Add MAUI support for Template Studio

[Natriss]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

The current Template Studio is only available for WinUI 3/UWP/WPF.
When it come to cross-platform, you're kinda on you're own on this with ofcourse some help of the documentation.

This might be tagged as a duplicate of #4117
But having it as a question, I really want this to be proposal and/or enhancement.
That question is from 3 years ago and there is almost to no communication of it going to be a proposal or not.

Describe the solution you'd like

It would be nice to be able to set up a MAUI project with given navigation options.
Adding different types of pages and/or sub pages.
Being able to use MVVM Toolkit or not.
Correctly setting up for Multilanguage support.

This might be a difficult one but custom controls with TemplatedView and ResourceDictionary.
TemplatedView is not as deep documented then ContentView and while they are similar, there is a difference.
Having a basic custom control(s) in a page (e.g. a button).
This would show any developer how to correctly create custom controls without going to the DonNetEvolution or Windows App Community Discord server to ask how to create a custom control with a TemplatedView.
This could take the approach how WinUI 3 handles it Generic.xaml concept.

Describe alternatives you've considered

MAUI App Accelerator does it really well in my opinion.

Additional context

No response

Applies to the following platforms:

• WinUI
• WPF
• UWP

[mrlacey]

@Natriss Why do you think MAUI App Accelerator isn't sufficient as it is?

[Natriss]

@mrlacey Not at all.
But asking for an official product isn't weird tho.
If I could I would love to build a template studio as well.
Having multiple options to choose from is not bad but really good.
What the Microsoft Template Studio don't do, does a thirt party one and vice versa.

[mrlacey]

@Natriss Yep, no harm in asking but for background:
I helped build the original UWP version of Template Studio.
I made the WinUI and VS2022 support possible. This started as a fork as MS weren't building anything. They adopted my fork as an official continuation but quickly lost interest after removing my permissions to make changes. That's why Template Studio currently sits in a virtually abandoned state. :(
I built MAA as there was no one at MS with funds or suitable interest to create a MAUI-focused version of Template Studio.
My suggestion is to not hold your breath waiting for something

[Natriss]

@mrlacey I'm sorry this has happened to you and how the current state is of this repo.

Thank you for your background.
I am going to continue to use MAA, don't worry :3

[WinInsider]

@microsoft ... spend some $$$ on your own tech stack.

• Add MAUI support, and...
• update WPF template to use new .NET 9 Theme support.

[mrlacey]

@microsoft ... spend some $$$ on your own tech stack.

• Add MAUI support, and...
• update WPF template to use new .NET 9 Theme support.

@WinInsider I was one of the core contributors to the original version of this project. I also rebuilt it for VS2022 when MS stopped investing in it. After I did the work someone from MS picked it up again but they've now got other priorities and I no longer have any permissions here. MAUI App Accelerator is my port (and rewrite/improvement) of this codebase specifically for creating MAUI apps. For years, we tried to get people within the Xamarin and MAUI teams to support a version of TemplateStudio for building such apps, but this was never a priority.
The WPF support for Template Studio never got traction. I suspect because while there are lots of people using WPF they're not building new apps and wanting guidance about how to get started. If you're building new WPF apps today, it's typically because you have used WPF a lot in the past and have your own particular way of doing things that isn't served well by what was in Template Studio.
If you have ideas for how native app development can be improved by better or new tooling I'd love to hear more but I don't think this is it. I think it's safe to assume this repo has been abandoned by Microsoft.
Yes, it would be great if MS reinvested their vast profits into more and better tools but that's not how modern capitalism works. I don't believe there's anything we can say here that will change that.