Naming clarification

[Nirmal4G]

Clarify Naming

To me, Maui is like an artificial name and does not fit well with the naming of .NET libs and namespaces. When people first see System.Maui they don't see it as a UI project/library. This was the same thought that was going through my mind and some of my colleagues when I shared them the link to this project.

@coolcsh said the final product will be named as System.UI and I really like it. It's on point. Then the session by the Xamarin team showed System.Maui. So, Please clarify the naming in the roadmap or somewhere in the repo.

But if you guys reserve System.UI for future then at least include UI (in CAPS) in the product and the namespace.

If I were to call it, my preferred would be..

• System.UI (most preferred)
• System.XUI (Cross-UI)
• System.MUI (Multi-UI)

And for XAML, what is the status on XAML Standard?

[probonopd]

Also see #35.

[davidortinau]

Thanks for the post @Nirmal4G. Would you expand on what you mean by "artificial"? Would like to understand that more.

Yes, we've been back and forth on the namespace between System.UI and System.Maui. Sorry for the confusion. I think this is a matter of some slides not getting updated. The current plan after an initial meeting with the .NET API review team is the latter.

In terms of a XAML Standard, are you asking about changing Xamarin.Forms control names to match UWP or WPF?

We have recently revisited the control naming with customers and developers, those with desktop experience and/or mobile. The majority feedback is for a multi-platform framework like this to not lock into a single platform naming scheme, but to unify on some broader, common standard. We have had initial conversations with the Fluent UI team and Windows team about investigating something like https://github.com/WICG/open-ui and may open a proposal around that in the future. However, at this time it's only a conversation and we are not committing to any work in this area today.

[muhaym]

@davidortinau - @Nirmal4G 's suggestion of System.UI seems elegant and the feeling is like it's something that was already there. But MaUI feels artificial (something not relevant to the System class). Also with the naming issue in the #35 thread, respectable choice would be going with anything other than Maui

[dcuccia]

+1 on System.UI

[ghost]

Definitely System.UI sound better. But for Xamarin.Forms ecosystem I prefer having something like (Microsoft.Xamarin / Microsoft.Xamarin.iOS / Microsoft.Xamarin.Android) to match frameworks style like ASP and Entityframework. Thanks.

[legistek]

We have recently revisited the control naming with customers and developers, those with desktop experience and/or mobile. The majority feedback is for a multi-platform framework like this to not lock into a single platform naming scheme, but to unify on some broader, common standard.

A compatibility bridge would be nice though, to help people who have a LOT invested in WPF/UWP XAML port their code more easily. There are a handful of things preventing this in XF that could be fixed relatively easily - the biggest being the default XML namespace having to be http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms

[legistek]

I'd go with System.UI and officially call it .NET UI Short and sweet.

Then the KDE people will stop whining. You don't want a repeat of the "Metro/Modern/UWP/who knows what it's called anymore" fiasco.

I also think a name like ".NET UI" is a lot more professional and becoming of Microsoft. Maui sounds like a bad codename for an Apple product. No offense to anyone (I happen to love the island of Maui!)

[Nirmal4G]

The majority feedback is for a multi-platform framework like this to not lock into a single platform naming scheme, but to unify on some broader, common standard.

By that logic, I would have System.MaConsole, System.MaXml, System.MaNet, System.MaIO... Do you see where I'm going with this... 😂

Who told you that System.UI corresponds to single platform? .NET (Core) 5 is cross platform now. So, It makes sense that System.UI is multi/cross-platform!! Follow the guidelines that Windows API team uses. Their naming is consistent with Framework guidelines. I know, technically it's not an native UI rendering on each platform but a presentation framework using the native UI APIs available on each platform. So might as well call it System.UI.Presentation/System.UI.Presentors or something. The whole of .NET primitive APIs are implemented using the target plaforms' native APIs.

Whatever maybe, the root namespace for this repo should be System.UI. Unless you want to use System.UI in the future and this project is not really worth it's name?

In terms of a XAML Standard, are you asking about changing Xamarin.Forms control names to match UWP or WPF?

No, not just names but the language features. Why XAML (spec and its tools) is not open sourced yet.

[charlesroddie]

Sorry but I don't think we have struck upon anything good yet.
Maui: seems like a placeholder name
System.Maui: System seems unnecessary. Other UI frameworks including UWP aren't in System.
System.UI: it's not the only UI in .net. Also neither "System" nor "UI" are suitable brand names for the product.
I don't have any good ideas though.

[balivo]

Why not: System.UUI => Unified/Universal UI 🤣

[Happypig375]

UI can also stand for "Universal Interface". +1 vote to System.UI.

[balivo]

UI can also stand for "Universal Interface". +1 vote to System.UI.

I know... UUI => ULTIMATE Universal Interface 🤣

But... +1 vote to System.UI

[dersia]

As @davidortinau pointed out in another issue, MAUI is just an acronym, but I agree with others, that it doesn't feel good as a namespace name.
Especially if Microsoft is referring to it as MultiApplicationUserInterface-Framework (or what ever the acronym did stand for) it's not a good name for referring to it (imaging someone googling issues and will end up with MauiKit or such on stackoverflow) nor does it feel right in a namespace.

I would also prefer System.UI or even better Microsoft.UI.
And then when referring to it I would rather go with dotnet-UI or come up with a really good new name like Lei 😬

[schemburkar]

According to the FAQ, Xamarin.Forms becomes System.Maui and Xamarin.Essentials becomes System.Devices

For better upgrades and migration, would it be better to have alias pointing to the Xamarin namespaces? As well as nuget package alias to the MAUI releases? Similar to how the Office Fabric team is releasing under both office-ui-fabric-react and @fluentui/react

[GeraudFabien]

Another problem MAUI is a god in disney MOANA movie that try so much to be loved that he destroy the world. I'm not sure it's a good idea.

[balivo]

If MAUI is only related with Disney movie, ok... But MAUI have a "really darkness" history at Maori Legends...

[GeraudFabien]

I don't understand why system. It's not a namespace.
The naming of .net are in 4 catégory.

• 3 Letters abreviation : WPF, UWP, ADO, ASP, DNX,...
• WYSIWYG 2 part name : WinForm, WebForm, XamarinForm, SignalR, EntityFramework, ASP.Net, Benchmark.Net, MonoGame, msBuild, NuGet
• WYSIWYG ; (Runtime, CLR, Extention, IOT, CLI, ...)
• WTF :
  • Roslyn (who is roslyn... Is it the wife of Mono.)
  • Mono (... i believe they wanted someone to make a game with it just to call it monogame [Monogamy in french])
  • Arcade (Let's play)
  • CRANK (Because client where always cranky about performance so instead of insulting them we insult our own tools)
  • Tye (the idea was great to evoke the fact that once you use it you would be tye to use it forever 🤦)
  • Orleans (... it's a very well know town...)
  • Blazor (Hope it suits you...)
  • MAUI is in the WTF section. It's a divine god with dark past. A name already taken. A weird name (Multi-Application it should more multi-target user interface)(User interface isn't precise Graphical is more precise (And MAGI is only a simpson child))

PS ; I like blazor, Tye and mono. You directly know you talk about a tool even when talking with someone who don't know it.

For the name it's not hard

• Dotnet.Form (*Form)
• .Form (WinForm)(Based on url Win.Form is windows inside of form. So why not just dotForm?)
• Desing.Net (*Form)
• UI Framework (EntityFramework)
• UI Core (I know the goal is to remove core. But core framework where fork of original on dotnet core. And when they get mature enough they lost they core part. (naming it just UI simple and stupid, pretty like all WYSIWYG solution))
• XUI (Xamarin User Interface) (It's my favorite. There is a Java and JS framework name like that but they seems not to be supported since 2014.)
• XPF (WPF)
• UDP (UWP) (Universal Design/Dotnet Plateform)
• DesignU (SignalR) (DesignUniversal)
• ...

[Happypig375]

Just call it .NET UI and use the namespace System.UI.
WPF uses the namespace System.Windows.
WinForms uses the namespace System.Windows.Forms.
UWP uses the namespace Windows.
If we are to make a cross platform UI, just make it System.UI and move on. (Currently the proposed namespace Is System.Maui.)

[Happypig375]

This namespace is also short and sweet like System.IO.