A native visual designer for .NET MAUI, built with C# and WinUI. Drag controls onto the canvas, edit their properties, and generate XAML. The canvas hosts real MAUI views, not HTML/CSS approximations.
The current desktop app lives in maui-designer-native/
and targets Windows with .NET 10.
- Reflection-based toolbox for MAUI, CommunityToolkit and custom-control assemblies.
- Native layout, drag/drop, resizing, reparenting and hierarchy navigation.
- Multi-selection, clipboard actions, keyboard commands and undo/redo.
- Grouped property editing and specialized Grid row/column editors.
- Device presets, zoom, pan, snap/grid controls and rulers in a light workspace.
- Live XAML editing that preserves resources, namespaces and markup extensions.
- A separate real-MAUI runtime preview and DevFlow inspection in Debug builds.
Requirements: Windows 10 version 1809 or later, the .NET 10 SDK, and the MAUI Windows workload.
git clone https://github.com/GMPrakhar/MAUI-Designer.git
cd MAUI-Designer
dotnet workload install maui-windows
dotnet run --project maui-designer-native/MAUIDesigner.Fresh.App/MAUIDesigner.Fresh.App.csproj -c DebugNo browser, Node.js or Angular development server is needed for the native app.
Native release builds are published as MAUIDesigner-win-x64.zip by the
native-v* release workflow. Look for MAUI Designer native prereleases on
the releases page, rather
than the separate VSIX download.
- Drag a control or layout from the toolbox onto the canvas.
- Select it on the canvas or in the hierarchy, then resize it or edit its properties.
- Open XAML to edit the document. Valid edits update the canvas automatically; invalid input leaves the current design unchanged.
Use Load controls to add custom-control assemblies and their adjacent dependencies. Runtime-only bindings, converters, commands and behaviors are preserved in XAML but are not executed by the designer; literal values and binding fallbacks drive previews.
The VSIX hosts the native designer inside a Visual Studio document tab and synchronizes the existing XAML text buffer. It is not a WebView-based editor.
Download MauiDesigner.vsix from the
VSIX release,
close Visual Studio, install it, then choose Open With > MAUI Designer on a
.xaml file. Requires Windows and Visual Studio 2022 or 2026.
Build the native app on Windows:
dotnet build maui-designer-native/MAUIDesigner.Fresh.App/MAUIDesigner.Fresh.App.csproj -c ReleaseSee the native development guide for publishing
and platform details. Follow CONTRIBUTING.md: integrate feature
work on develop, then promote approved changes to main through a pull request.
The earlier Angular app remains in src/ as a separate implementation; its
HTML/CSS preview is not the native designer described here.
Created by GMPrakhar.
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GNU GPL v3.0 only. Dependencies retain their own licenses. Earlier README revisions stated MIT, then PolyForm Noncommercial; this does not retroactively withdraw rights granted under those statements.