What is the status of the Editor control for iOS when using multi-line?

jonmdev commented 1 week ago

Description

Editor is completely broken in iOS for multi-line text. This means any app that requires a multi-line text input still cannot launch with Maui in iOS. This is an absolutely core and critical component in Maui.

Here is the timeline of the issue:

Issue was reported with reproduction project Sep 30, 2023 (14 months ago)
@samhouts quickly marked it as p/1 on Oct 10, 2023 (13 months ago)
@mikeparker104 adjusted the tags on Oct 10, 2023
@samhouts added it to the .NET 8 SR2 target Oct 13, 2023
@Eilon adjusted the tags Oct 17, 2023
@pureween verified the issue Dec 11, 2023
@tj-devel709 verified it a second time Dec 12, 2023
@samhouts added to MAUI SDK Ongoing Dec 21, 2023
@Redth removed it from the .NET 8 SR2 target and moved it to .NET 8 + Servicing Jan 10, 2024
@samhouts removed it from MAUI SDK Ongoing Jan 10, 2024
@jaosnz-rep verified it a third time and adjusted the tags Feb 28, 2024
@Eilon adjusted the tags May 10, 2024
@PureWeen removed the p/1 tag and added p/2 on Jul 2, 2024
@Pureween removed it from .NET 8 + Servicing and moved it to Backlog Aug 2, 2024

Thus we have had at least 13 formal actions from 7 official Microsoft employees over the past 14 months. The effect of this however appears to have been to only kick the can down the road and now into Backlog with no visible progress over the past 14 months to fix the issue.

What is the current meaning of this? Are we suggested to abandon Maui on iOS? Is there an alternative Maui component planned or available for apps that require multi-line text input? Is this an error? Is there any plan to make this basic component work in iOS and if so what is the timeline?

When the issue was initially marked p/1 I assumed (reasonably I believed) that this meant the team would consider such a broken core component high importance to fix and a fix would follow. 7 active Microsoft employees commenting on the bug seemed to imply this as well. I have thus labored under the Maui project since for >14 months presuming a solution would be forthcoming.

Now >14 months later, there remains no way to release anything on iOS that requires >1 line text input and no visible progress to fix it has materialized.

Can you please advise on what we as users should be doing regarding this going forward or what the plan is on this component? @davidortinau are you still managing the team and perhaps can you provide any advice?

I have said many times it seems evident to me that Microsoft has visibly underfunded and understaffed the team and I imagine there is likely just far too much work to go around for everyone. So I can appreciate if the team is stretched thin and in raising this I still do empathize with that.

Thank you sincerely for any help.

Version with bug

9.0.0-rc.2.24503.2

Is this a regression from previous behavior?

No

Last version that worked well

None working

Affected platforms

iOS

kubaflo commented 1 week ago

Hi @jonmdev try to put an editor inside a content view. It should help :)

kubaflo commented 1 week ago

You can also check if this PR perhaps fixes your issues: https://github.com/dotnet/maui/pull/25098

jfversluis commented 1 week ago

Hi @jonmdev thanks for raising this! And thank you for the extensive write-up here. I don't think there is a simple answer to your question here, so please allow me to explain a little bit broader.

From the timeline that you put together, you can see that the issue is currently labeled as p/2, which has the description: "Work that is important, but is currently not scheduled for release". I recognize that this is maybe not super clear, but it should give you some indication of the current status. And as you have also already concluded, it was bumped down from p/1 to p/2, so effectively deprioritized.

While I understand that this issue might be the most important one for you, or at least high on the list, unfortunately that does not necessarily align with what is most important to us in that moment. Priorities for issues are continually assessed and readjusted. The cause for priorities to change can be a number of reasons, and it seems in the case of this particular issue that the priority went down because a workaround became available.

Going forward what could be really helpful is to let us know if that workaround indeed works, and maybe even take that and open a pull request for it yourself. The more evidence we have that a specific fix works, through people trying it, attached test cases, etc. the easier it will be to merge something. The power of open-source and community!

As for the particular issue that you're referring to, please try the workaround and let us know if that helps, and as @kubaflo has very kindly pointed out, there is a pull request currently open that might be relevant, so maybe you're able to try test one out on your project and let us know the results of that.

If you're worried about how things are progressing with .NET MAUI as a whole, please feel free to reach out directly and we can set up a call with the relevant people and talk through it. I'll be happy to hear your thoughts about where you see things going wrong and what we could do different in that regard. Maybe you'll be happy to learn about the extra help we're getting from our friends at Syncfusion too!

To keep the discussion regarding this bug centralized I'll close this one. Please add any additional findings on https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/17757

Thank you for bringing this one to our attention again. I'll see if I can have another closer look and see if we prioritize this one a bit more.

maonaoda commented 1 week ago

@kubaflo Thank you very much for your efforts, but there is another problem with this PR #25098 . :(

dotnet / maui