Getting started. What is actually needed?

[unitrix0]

So, I've just made my first steps with Avalonia or I tried I should say. I've added the templates with dotnet new install Avalonia.Templates and I've installed the Rider extension. Nevertheless when I create a new Avalonia Solution or open the examples, I see a lot of red squiggles. Is there anything else I need to Install?

[thevortexcloud]

You may need to build the app once/run a dotnet restore. You also need to install various dotnet workloads for specific platforms, EG android and Browser. Desktop however should "just work" assuming all the packages are downloaded.

[thevortexcloud]

It's only needed for android/a couple other platforms. If you are just targeting desktop then you don't need any of the workloads and you can delete the platforms you are not targeting from the solution. The only requirement to build for desktop is the nuget packages.

I don't think that it is usual that an Android SDK is installed by default.

It's not. But it is required to build .NET apps for android. I think Visual Studio can install it for you in the installer on Windows though.

so looks like I need to install Xamarin too? I'm lost...

You don't need Xamarin. When you target iOS/Android in .NET it automatically adds implicit references to Xamarin libraries. It's sort of explained here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/frameworks

[unitrix0]

Ok, so I've installed JDK 17 and I just ended up at the next error. It says that API Level 34 isn't installed and it could be fixed by executing "dotnet build -t:InstallAndroidDependencies -f" net8.0-android "-p:AndroidSdkDirectory=C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk". Which then leads me to the next error stating that AvaloniaApplication1\AvaloniaApplication1.Desktop\obj\project.assets.json has no target for net8.0-android and that the Android SDK license is not accepted. This should be fixed by executing sdkmanager.bat --licenses which of course leads to an exception.

I'm giving up on this.

[thevortexcloud]

Getting android setup for .NET is rather complicated. It's a lot simpler if you use Rider though. As Idea is the official android IDE, so Jetbrains has a lot of built in tools for setting it up and managing it. But I don't blame you for giving up on it. It's something Microsoft/Google really needs to work on making simpler.

[unitrix0]

It's something Microsoft/Google really needs to work on making simpler.

Seems to be true yes.

So I started all over and eventually managed that I could build without errors. However, if I try to run it in the emulator it somehow finds a Java SDK 1.8.0 somehwere and complains that it needs at least 11.0. I have not the slightest idea where this is defined or found! Maybe someone elese can give me a hint?

[thevortexcloud]

From memory, most programs check the JAVA_HOME environment variable to find where Java is. Not sure if the android emulator does though.