Learn WinUI 3.0 : leverage the power of WinUI, the future of native Windows application development / Alvin Ashcraft.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ashcraft, Alvin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

C (Computer program language).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (440 pages)

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, England ; Mumbai : Packt, [2021]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

WinUI is the future of Windows application development. It is the first step in Microsoft's Project Reunion, an open source effort to unify Windows development on an SPA. This book will help developers get up to speed with WinUI quickly to build new Windows applications or modernize existing desktop applications with the power of XAML Islands.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Dedication

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1: Introduction to WinUI and Windows Applications

Chapter 1: Introduction to WinUI

Technical requirements

Before UWP - Windows 8 XAML applications

Windows application UI design

Windows Runtime (WinRT)

User backlash and the path forward to Windows 10

Windows 10 and UWP application development

Language choice with UWP development

Lifting app restrictions

UWP backward compatibility

What is XAML?

Creating an adaptive UI for any device

Powerful data binding

Styling your UI with XAML

Separating presentation from business logic

What is WinUI?

The first WinUI release

The road to WinUI 3.0

What's new in WinUI 3.0?

Goodbye UWP?

New features for WinUI 3.0

Project Reunion and WinUI

WinUI compared to other Windows development frameworks

WinUI versus UWP

WinUI versus WPF

WinUI versus Windows Forms (WinForms)

Summary

Questions

Chapter 2: Configuring the Development Environment and Creating the Project

Installing Visual Studio and Windows development workloads

Adding the WinUI app templates

Introducing the application idea

Reviewing the application features

WinUI in UWP versus WinUI in Desktop projects

Creating your first WinUI project

Anatomy of a WinUI in UWP project

Reviewing App.xaml

Reviewing App.xaml.cs

Reviewing MainPage.xaml

Reviewing MainPage.xaml.cs

Reviewing the project references

Reviewing the project properties

XAML basics

Building the model

Creating sample data

Building the initial UI

Completing the data-binding initialization

Creating the DataTemplate and binding the UI

Understanding WinUI and UWP

Understanding the UWP app model.

Working with WinUI controls, properties, and events

Adding a ListView header

Creating the ComboBox filter

Adding a new item button

Chapter 3: MVVM for Maintainability and Testability

Understanding MVVM

MVVM - the big picture

MVVM libraries for WinUI

Windows Community Toolkit MVVM library

Prism Library

MVVMCross

Choosing a framework for WinUI applications

Understanding data binding in WinUI

What are markup extensions?

Binding markup extension

x:Bind markup extension

Updating View data with INotifyPropertyChanged

Updating collection data with INotifyCollectionChanged

Implementing MVVM in WinUI applications

Working with events and commands

Implementing ICommand

Using commands in the ViewModel

Updating the View

Choosing a unit test framework

Chapter 4: Advanced MVVM Concepts

Understanding the basics of DI

Using DI with ViewModel classes

Leveraging x:Bind with events

Page navigation with MVVM and DI

Adding ItemDetailsPage

Adding new interfaces and services

Creating a navigation service

Creating a data service

Increasing maintainability by consuming services

Handling parameters in ItemDetailsPage

Creating the ItemDetailsViewModel class

Chapter 5: Exploring WinUI Controls

Understanding what WinUI offers developers

Animated visual player (Lottie)

Navigation view

Parallax view

Rating control

Two-pane view

Exploring the XAML Controls Gallery Windows app

Learning about the ScrollViewer control

Reviewing what's new in WinUI 3.0

Backward compatibility

Visual Studio tooling

Input validation

A new WebView

Exploring the XamlDirect APIs for middleware authors.

Adding some new controls to the project

Using the SplitButton control

Adding a TeachingTip to the save button

Further reading

Chapter 6: Leveraging Data and Services

Managing application state with app life cycle events

Exploring Windows application life cycle events

Life cycle events of WinUI applications

Creating a SQLite data store

What is SQLite?

Adding SQLite to DataService

Leveraging a Micro ORM to simplify data access

Adding Dapper to the project

Updating the data service's initialization

Retrieving data via services

Performing data validation with MVVM

Section 2: Extending WinUI and Modernizing Applications

Chapter 7: Fluent Design System for Windows Applications

What is the Fluent Design System?

Exploring Fluent Design for Windows

Controls

Patterns

Layout

Input

Style

Incorporating Fluent Design in WinUI applications

Updating the title bar

Changing the style of MainPage

Changing the style of ItemDetailsPage

Using the Fluent XAML Theme Editor

Colors

Shapes

Using the UWP Resources Gallery

Design resources and toolkits for Fluent Design

Chapter 8: Building WinUI Apps with .NET 5

Creating a WinUI project with .NET 5

What is WinUI in Desktop?

Creating a new WinUI in Desktop project

Exploring the Desktop project structure

Adding the WebView2 control

Exploring the Packaging project

Visual assets in the Manifest Designer

Referencing .NET 5 Libraries from your project

Sharing the .NET 5 library with a WPF application

Creating a WinUI control library

Chapter 9: Enhancing Applications with the Windows Community Toolkit

Technical requirements.

Introducing the WCT

Origins of the WCT

Reviewing recent toolkit releases

Exploring the Windows Community Toolkit Sample App

Installing and launching the sample app

WPF and WinForms controls

Using controls from the toolkit

Creating the WinUI in Desktop project

Referencing the WCT packages

Adding data to the DataGrid

Adding controls to the MainWindow

Exploring the toolkit's helpers, services, and extensions

Helpers

Services

MVVM

Extensions

Chapter 10: Modernizing Existing Win32 Applications with XAML Islands

What is XAML Islands?

Modernizing a WinForms application with XAML Islands

Creating a shared class library project

Creating the WinForms host project

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

Section 3: Build and Deploy on Windows and Beyond

Chapter 11: Debugging WinUI Applications with Visual Studio

Debugging in Visual Studio

Debugging local applications

Debugging remote applications

Common XAML layout mistakes

Improving your XAML with static code analysis

Learning to pinpoint data binding errors

Common mistakes in data binding

Using the XAML Binding Failures window

Debugging live data with Live Visual Tree and Live Property Explorer

Coding with XAML Hot Reload

Debugging with Live Visual Tree and Live Property Explorer

Chapter 12: Hosting an ASP.NET Core Blazor Application in WinUI

Getting started with ASP.NET Core and Blazor

Exploring some history of ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core

What is Blazor?.

WebAssembly and client-side .NET development

Creating a Blazor Wasm application

Building a simple application for tracking tasks

Exploring Blazor Wasm deployment options

Deployment options for Blazor Wasm projects

Publishing Blazor to Azure Static Web Apps hosting

Pushing the project to GitHub

Creating an Azure Static Web Apps resource

Publishing an application with GitHub Actions

Hosting your Blazor application in the WinUI WebView2

Chapter 13: Building, Releasing, and Monitoring Applications with Visual Studio App Center

Getting started with Visual Studio App Center

Creating an App Center account

Creating your first App Center application

Setting up builds in App Center

Integrating App Center with a GitHub repository

Deploying your application with App Center

Creating early releases of your application or beta testers

Application monitoring and analytics

Instrumenting your code

Gathering and analyzing App Center crash reports

Chapter 14: Packaging and Deploying WinUI Applications

Discovering application packaging and MSIX basics

What is MSIX?

Reviewing MSIX tools and resources

Getting started with application packaging in Visual Studio

Deploying applications with Windows Package Manager

Adding a package to the community repository

Using WinGet for package management

Distributing applications with the Microsoft Store

Preparing a free application for the Microsoft Store

Uploading a package to the Store

Sideloading WinUI applications with MSIX

Creating an MSIX package for sideloading

Sideloading an MSIX package

Assessments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-80020-739-5

OCLC:

1244631244