This project shows how to integrate Avalonia UI and NativeAOT (previously CoreRT). Both projects are under heavy development, have sparce documentation, and require subtle knowledge spread across multiple sources. Using this project, you will learn how to develop using both frameworks. You may also use it as a starting point for your projects.

System requirements

This project is tested only under Windows, and this readme assumes you are using Windows. To build this project, you need:

• Any supported 64-bit edition of Windows. NativeAOT requires 64-bit Windows and produces only 64-bit Windows apps.
• Visual Studio. VS 2022 Community is free for personal use. Get if from here. When installing Visual Studio, select .NET desktop development and Desktop development with C++ workloads. To generate native code, NativeAOT requires the native C++ toolchain and Windows SDK. This configuration ensures you have them.
• .Net 7.0 SDK. Download it from here. Note: Make sure that you download and install the SDK. The runtime is not enough for building apps.
• Git. Install Git for Windows.

Getting started

Get the source code

After you have installed the prerequisites, your first step is to get the source code:

1. From the Windows Start menu, start x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022. This configures the development environment with 64-bit dev tools, which NativeAOT requires to build your apps.
2. Get the sample project. Go to your terminal, and clone it:

git clone git@github.com:teobugslayer/AvaloniaCoreRTDemo.git
cd AvaloniaCoreRTDemo

Then, build the sample:

dotnet publish -r win-x64 -c release

Note: Avalonia and NativeAOT are huge and downloading their NuGet packages may take some time. During this period, which happens on the first build, and when NativeAOT releases a new version, it will look like nothing happens. Just be patient.

We are ready - In your terminal, navigate to src\bin\Release\net6.0\win-x64\publish, and start AvaloniaCoreRTDemo.exe - it should work!

Further development

Feel free to use this sample as a base for your projects.

This project is configured to help you debug issues with publishing. Before publishing, check the CSPROJ file and modify the various Ilc* properties according to Optimizing programs targeting Native AOT document.

Artifact test

For any change in this repo we will build the artifact for Windows-x64, Linux-x64 and macOS-x64. You can download them from workflows run results. For run the artifact on macOS make sure to allow the application in System Preferences, Security & Privacy, General.