Unit Testing .NET MAUI Apps with xUnit

[@jfversluis]

All ready to build your .NET MAUI app now? Be sure to check out this playlist which contains all my videos about .NET MAUI 😱 kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXybpmaDor2hoKc

[@torbenschramme4722]

Thanks for the video, Gerald! Great start into MAUI testing. I have two questions: 1) Is there any approach so far for MAUI UI testing (like Xamarin.UITest)? 2) When my MAUI project uses packages that don't support the bare net7.0 framework (e.g. the DevExpress libraries, they only support net7.0-androidxx + net7.0-ios, but not plain net7.0), then your presented approach is not possible; the project then even doesn't start compiling for net7.0, because of failed package restore. Any idea for that?

[@АйбатАманбайұлы]

any solutions?

[@ProgrammingWithChris]

Oh, this is great, i literally put out a video yesterday where I talk through the troubles I had with Unit Testing in Maui, but this rocks, i also didn't know about the .dll solution. I'll say I got pretty close :). Thanks for the video!

[@jfversluis]

Well glad you figured it out, time for that follow up video 😉

[@wendellkelsey356]

Finally! Thank you! I could never find a way around the "Application does not have static Main method" build error. Tried for weeks. Even tried to sneak a completely blank static Main method into a file that served no other purpose, but that messed up the Maui entry point. Finally gave up on the entire idea of testing the app. It seems obvious now to put a simple conditional in the csproj file. I can't thank you enough for this...

[@cynstrider4912]

I spent 2 hours trying to get the unit tests to work and after watching this video I got it working in a few minutes. Thank you!!!!

[@jfversluis]

Perfect! Good job!

[@dotMorten]

Adding .net6 to the application project, instead of adding net6-windows to the unit test project seems backwards. Also that won't work if a dependency requires runtime libraries for a specific platform (like including native libraries). By being explicitly about the target framework in your unit test, you know exactly what you're testing, and for which platform (and no need for your output type hack either). You aren't even testing the actual binary that gets shipped in the app, but instead merely a separate class library you made just for the test.

[@DonovanBrown]

I went the other direction as well and got it to work. I just had to change the PlatformTarget to x64 in my test project. I did not have the change the original project file at all.

[@johnjohnson2698]

​@DonovanBrown do you have a way to share what you did?

[@OrkwilP]

@@johnjohnson2698 In visual studio you can change the platform target from build > configuration manager

[@nathandavis7593]

Thanks Gerald! I believe if you clean your solution after making changes to the proj file. That should fix the build. The project.assests.json file has to be updated to include .net6 that was added to the target frameworks.

[@jfversluis]

Ah that totally makes sense! Thanks for sharing!

[@larryleach9540]

Finally! I have my Xamarin unit tests back in action. Thanks!!

[@jfversluis]

Nice job! Well done!

[@johnjohnson2698]

You may have just saved my project! Thanks man

[@jfversluis]

Good luck my friend!

[@anthonychambers4679]

Thanks Gerald, you solved my problem getting Maui NUnit tests to build

[@jfversluis]

Perfect! Thanks for letting me know!

[@jeffm3865]

Thanks. Before your video, I was bewildered while trying to get this to work. Very helpful.

[@jfversluis]

Yeah it’s not really straightforward 😅 hope we can make that better in the near future!

[@brunozimmermann4066]

Many thanks, there is one small problem. As soon as you configure the mau app with the target net6.0, it is not possible to chose anything other then the local machine (windows in may case) as the target for the build. Every time I want to test I have to add and later remove the target net6.0 to the maui app project.

[@jfversluis]

Make sure that you add the conditional attribute on the OutputType in your csproj file. See the sample code linked under the video.

[@aalialikoski]

@@jfversluis I added the conditional attribute but still having the same problem. The tests work nicely, but I cannot debug the project at all using Android emulator :(

[@aalialikoski]

Using VS 2022 Enterprise Version 17.3.6, the latest available currently

[@ramarajthangapandi3424]

I have the same issue. As soon as I add the 'net7.0', I don't see the run (on Android/iOS) menu anymore. I have to remove it, in order to run my app

[@ramarajthangapandi3424]

I added the .net7.0 in the last in my VS Mac. It worked. Like this net7.0-android;net7.0-ios;net7.0

[@JayVeeDee]

Good stuff, I'm sure this will help others when setting up the project. This was something I just couldn't get to work for my project. I'm pretty new to MAUI and C#, so I had no idea how to change the .net6.0 to become a dll for the test project or I did not even know you could do that!

[@jfversluis]

That's what I'm making these for 😉 glad you learned something!

[@simonbrettschneider2910]

Thank you for the tutorial - very helpful. How do you handle third-party packages such as the barcode scanner from ZXing.Net.Maui that does include net6.0? As soon as I compile the test project, the build will fail with "The type or namespace name 'ZXing' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)" which makes sense - any workaround?

[@jfversluis]

I think ideally you'll want to have your code you want to unit test in a separate project so you don't run into this :)

[@felicityrhone1866]

Right now I'm handling ZXing by adding a conditional so the package is only included for the platform (not plain .net7) target frameworks: 0.3.0-preview.1 0.3.0-preview.1 Then for the class that uses ZXing, I created a partial class (as described here stackoverflow.com/questions/73962418/maui-how-to-use-partial-classes-for-platform-specific-implementations-together?rq=1 ) to create a plain .net implementation that avoids ZXing while the platform-specific implementation can still use it.

[@Richthofen80]

Would like to see an example for acceptance testing / system testing via Xamarin UITest or the like.

[@jfversluis]

Have a look at the release pipeline for a Xamarin.Forms release. It’s public 😉

[@ericlobdell6484]

Ran into this exact issue yesterday, thanks!

[@zippolag]

I feel dumb for how long I spent trying to make this work but couldn't until I found this video! I'm going to steal the tip and post it on stack overflow ASAP :D ... TBH though, I think it's cleaner to just keep the "old" Xamarin-style approach of having a core project with just "net6.0" as target and so your UnitTest project dependency doesn't have to deal with the UI-specific MAUI bits.. Though if you create a "MAUI Library" project then you also get all of those extra output types for each platform, so I'll probably have to deal with that complexity _eventually_, but at least I don't have to keep slamming my head to the table just to get a boilerplate project to build.

[@julybrown4916]

Thanks Gerald. Appreciate your content.

[@jfversluis]

Thanks you so much July!

[@ayanbanerjee7816]

Hi Gerald , I have followed all the steps you have mentioned but once i add net6.0 to properly group my unit test project get selected as a start-up project and i could not able to build the main project , I am using visual studio preview letest version

[@jfversluis]

Can't you set the startup project back to the .NET MAUI app? :)

[@ayanbanerjee7816]

@@jfversluis No I can't setup back to MAUI project

[@jfversluis]

Make sure you added the Condition attribute on the OutputType in your csproj

[@ramarajthangapandi3424]

Same issue. The unit test project is set as the startup project, can't make the main project as the startup one. I have to remove the 'net7.0' target framework from the main project to see the run menu again. @Ayan Banerjee

[@josedonizeteoliveirajunior1744]

Can you believe youtube took my subscription? I liked the video a lot. please make a video for us teaching how to make a unit test code, or give us a reference to study. would be very appreciated

[@jfversluis]

Thanks for the idea!

[@FahadHassan-ki6xt]

Thanks for the great content. I am facing a problem, when I add the project reference. I got error that some packages does not support .net 6.0

[@xktsxl3gend]

i was able to do this early on from looking at the maui source code but still havent been able to figure out how to get it to build when there is platform specific code as well that doesnt have an implementation for targeting the net6.0 framework. any tips on that one would be helpful

[@xktsxl3gend]

did some more work on this today and was able to get it to finally work with platform specific code defined as well so all good :-)

[@jfversluis]

Awesome! Glad you figured it out, thanks for sharing! Do you have a repo or something that you can share?

[@xktsxl3gend]

Unfortunately i can't share the repo but i could share/email the snippets/details of how i resolved it. Issue I'm running into now is that visual studio won't let me launch the Maui project now 😂😂. I created a new project just to see what the issue was and that one launched fine but was soon as I added the new project as a reference to the test project and added the net6.0 as a framework to it, it also wouldn't launch anymore until i undid those parts. So I'll have to figure out what's up with that as well

[@xktsxl3gend]

got this resolved as well. had to unload the project and reload it.

[@davidstrau3074]

Thank you so much! Very good tutorial.

[@jfversluis]

Thank you so much David! Appreciate it!

[@jewersp]

Hi Gerald, I keep running into issues with both xUnit and NUnit here. With NUnit I cannot debug the app in any emulator at all and with xUnit I only managed to debug with Windows and Android (haven't tried iOS yet) after adding a separate DebugUnitTests Configuration to the solution and setting the $(TargetFrameworks) inside separate tags based on Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'DebugUnitTests'". This is not ideal, but so far it's the only working way for me. Any ideas on this?

[@jfversluis]

Not sure if I follow what you're doing.Check the sample code repo that is in. the video description which might help you.

[@simonmardine6414]

👏👏 as always super interesting 😁

[@jfversluis]

Thanks so much Simon!

[@enricoroselino7557]

so the test unit should be on other project ? i tought its gonna be like laravel or python on same project but inside Test folder, hmm but its make sense since the dev package not inside the real project

[@jfversluis]

If you really want to you could have it in the same project maybe? But to me that doesn't make much sense tbh :) at the very least its not the ".NET way"

[@enricoroselino7557]

@@jfversluis yes, i am adapting to .NET, i agree after second tought testing doesnt need to be in the same project 😁 trying to get rid of my imagination driven development

[@Steven-hq6df]

I'm using net7.0 with Visual Studio 17.4.0 Preview 2.1, and my project.assets.json says "Unable to read project information for 'Project': Sequence contains more than one element". I think this is an issue with Visual Studio Preview because when I remove net7.0 it restores and builds perfectly fine.

[@Steven-hq6df]

Created issue #10579 to report it

[@henriksndergaard2699]

I found your channel while looking for someone with experience developing c# on a mac and found your M1 video from a while ago. I got a new job starting in september and I am to pick a laptop for that. I really love mac's but am developing in windows. Do you use your mac for programming or do you use it for something else now? And if you use it for coding do you run arm windows through parallels or other solutions?

[@jfversluis]

I am using my Mac with Visual Studio for Mac and I can do everything I want with that. I don't run Windows virtually, so can't help you with that, sorry!

[@henriksndergaard2699]

@@jfversluis thanks. You answered my question perfectly

[@thomasgalliker]

Can I somehow include a new folder "net" inside the "Platforms" folder in which I have all the net7.0 related code? That would be awesome. Unfortunetly it didn't work even after hours of trying.

[@jfversluis]

Probably do something like this learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/platform-integration/configure-multi-targeting#configure-folder-based-multi-targeting

Hi Gerald, thanks for this video. Is there a way to manage multitargeting code for .net6.0 target like we do with android and windows in sub app directories Platforms/Android/.... ? Thanks

[@jfversluis]

I'm not sure what you mean... If you go into Visual Studio and do File > New > .NET MAUI Class Library you will get the template with the different folders for the different targets, is that what you mean?

[@andreagavioli7331]

Thanks Gerald! Useful video as always. I have a question: what about testing Android and iOS both unit and UI tests on .NET MAUI? Thanks in advance.

[@jfversluis]

Running these on iOS and Android, you should check out this: www.nuget.org/packages/Shiny.Xunit.Runners.Maui/1.0.0-alpha-0008 UI Tests isn't available yet unfortunately.

[@usz1444]

it is still needed and works in .net 8

[@jfversluis]

Thanks for letting us know!

[@frankpohl5620]

Hello gerald, this worked fine until I added some platform specfic code to the project. Now the compiler complains that I do not have a partial implementation for net6.0. The error message is "Partial method 'a method name' must have an implementation part because it has accessibility modifiers." How can I avoid this ? Or how can I tell the compiler that the Windows platform is also the platform that implements the net6.0 code?

[@jfversluis]

If you do this you will have to implement it for all platforms, even if they are empty.

[@franksprototypes9963]

@@jfversluis My problem is not, that I do not have partial implementations. I have partial implementations in the folders Windows, iOS and Android. But I do not have a folder for the target platform net6.0 and I do not know how to match a targtet platform to a folder. Looks like like "net6.0-android" is magically connected to the folder "Android" and "net6.0- iOS" to "iOS". But in which folder do I have to implement the platform specific code for the target "net6.0" that you introduced for the unit test?

[@jfversluis]

@@franksprototypes9963 Right! In that case have a look at this: learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/platform-integration/configure-multi-targeting Configure a target for the net6.0 code. You'll probably see an example in the .NET MAUI Community Toolkit or my Plugin.Maui.Audio

[@alexnikolayev7409]

What if I have a .NET6-Android/iOS project? Not MAUI. I can't get this to work following the same steps. Adding the .NET6.0 target just makes my main project fail to compile because it does not recognize the Android/iOS types.

[@jfversluis]

Do you have an example somewhere?

[@Robinbura]

Hi, Gerald, thanks...you doing the awesome job. One request why don't you make an video on background task in .net maui.....

[@jfversluis]

Because it’s a hard topic! 😄 you might want to have a look at the Shiny plug-in!

[@pushanroychowdhury5741]

Thanks a lot for this !!!

[@jfversluis]

You’re most welcome! Now go write those tests 😉

[@timokeller4750]

Hello Gerald, first of all thank you for your videos, they are really great. Also the video here about unit testing is very good. But our team would also like to do UI testing, so far we have done that with the Xamarin UI testing framework. Is there any way or do you have any idea how to do that with .NET Maui? Thanks a lot. Timo

[@jfversluis]

Hey Timo, thank you so much! UI testing is still being made compatible, so it doesn't work right now. It will come though, hopefully soon!

[@cleberrangeljr]

Hey guys, do we have any control libraries for MAUI like MahApps or similar?

[@jfversluis]

Have a look at GrialKit, SyncFusion, Telerik, DevExpress… and probably more!

[@cleberrangeljr]

@@jfversluis thanks Gerald, I’m kinda leaning towards open source our free ones! 😄 I found these, but they all are paid…

[@jfversluis]

@@cleberrangeljr SyncFusion is free under certain conditions. Look for community license

[@xDeew]

Gracias amigo, me salvaste de una!

[@jfversluis]

Glad to hear that!

[@ismaelsanchez3164]

Hi Gerald, I followed all your steps with a brand new project and it builds correctly, but when trying to launch the app in Android I get now an alert screen 'Unable to start debugging. The startup project cannot be launched... additionally make sure its debug settings are correctly configured in project properties' I use VS 17.3.0 Preview 3.0 Community edition.

[@joanox]

That is the exact same error i am getting now. Any idea how to fix it Gerald?

[@jfversluis]

If you can get me a reproduction I can have a look!

[@joanox]

@@jfversluis Any idea how to send you the link to my github profile, youtube won`t let be paste any link to github

[@jewersp]

I have the same issue, but I managed to work around it. For now, I've added a separate Solution Configuration that I called "DebugUnitTests" incl. additional Project Configurations of the same name. Then I've changed the .csproj file of the main project like this: net6.0-android;net6.0-ios;net6.0-maccatalyst net6.0;net6.0-android;net6.0-ios;net6.0-maccatalyst Unfortunately, for this to work it's necessary to reload all projects after switching between the Configurations.

[@davidmccollough4791]

Thanks, awesome video

[@jfversluis]

Thank you David!

[@ericbressant9163]

Nice but it seems that it does not work for me on the Application project... and I event not manage to open the sample VS2022 feeze each time I try. 😞 On my project I do modification of csproj of the app like in video. it complain that I can't put net6.0 in TargetFrameworks node... Does anyone have the same trouble ?

[@jfversluis]

If things freeze etc. something else seems wrong, that shouldn't happen

[@ericbressant9163]

Hi @@jfversluis thx to answer. yeah, it happens on the moment I add net6.0 on project file. I am using the last VS preview version maybe it's that. Even your sample code freeze vs on opening

[@mohammedalsabahii2]

Can i use xUnit with maui android app or ios ? , thank you for this great content

[@jfversluis]

Yep, check out this: www.nuget.org/packages/Shiny.Xunit.Runners.Maui/1.0.0-alpha-0008

[@martinhonnen9259]

Is there any way to unit test .NET 6 code on Android?

[@jfversluis]

Yep! You might want to have a look at this: www.nuget.org/packages/Shiny.Xunit.Runners.Maui/1.0.0-alpha-0008

[@manuelmair1855]

This solution does not work with NET7.0. Do you have a solution here as well

[@jfversluis]

Change what I show in the video to add net7.0 instead of net6.0 and it should work

[@manuelmair1855]

@@jfversluis OK, i solved the problem. The file path was too long. I put the project in an other dictionary, now everything works as it should!

[@yanaraldaghestani6305]

thanks man

[@jfversluis]

Happy to help!

[@АйбатАманбайұлы]

awesome!!!

[@yousifarshak]

Good work

[@jfversluis]

Thank you Yousif!

[@web777master]

Can I give you a few likes? That's what I needed. Awesome!

[@jfversluis]

Haha thank you friend! Appreciate it!

[@Sergio-jg4pr]

great!