PROPOSAL: Make Xamarin.Forms available for latest Xcode (and Android Platform if needed) because of too many MAUI Bugs

[bnSonic]

Please read this in the best sensible and friendly way, I don't like to blame anyone!

I like to have … no, I'm begging you to make Xamarin.Forms available for Xcode 16 and/or above to make it possible, to build Updates for existing projects.

Why?

The Fact is: MAUI seems to be a GIANT project and I respect the work of all of you! Your goal seems to be to make MAUI more performant, to reduce memory footprint, fixing leaks etc.
This is great!

But to face the uncomfortable truth: MAUI has a lot of Bugs - and I'm talking about "Basic" Layout / UI Bugs, like (examples out of my head)

• DataTemplates used for items in a CollectionView: Resizing doesn't work correctly (big problems if you have uneven heights); SwipeView not showing for the correct item if you have a longer list, … it goes on and on. It seems there is a deeper problem in reusing / caching the Templates
• On Android the Editor doesn't respect a HeightRequest. Not sure if in general or inside an other Layout (Grid, on a ScrollView, …)
• Tapping inside an Editor that is at the bottom of the screen inside a ScrollView: on iOS it scrolls up not far enough to be completely visible, so the Cursor can move under the virtual keyboard.
• Geez, even try to geht the safeArea under iOS is an adventure for itself

it's not about bug reporting in detail; you can search for the keywords yourself and find a lot of issues and "closed" doesn't necessarily mean it's "solved"

Just a few examples but there are more.
Again: Not to blame anyone! It's a complex framework and a small team.

BUT my point is:

• i HAVE(!) to migrate to MAUI because I'm not able to upload an update for the Xamarin.Forms App to Apple anymore! Apple says I MUST build against XCode16 or up which is not possible with XForms anymore. (not sure if there are similar problems later this year with Google/Android)

The App is migrated after uncountable hours of hard work with multiple people.
And still: The last WEEKS(!) I spent with fighting the UI / Layout Bugs to make my Apps / UI / UX running at least almost the same as with XForms.
I mean really: I'm not spending my time fixing our own logic-Bugs in the App or build new / better features for our customers, no, I'm spending weeks now:

• seeings something not working correctly
• searching for a bug in the migration
• … only to find multiple issues here on git hub
• … hopefully finding workarounds
• which is not the case every time
• so I'm fumbling around with the layout … Grid or Stackview? VerticalStackView or not? this property? binding or setting? own property in code behind to get some measures all by myself at runtime and binding them? going down to the platform with renderers or handlers to get the information from there? will this work? no? Damn…

So I'm not able to update four Apps for our clients even they are fully migrated to MAUI … in theory that is!
All those Layout Issues and are forcing me to research for (ugly) workarounds but there is no easy way for every problem - like for example the Editor not Sizing on Android and not the UI not scrolling far away up on iOS if the keyboard is shown (yet to be tested on Android though…)

I NEED TO FIX THE APPS and send out updates for our clients and because of MAUI Issues it's impossible without shipping lots of new problems :(

HELP … whenever I search for a problem I found I see lots of entries in this GitHub - so I cannot be the only one

[Kalyxt]

There is a way to build Xamarin Forms project against XCode 16. I've done it month ago using these commands, but I upgraded to latest MacOS and there is new problem.

I upgraded to MacOS 15.4.1 and it seems like there is new communication format via SSH. I am able to connect to Mac, but I am unable to build it as MSbuild is using old ssh standard.

MSBuild was unable to connect to the Mac with Address='192.168.16.147' and User='Kalixt'. This connection is separate from Visual Studio and without it the project can't build. Please try building again or report this problem if the issue persists

Then you can build it on MAC using Visual Studio Code, but I have to yet to verify.

Is there someone who is able to build it for iOS ?

[giuseppenovielli]

I have compiled an Xamarin.Forms app and uploaded to App Store with target iOS 18.4.

1. use the follow script to make available iOS 18 for Visual Studio for Mac -> [META] Xcode 16.0 Support for .NET 8/9 and MAUI macios#20802 (comment)

2. Next Visual Studio for mac recognized all iOS 18 emulator and you can compile your xamarin forms app for iOS 18.

Environment

• Visual Studio Community 2022 for Mac Versione 17.6.14 (build 413)
• xcode 16.3
• mac book Sequoia 15.4.1

[bnSonic]

How do you install VS for Mac? Microsoft ist not offering it anymore? I remember I’ve downloaded an installer from some archive link but then it didn’t install anything as it wants to download the software and MS has removed it (?) from its servers?!

Maybe I can find and reactivate some older Mac where VS for Mac might be installed … hm. 🤔
I don’t think it works with VScode on the Mac as there is no XCode extension?!
But I have an old Windows PC with an older VS version I have build the Xcode apps with. But then - for this one I cannot build against the SDK for iOS 18

[Kalyxt]

Maybe I can find and reactivate some older Mac where VS for Mac might be installed … hm. 🤔

I found old installer in download folder on my MAC, you can try it.

[giuseppenovielli]

try also this -> https://archive.org/details/visualstudioformacinstaller-17.4.0.445

[davidortinau]

You can download VS Mac and older / retired versions of VS from https://my.visualstudio.com/Downloads?q=visual%20studio%20for%20mac

[jfversluis]

On our side we won't be investing in making this happen officially. It is possible, but it will require effort on your part. Probably as much effort as maybe helping us out with the issues you are seeing in .NET MAUI and contributing a fix 😉

Please feel free to reach out to me directly (find my email address on my GitHub profile) with a list of concrete issues you are running into so I can have a look at either resolving those or unblocking you. That will help others with their migration as well, and at the very least will provide us with very valuable feedback and insights into what areas are important to customers that still need to migrate.

If you'd like to discuss this further with people, feel free to open a discussion or find another medium, but we won't be investing in this.

Thanks!