptions that occur when calling the downstream API.
  • Exception.cs - This file offers a few extension method related to exception throwing and handling.
  • IdentityLogger.cs - This file handles shows how to use MSAL.NET logging.
  • MSALClientHelper.cs - This file contains methods to initialize MSAL SDK.
  • PlatformConfig.cs - This file contains methods to handle specific platform. For example, Windows.
  • PublicClientSingleton.cs - This file contains a singleton implementation to wrap the MSALClient and associated classes to support static initialization model for platforms.
  • WindowsHelper.cs - This file contains methods to retrieve window handle.

Important

Don't skip downloading the MSALClient files, they're required to complete this tutorial.

Move the MSALClient files with Visual Studio

  1. In the Solution Explorer pane, right-click on the SignInMaui project and select Add > New Folder. Name the folder MSALClient.
  2. Right-click on MSALClient folder, select Add > Existing Item....
  3. Navigate to the folder that contains the downloaded MSALClient files that you downloaded earlier.
  4. Select all of the MSALClient files you downloaded, then select Add

Install required packages

You need to install the following packages:

  • Microsoft.Identity.Client - This package contains the binaries of the Microsoft Authentication Library for .NET (MSAL.NET).
  • Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json - This package contains JSON configuration provider implementation for Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.
  • Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Binder - This package contains functionality to bind an object to data in configuration providers for Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.
  • Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Abstractions - This package contains abstractions of key-value pair-based configuration.
  • Microsoft.Identity.Client.Extensions.Msal - This package contains extensions to Microsoft Authentication Library for .NET (MSAL.NET).

NuGet Package Manager

To use the NuGet Package Manager to install the Microsoft.Identity.Client package in Visual Studio, follow these steps:

  1. Select Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution....
  2. From the Browse tab, search for Microsoft.Identity.Client.
  3. Select Microsoft.Identity.Client in the list.
  4. Select SignInMaui in the Project list pane.
  5. Select Install.
  6. If you're prompted to verify the installation, select OK.

Repeat the process to install the remaining required packages.

Add image resource

In this section, you download an image that you use in your app to enhance how users interact with it.

Download the following image:

Move the image with Visual Studio

  1. In the Solution Explorer pane of Visual Studio, expand the Resources folder, which reveals the Images folder.
  2. Right-click on Images and select Add > Existing Item....
  3. Navigate to the folder that contains the downloaded images.
  4. Change the filter to file type filter to Image Files.
  5. Select the image you downloaded.
  6. Select Add.

Next step

Part 3: Tutorial: Sign in users in .NET MAUI shell app using an external tenant