We need a Blazor WebAssembly new-project template with ASP.NET hosting that allows new adopters to actually be able to adopt Blazor WebAssembly (sic) - like we used to have before .NET 8

[Bellarmine-Head]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe the problem.

It's very difficult for new adopters to get a classic Client, Server, Shared, ASP.NET-hosted Blazor WebAssembly (BWA) solution because the current new-project template won't generate one. It doesn't clearly identify the Server project, it omits a Shared project, and it doesn't show how the Client project would get data from the Server (it fakes it!). It also asks questions of a new user that they couldn't possibly answer ("Interactivity Location").

Beginners aren't even going to know that a Shared project (class library) is common and natural, nor that shared data model classes are a thing.

This not only harms new adoption rates, it also makes it harder for seasoned pros who started before November 2023 to stand up a new BWA website without a lot of referring back to previous solutions, and a lot of manual editing.

If I was looking at Blazor WebAssembly as something I might adopt right now, in January 2025, the fact that the Client project fakes the loading of the data from the server - giving me no idea of how to do it for real - would mean a hard pass. Back to Angular or React or whatever. What an EPIC FAIL.

For further confirmation of how bad this is see here:-

• Re-add proper API calls into Blazor WebAssembly template #55307
• Add a weather API call to the Blazor Web App template when global interactivity is enabled with WebAssembly/Auto #51204
• Update the .NET 8 Blazor Web App project template to show client-server communication over HTTP, with shared models, for Blazor WebAssembly #52474
• Re-add proper API calls into Blazor WebAssembly template #55307 (comment)

Quote from the last link above: "The new templates are horrible for beginners."

The huge, current worry is that the closest outstanding issue that touches on this - started by @SteveSandersonMS himself - is backlogged!

Without this being done soon, and certainly by the .NET 10 milestone, I fear for the future of Blazor WebAssembly as something thriving and growing and living. As things currently stand, Blazor is a "closed club" - understandable and navigable only by those of us who achieved escape velocity because we were lucky enough to adopt before November 2023.

Describe the solution you'd like

There should be a new-project template that:-

• has the classic Client, Server and Shared projects, like we had before .NET 8
• the Server project needs to be named as such, as before
• shows in the Client project how to get data from a controller action in the Server project via a shared data model class in the Shared project
• doesn't fake anything
• does a much better job than the current template of explaining user choices like "Interactive Render Mode" and "Interactivity Location"
• emphasizes classic Blazor WebAssembly, but without necessarily closing the door on later adoption of server-side pre-rendering and such
• generally addresses all the points made here - a new user shouldn't have to do all that stuff! Indeed, how could they?

More generally: stop making Blazor the "closed club" that it currently is.

Additional context

No response

[ReinoutWW]

I'm interested in this as well! As a beginner in Blazor WebAssembly it is a challenge to understand this flow (Still till today).

Additionally, I also pick up signals that developers around me seem to think that they can create a WebAssembly project + Class library, which calls the database and be done. But it isn't so simple in SPA's, is it? How about securing data? (Same for moving from Blazor Server to WebAssembly). That, including what is said above would be a great template.

For security, this source pointed me in the right direction and to understand that it isn't so simple:

Src: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/blazor/security/webassembly/?view=aspnetcore-9.0

[Bellarmine-Head]

"Have the client-side Blazor WebAssembly app call the server-side...."

How?

The new-project template shows no examples of the client-side BWA app calling anything.

Instead you get this:-

// Simulate asynchronous loading to demonstrate a loading indicator
await Task.Delay(500);

var startDate = DateOnly.FromDateTime(DateTime.Now);
var summaries = new[] { "Freezing", "Bracing", "Chilly", "Cool", "Mild", "Warm", "Balmy", "Hot", "Sweltering", "Scorching" };
forecasts = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(index => new WeatherForecast
{
    Date = startDate.AddDays(index),
    TemperatureC = Random.Shared.Next(-20, 55),
    Summary = summaries[Random.Shared.Next(summaries.Length)]
}).ToArray();

which is totally useless.

FWIW, my client-side BWA apps always call controller actions in the Server projects, which in turn call APIs. No secrets are exposed in the client, and there are no CORS issues.