Book Image

Learn WinUI 3.0

By : Alvin Ashcraft
5 (1)
Book Image

Learn WinUI 3.0

5 (1)
By: Alvin Ashcraft

Overview of this book

WinUI 3.0 takes a whole new approach to delivering Windows UI components and controls, and is able to deliver the same features on more than one version of Windows 10. Learn WinUI 3.0 is a comprehensive introduction to WinUI and Windows apps for anyone who is new to WinUI, Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and XAML applications. The book begins by helping you get to grips with the latest features in WinUI and shows you how XAML is used in UI development. You'll then set up a new Visual Studio environment and learn how to create a new UWP project. Next, you'll find out how to incorporate the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern in a WinUI project and develop unit tests for ViewModel commands. Moving on, you'll cover the Windows Template Studio (WTS) new project wizard and WinUI libraries in a step-by-step way. As you advance, you'll discover how to leverage the Fluent Design system to create beautiful WinUI applications. You'll also explore the contents and capabilities of the Windows Community Toolkit and learn to create a new UWP user control. Toward the end, the book will teach you how to build, debug, unit test, deploy, and monitor apps in production. By the end of this book, you'll have learned how to build WinUI applications from scratch and modernize existing WPF and WinForms applications using WinUI controls.

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Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
1
Section 1: Introduction to WinUI and Windows Applications
Section 1: Introduction to WinUI and Windows Applications
Free Chapter
2
Chapter 1: Introduction to WinUI
Chapter 1: Introduction to WinUI
Technical requirements
Before UWP – Windows 8 XAML applications
Windows 10 and UWP application development
What is XAML?
What is WinUI?
What's new in WinUI 3.0?
WinUI compared to other Windows development frameworks
Summary
Questions
3
Chapter 2: Configuring the Development Environment and Creating the Project
Chapter 2: Configuring the Development Environment and Creating the Project
Technical requirements
Installing Visual Studio and Windows development workloads
Introducing the application idea
Creating your first WinUI project
Anatomy of a WinUI in UWP project
XAML basics
Understanding WinUI and UWP
Working with WinUI controls, properties, and events
Summary
Questions
4
Chapter 3: MVVM for Maintainability and Testability
Chapter 3: MVVM for Maintainability and Testability
Technical requirements
Understanding MVVM
MVVM libraries for WinUI
Understanding data binding in WinUI
Implementing MVVM in WinUI applications
Working with events and commands
Choosing a unit test framework
Summary
Questions
5
Chapter 4: Advanced MVVM Concepts
Chapter 4: Advanced MVVM Concepts
Technical requirements
Understanding the basics of DI
Using DI with ViewModel classes
Leveraging x:Bind with events
Page navigation with MVVM and DI
Summary
Questions
6
Chapter 5: Exploring WinUI Controls
Chapter 5: Exploring WinUI Controls
Technical requirements
Understanding what WinUI offers developers
Exploring the XAML Controls Gallery Windows app
Reviewing what's new in WinUI 3.0
Exploring the XamlDirect APIs for middleware authors
Adding some new controls to the project
Summary
Questions
Further reading
7
Chapter 6: Leveraging Data and Services
Chapter 6: Leveraging Data and Services
Technical requirements
Managing application state with app life cycle events
Creating a SQLite data store
Retrieving data via services
Performing data validation with MVVM
Summary
Questions
8
Section 2: Extending WinUI and Modernizing Applications
Section 2: Extending WinUI and Modernizing Applications
9
Chapter 7: Fluent Design System for Windows Applications
Chapter 7: Fluent Design System for Windows Applications
Technical requirements
What is the Fluent Design System?
Incorporating Fluent Design in WinUI applications
Using the Fluent XAML Theme Editor
Using the UWP Resources Gallery
Design resources and toolkits for Fluent Design
Summary
Questions
10
Chapter 8: Building WinUI Apps with .NET 5
Chapter 8: Building WinUI Apps with .NET 5
Technical requirements
Creating a WinUI project with .NET 5
Exploring the Desktop project structure
Exploring the Packaging project
Referencing .NET 5 Libraries from your project
Sharing the .NET 5 library with a WPF application
Creating a WinUI control library
Summary
Questions
11
Chapter 9: Enhancing Applications with the Windows Community Toolkit
Chapter 9: Enhancing Applications with the Windows Community Toolkit
Technical requirements
Introducing the WCT
Exploring the Windows Community Toolkit Sample App
Using controls from the toolkit
Exploring the toolkit's helpers, services, and extensions
Summary
Questions
12
Chapter 10: Modernizing Existing Win32 Applications with XAML Islands
Chapter 10: Modernizing Existing Win32 Applications with XAML Islands
Technical requirements
What is XAML Islands?
Modernizing a WinForms application with XAML Islands
Modernizing a WPF application with XAML Islands
Using the UWP MapControl in WPF
Using the WebViewCompatible browser control in WPF
Working with the WebView2 browser control in WinForms
Summary
Questions
13
Section 3: Build and Deploy on Windows and Beyond
Section 3: Build and Deploy on Windows and Beyond
14
Chapter 11: Debugging WinUI Applications with Visual Studio
Chapter 11: Debugging WinUI Applications with Visual Studio
Technical requirements
Debugging in Visual Studio
Learning to pinpoint data binding errors
Debugging live data with Live Visual Tree and Live Property Explorer
Summary
Questions
15
Chapter 12: Hosting an ASP.NET Core Blazor Application in WinUI
Chapter 12: Hosting an ASP.NET Core Blazor Application in WinUI
Technical requirements
Getting started with ASP.NET Core and Blazor
Creating a Blazor Wasm application
Exploring Blazor Wasm deployment options
Publishing Blazor to Azure Static Web Apps hosting
Hosting your Blazor application in the WinUI WebView2
Summary
Questions
16
Chapter 13: Building, Releasing, and Monitoring Applications with Visual Studio App Center
Chapter 13: Building, Releasing, and Monitoring Applications with Visual Studio App Center
Technical requirements
Getting started with Visual Studio App Center
Setting up builds in App Center
Deploying your application with App Center
Application monitoring and analytics
Gathering and analyzing App Center crash reports
Summary
Questions
17
Chapter 14: Packaging and Deploying WinUI Applications
Chapter 14: Packaging and Deploying WinUI Applications
Technical requirements
Discovering application packaging and MSIX basics
Getting started with application packaging in Visual Studio
Deploying applications with Windows Package Manager
Distributing applications with the Microsoft Store
Sideloading WinUI applications with MSIX
Summary
Questions
18
Assessments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Why subscribe?
19
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Chapter 1: Introduction to WinUI

WinUI is a set of open source controls and libraries that Windows developers can leverage in their Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and Win32 applications. UWP developers use the Windows software development kit (SDK) to build their applications and are required to select a target SDK version in a project's properties. By extracting the UWP controls and user interface (UI) components from the Windows SDK and releasing them as a set of open source libraries under the name WinUI, Microsoft is able to release versions at a faster cadence than Windows itself (as Windows SDK versions are linked to those of Windows). This separation also enables the controls to be used on older versions of Windows 10. While building UWP and Win32 applications with WinUI is the current recommendation, it is important to learn where WinUI and UWP fit in the larger Windows development landscape.

In this book, you will learn how to build applications for Windows with the WinUI 3.0 libraries. Throughout the course of the book, we will build a real-world application using recommended patterns and practices for Windows application development.

Before we start building our WinUI app, it's important to have a good foundation in Windows client development, the different types of Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) UI markup, and how WinUI compares to other Windows desktop development frameworks. Therefore, in this first chapter, you will start by learning some background on UWP and WinUI.

In this chapter, we will learn about the following topics:

  • What UWP is and why Microsoft created yet another application framework
  • How XAML can be leveraged to create great UIs on many device sizes and families
  • Why WinUI was created and how it relates to UWP
  • Where WinUI fits in the Windows developer landscape
  • What WinUI 3.0 brings to the table

Don't worry! It won't take very long to cover the background stuff, and it will help provide some context as you start building your WinUI app. In the next chapter, you will get your hands on some code when you create your first WinUI project.

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