Matthew Leibowitz mattleibow

The Perfect Navigation System for .NET MAUI

What Would It Look Like If We Started From Scratch?

This document compares navigation systems across platforms and frameworks, identifies what each gets right and wrong, and proposes what a ground-up replacement for MAUI navigation would look like. The goal is to design the ideal system first, then layer backward compatibility on top — not the other way around.

Part 1: The Landscape Today

Shell v2: Incremental Navigation Redesign

Problem Statement

Shell's current architecture conflates navigation structure (tabs, flyout, modals) with navigation operations (pushing pages with parameters). This creates five interrelated pain points that push developers toward workarounds or away from Shell entirely:

Split registration model — Tab roots must be declared in AppShell.xaml; pushed pages must use Routing.RegisterRoute. Restructuring your app (promoting a pushed page to a tab) requires refactoring both XAML and startup code.
No scoped parameters for repeated routes — Shell's flat ShellRouteParameters dictionary means you can't push the same page type twice with different state (e.g., /product/apple/compare/product/banana). Path parameters compound this by making the pattern more tempting without delivering scoped delivery.

SkiaSharp Pipeline Stage Flow

Actual ADO Pipeline Execution

graph TD
    P[prepare] --> NM[native_macos<br>10 jobs]
    P --> NW[native_windows<br>19 jobs]
    P --> NL[native_linux<br>25 jobs]
 P --&gt; NWASM[native_wasm16 jobs]

Build Dependency Graph

Auto-generated by python3 scripts/infra/caching/generate-dep-graph.py Explore: paste the mermaid block into mermaid.live

Pipeline Stages

flowchart TB

Deep Research: Decoupling SkiaSharp's Public API From Skia

Context: This is a research-driven response to a thought experiment proposing that SkiaSharp should evolve from a 1:1 Skia mirror into a "Skia-inspired but independently versioned" API. Five parallel research agents investigated the actual codebase, tooling, consumer impact, and creative alternatives.

✅ What I AGREE With

1. "Churn is concentrated, not pervasive" — Verified, mostly.

Skia Analyst Report

50 actionable items · 16 already bound · 29 no action needed
m147 (full scan) · Generated 2026-04-29

Legend

Status (squares)

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	<title>Skia Analyst — m147 (full, 2026-04-29)</title>
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	<title>Release Notes — v3.119.4-preview.1.1..origin/main (2026-04-28)</title>
	<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.3.3/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
	<style>
	:root{--bg:#f6f8fa;--border:#d8dee4;--row-hover:#f0f4f8;--muted:#656d76;}
	body{background:var(--bg);color:#1f2328;font-size:14px;}

	<!DOCTYPE html>
	<html lang="en">
	<head>
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	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
	<title>Release Notes — v3.119.2..origin/main (2026-04-27)</title>
	<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.3.3/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
	<style>
	:root{--bg:#f6f8fa;--border:#d8dee4;--row-hover:#f0f4f8;--muted:#656d76;}
	body{background:var(--bg);color:#1f2328;font-size:14px;}

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	<title>Skia GM Sample Scout</title>
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	<style>
	:root{--bg:#f6f8fa;--border:#d8dee4;--muted:#656d76;}
	body{background:var(--bg);color:#1f2328;font-size:14px;}