[.NET MAUI] Add style classes for Span elements

We've been seeing more migration war stories recently as the last Xamarin holdouts finally take the leap to .NET MAUI. I thought I'd share mine, which, while painful at times, is finally done. For some context, [Scavos](https://www.scavos.com) is a real-time, media-driven scavenger hunt platform. It’s used for things like: * School events (spirit weeks, field trips, orientations) * Family / group vacations * Social events (birthdays, bachelor/bachelorette parties, weddings/receptions) * Campus & Greek life, church groups * Team building and corporate events * Conferences and trade shows * Chamber of commerce trails and community festivals To succeed in all these environments, Scavos needs to be: * Easy to onboard and use * Scalable, reliable, and resilient to spotty mobile connections * High-performance, with a modern, native feel # Technical Overview Scavos is a feature-rich app, now built with .NET MAUI 9. Some technical highlights: * Passwordless auth via Firebase (Google & Apple providers) * Full reactive data architecture: ReactiveUI, DynamicData, and Rx.net on top of Firestore * Google Places integration (for attaching locations to missions) * Infinite scrolling with reactive paging * AI-assisted hunt generation + dynamic cover art * Deep linking, with [Branch.io](http://Branch.io) for QR & link invites * Custom platform camera + video controls * Persistent upload queue with retry logic * BlurHash media previews * Push notifications via FCM * Navigation + MVVM + DI with Prism * Various Syncfusion controls: tab view, text input, slider, combo box, chips, image editor, etc. * Cross-platform in-app purchases & subscriptions * Custom view state controls (built for virtualization) * Custom image control for smooth loading * FontAwesome icons * Native tab bar badges * [ImageKit.io](http://ImageKit.io) for media transcoding * QR code scanning # Better in MAUI With all that in mind, let’s start on a positive note. My 'top 10' things that are better than legacy Xamarin: * It feels like there are fewer random bugs than in Xamarin (at least in MAUI 9; 8 was rough) * Cross-platform image resizing and packaging... *awesome!* * No more .NET Standard or legacy MSBuild pain * MauiAppBuilder makes startup config cleaner and easier * Compiled 'Source' bindings (finally!) * The single project structure has grown on me (less friction for platform code) * CollectionView finally works reliably across platforms (seriously) * Dispatcher (`DispatchAsync` is nice!) * Syncfusion’s MAUI suite is overall more polished than their Xamarin version * Hot reload works *better* than it did in Xamarin, though it's obviously still far from ideal # Challenges, Annoyances, and Workarounds # Android: * GREF limits can be hit easily when using native SDKs like Firestore. Easy to crash if you’re not careful with `Java.Lang.Object` lifecycles. * UI jank caused by aggressive garbage collections, and the relationship between Mono and ART GCs. If the Mono nursery size is too small (which it is by default), it triggers lots of collections—each of which kicks off an ART GC. Result: dropped frames and bad UX. I actually think this might be a bug in the Android / Mono runtime... * Fixing the GC issue means increasing the nursery size via an env file... but there's another bug: the env file is ignored unless Fast Deployment is disabled, which makes debug builds *painfully* slow. # iOS * Native AOT sounds great but has a high friction cost. DynamicData isn't trimmable. Reflection-based libraries are fragile. The benefits are theoretical for now (at least for me) * CollectionViewHandler2 and CarouselViewHandler2: not stable. The CollectionView doesn't handle layouts right, and CarouselView causes crashes. Stick to the old handlers. * Firebase/Google SDK bindings dropped by Microsoft. I now have to maintain these bindings, which is time-consuming (to say the least) * StoreKit2 is a challenge. Native Swift-only APIs like this are hard to consume in .NET MAUI. It’s a reason Plugin.InAppBilling was archived :( * Native iOS binding tooling is a mess. Sharpie doesn’t work with Xcode 16.4, and it’s closed-source. I'd guess that writing iOS bindings for a native SDK is practically unapproachable for most MAUI devs. * Dealing with .xcframeworks on Windows? Just don’t. VS path length limitations are a nightmare. # General MAUI * Rider has an infuriating bug where it builds for all targets even in a simple debug build. It's easy enough to work around, just annoying. * Working through all the layout quirks between Xamarin and MAUI was tedious, especially with the notoriously flaky hot reload. * Font autoscaling is now opt-out (instead of XF’s opt-in). Tedious to work through. * No style classes for <Span> makes the above more tedious. * Tooling is regressing. We lost Microsoft-supported Firebase, Google, and Facebook SDKs. Off-the-shelf media and camera controls are immature. Visual Studio for Mac is gone. Plugin.InAppBilling is archived... The ecosystem is thinning, not growing. * Syncfusion theming is way more tedious than it was in Xamarin. * The handler/mapping model isn’t intuitive. It's a leaky abstraction, and their practical extendabilty is sort of 'luck of the draw'. Consider the case of adding native badges (e.g., on tool/tab bar items). This really *should* be a simple property mapping, but MAUI's handlers aren't easy to extend. * It would be nice if there was some authoritative documentation on all the different project settings and their default values. The [official docs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/deployment/visual-studio-properties?view=net-maui-9.0) explain the settings screen in Visual Studio. But if you're developing on a Mac, how are you supposed to connect the dots between 'Fast Deployment' and 'EmbedAssembliesIntoApk=false'? # Final Thoughts I know I’ve stretched MAUI pretty far. But, while it’s not perfect, it’s finally starting to feel viable for serious, real-world apps. I'd be lying if I said I don't sometimes wish I'd started with React Native, but I'm generally happy with the platform now and the direction it's going. I just wish Microsoft would invest in it a little more. Hopefully at least some part of this post is helpful to someone. Feel free to comment or ask about anything specific! And if you're curious what all this looks like live, feel free to [check it out](https://scavos.com) :) It’s free to try and play (for up to 3 players per event), and available on both app stores in 84 countries right now (though not properly internationalized yet...) Happy Hunting!