macOS Development

Getting started developing for the macOS

Native code

The native macOS code is located at native/Avalonia.Native/src/OSX. Open the Avalonia.Native.OSX.xcodeproj project in Xcode.

You can make changes in Xcode and compile using Cmd+B. You will then need to point your Avalonia application to the modified dynlib. The path can be found by clicking on the dylib in Xcode’s project navigator under Products.

You then specify this path in your AppBuilder using:

.With(new AvaloniaNativePlatformOptions
{ 
    AvaloniaNativeLibraryPath = “[Path to your dylib]”, 
})

If you're running on an Apple Silicon Mac and targeting .NET 5 and lower then you'll need to switch to rosetta by selecting "My Mac (Rosetta)" in the toolbar.

Bundling Dev Code

In certain situations you need to run an Avalonia sample application as an app bundle. One of these situations is testing macOS Accessibility - Xcode's Accessibility Inspector fails to recognise the application otherwise.

A solution to this is to change the sample's output path to resemble an app bundle. You can do this by modifying the output path in the csproj, e.g.:

<OutputPath>bin\$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\ControlCatalog.NetCore.app/Contents/MacOS</OutputPath>
<AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>false</AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>
<UseAppHost>true</UseAppHost>

And in the Contents output directory place a valid Info.plist file. An example for ControlCatalog.NetCore is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>CFBundleName</key>
    <string>ControlCatalog.NetCore</string>
    <key>CFBundleDisplayName</key>
    <string>ControlCatalog.NetCore</string>
    <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
    <string>ControlCatalog.NetCore</string>
    <key>CFBundleVersion</key>
    <string>0.10.999</string>
    <key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
    <string>AAPL</string>
    <key>CFBundleSignature</key>
    <string>????</string>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>ControlCatalog.NetCore</string>
    <key>CFBundleIconFile</key>
    <string>ControlCatalog.NetCore.icns</string>
    <key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
    <string>0.1</string>
    <key>NSPrincipalClass</key>
    <string>NSApplication</string>
    <key>NSHighResolutionCapable</key>
    <true />
  </dict>
</plist>

If you're using Rider < 2021.1 then you'll need to run the application from the command line, not the IDE (see https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RIDER-53892).