Book Image

Modernizing Your Windows Applications with the Windows App SDK and WinUI

By : Matteo Pagani, Marc Plogas
5 (1)
Book Image

Modernizing Your Windows Applications with the Windows App SDK and WinUI

5 (1)
By: Matteo Pagani, Marc Plogas

Overview of this book

If you're a developer looking to improve and modernize your existing LOB applications to leverage modern Windows features without having to rewrite the entire application from scratch, this book is for you. You’ll learn how to modernize your existing Windows Forms, WPF, and UWP applications and enrich them with the latest Windows features. Starting with sample LOB applications that cover common scenarios, you'll learn the differences between various components and then focus on design features for improved visual aspects like accessibility and responsive layouts. The book shows you how to enhance your existing applications using Windows App SDK components and various Windows APIs, resulting in deeper integration with the operating system. You’ll be taking a closer look at WinML, which enables Windows applications to evaluate machine learning models offline and leverage the power of your machine, or notifications, to engage with your users in a more effective way. You’ll also learn how to make your application deployment-ready by distributing it using various platforms like the Microsoft Store or websites. By the end of this Windows book, you'll be able to create a migration plan for your existing Windows applications and put your knowledge to work by enhancing your application with new features and integrating them with the Windows ecosystem.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Basic Concepts
3
Section 2: Modernization Journey
9
Section 3: Integrating Your App with the Windows Ecosystem
14
Section 4: Distributing Your Application

Supporting the application's activation

UWP offers a rich set of activation contracts, which enables the application to be launched by multiple actions—file type association, protocol association, sharing, and automatic startup are just a few examples.

To handle these scenarios, the App class in a UWP application provides multiple hooks that you can override, such as OnFileActivated (when the app is opened using a file type association), OnShareTargetActivated (when the app is opened using a share contract), or the more generic OnActivated, which can be used to handle all other scenarios for which there isn't a dedicated handler.

The UWP model offers dedicated hooks since, by default, applications are run in a single-instance mode. This means that if the application is running and it gets activated by another action (such as the user double-clicking on a file and then which type is associated with the app), the already activated instance will receive the information...