Getting Started

A new approach

I would normally start a Blazor project by opening Visual Studio and creating a new Blazor server app, and then adding any NuGet packages required.

This time I will try something different.

In my searching for information about Photino I also came across a GitHub repository by Nathan Wilson that seemed to provide an answer all my questions - how to create a new Visual Studio solution/project from scratch. Here I reproduce Nathan Wilson's steps.

Creating a Photino Blazor app from the CLI

Prerequisites

Make sure .NET 9.0 SDK is installed (How to check)
I'm using Visual Studio 2022

Create the Solution

In File Manager I created a folder in my default 'repos' directory for the new solution. I named it 'PhotinoDemo'. This will be the name of the solution/project and namespace.

I used Git Bash as the command line interface, but suspect that a Windows command prompt would work just as well.

In Git Bash

Change directory to the folder created for the solution
Create the project

dotnet new blazor

Install Photino Blazor

dotnet add package Photino.Blazor

Could close Git Bash at this point

In File Manager browse to the project folder and open the csproj file (in my case PhotinoDemo.csproj) with Visual Studio.

In Visual Studio:

Change to wwwroot
Add a new file, call it index.html and replace all code with:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <app>Loading...</app>
    <script src="_framework/blazor.webview.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Update App.razor by removing the following from the <body> tag, if present.

<script src="_framework/blazor.web.js"></script>

Update .csproj - replacing all code with this:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.razor">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net9.0</TargetFramework>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Content Update="wwwroot\**">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Photino.Blazor" Version="4.0.13" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Update Program.cs - replacing all code with this:

using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Photino.Blazor;

namespace PhotinoDemo
{
    class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var appBuilder = PhotinoBlazorAppBuilder.CreateDefault(args);

            appBuilder.Services.AddLogging();

            appBuilder.RootComponents.Add<App>("app");

            var app = appBuilder.Build();

            app.MainWindow.SetTitle("Photino Blazor Demo");

            AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += (sender, error) =>
            {
                app.MainWindow.ShowMessage("Fatal Exception", error.ExceptionObject.ToString());
            };

            app.Run();
        }
    }
}

In the above, change the namespace to your project's name (in my case Photino Demo).
(I also had to add 'using Photino.Blazor;' at the top of the file - the only difference I found from Nathan Wilson's instructions)
(Note that appBuilder.RootComponents.Add<App>("app"); has a red squiggle under <App> . This will eventually disappear. (Closing and re-opening the solution appears to solve this problem.)
Remove Server-side directives from Counter.razor and Weather.razor

@rendermode InteractiveServer from Counter.razor
@attribute [StreamRendering] from Weather.razor

Ensure .csproj uses Razor SDK:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.razor">

Ensure Program.cs includes:

using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

Delete unnecessary files

./Components/Pages/Error.razor

Remove <ImportMap> from ./Components/App.razor

Save all files. This will trigger the .sln file to be saved in the solution folder in File Manager. Following the save a message will appear at the top of Visual Studio prompting a reload; click the reload button.

With all files saved and the project re-loaded, run the application from Visual Studio.