Windows 10: Announcing WinUI 3 Preview 3

Brink · Nov 17, 2020

If you tuned in to this morningâs App Development Community Standup, you know that today we released WinUI 3 Preview 3. If you want to skip the summary and head straight to the release notes and installation instructions, you can find those here.

New Features

The team has been hard at work on Preview 3 since the release of Preview 2 back in July. Countless bug fixes, exciting new capabilities, and improvements on existing capabilities will hopefully make this a great Preview for you all to try out. Here are some highlights from Preview 3 that are new since Preview 2:

ARM64 Support

Drag and drop inside and outside of apps

RenderTargetBitmap (only XAML content for now â SwapChainPanel content will be captured later)

Improvements to our tooling/developer experience:

Live Visual Tree, Hot Reload, Live Property Explorer and similar tools

Intellisense now working for WinUI 3

MRT Core Integration â making apps faster and lighter on startup and providing quicker resource lookup

Custom cursor support

Off-thread input APIs

These changes continue to advance the capabilities of WinUI 3 for supporting heavy-duty, complex apps. Your feedback has been vital to the advancement of this platform, so please keep that coming! Let us know if you encounter bugs, what you wish worked differently, and what youâd like to see in the future by opening an issue on our GitHub repo. Iâm also looking forward to hearing all of your questions about Preview 3 on our upcoming December Community Call, which will be held on 12/16.

Since this is a preview release, the usual caveats apply: you may still encounter some bumps in the road while using it. Please refer to the list of known issues and limitations for tips.

Using WinUI 3 Preview 3

Preview 3 has a similar installation and setup process to Preview 2, but requires an updated version of Visual Studio (16.9), which will automatically download the latest .NET 5 for you as well, if you are interested in building Desktop apps. There are also a few sample apps you can look through: the WinUI 3 version of the XAML Controls Gallery where you can interact directly with all of the included controls, as well as the sample apps that you may have seen demoâed at Build or Ignite â theyâve been updated to use Preview 3, and you can find them here.

We recommend creating new projects when using WinUI 3 Preview 3. The process of upgrading an app from Preview 2 to Preview 3 can quickly become tricky and complicated. However, if youâve been working hard on a large-scale app with Preview 2 and donât want to create new project files, we do have a list of upgrade steps that you can use as guidance.

Whatâs Next

Updates on post-Preview 3 planning and features will be posted on our WinUI 3 feature roadmap. Until then, you can always stay up-to-date with the WinUI team on Twitter and GitHub. Thanks for trying out Preview 3 and supporting WinUI â canât wait to hear what you all think!

Ana Wishnoff
Program Manager for WinUI

You can find me onâ¦
Github: @anawishnoff

Twitter: @ana_wishnoff
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Source: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdev...i-3-preview-3/

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Brink · Nov 17, 2020

Announcing WinUI 3 Preview 2 for Windows 10

At our monthly community call this morning we announced that a new preview of WinUI 3 is ready for you all to try out – WinUI 3 Preview 2! If you’re too excited to read ahead, check out the release notes here.

WinUI 3 Preview 2 was a quality and stability-driven release. It builds directly on Preview 1 by fixing quite a few critical and serious bugs that didn’t make the cut in time for our release at Build 2020 two months ago. The team wanted to put together a small release post-Build to make sure that WinUI 3 is stable and easy to use for everyone. Our community dove right into using Preview 1 and you all provided us with tons of valuable feedback, specifically regarding the critical bugs that you found. This feedback, in addition to the team’s known issues from Preview 1, drove us towards creating the long list of bugs that we set out to fix for this release.

Some notable additions and fixes in this release include:

INotifyCollectionChangedand INotifyPropertyChanged are now working in C# Desktop apps

WinUI 3 Preview 2 is now compatible with .NET 5 Preview 5 for Desktop apps

Point, Rect, and Size members are now Double-typed in the C# projection of the APIs for Desktop apps

Crash fixes for Input Validation and other text scenarios

You can see the exhaustive list of bugs fixed in our release notes.

Preview 2 is logistically set up the same way as Preview 1. You’ll have to download a new .VSIX file, make sure you’ve upgraded to .NET 5 Preview 5, and install a new NuGet package. Step-by-step instructions can be found here for Desktop apps and here for UWP apps. You can also test out WinUI 3 Preview 2 without writing any code – just clone and build the Preview 2 branch of the XAML Controls Gallery and navigate through the app to see how the controls are all working with the new fixes put in place.

Preview 2 is not yet ready for use in production apps and we will be continuing to listen to customer feedback and trying to improve your experience throughout subsequent releases. We have a list of our known limitations here and you can also file issues on our GitHub repository for anything new that you run into.

Up next for the team is getting Preview 3 ready for this fall! Preview 3 is going to be a fun and exciting release – it’ll be packed with new features and capabilities! We hope you enjoy experimenting with Preview 2 and are as excited for WinUI to continue evolving as we are.

Ana Wishnoff
Program Manager for WinUI
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Source: Announcing WinUI 3 Preview 2 - Windows Developer Blog

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Brink · Nov 17, 2020

Microsoft introduces WinUI 3 Preview 1

Today at Microsoft Build 2020 the WinUI team is excited to announce the latest version of WinUI 3 available for public preview: WinUI 3 Preview 1. This preview expands the world of WinUI to an even wider audience of developers – the previously-released WinUI 3 Alpha was only available to UWP app developers, but Preview 1 now enables WinUI usage in Desktop (Win32) apps as well!

What is WinUI?

WinUI is Microsoft’s most advanced user interface technology for building Windows apps. There are two versions of WinUI in active development: WinUI 2 and WinUI 3. WinUI 2 is a library of Fluent-based UI controls & styles for UWP XAML apps; it was first shipped in Oct 2018 and its latest release is v2.4 which came out recently on May 8th.

WinUI 3 is a currently-in-development, dramatic expansion of this library into a full-fledged, end-to-end, standalone UI framework. This UI framework continues the tradition of WinUI and UWP XAML, providing the very latest graphical capabilities and Fluent Design styling that embraces today’s modern devices, hardware, and inputs. Technically, WinUI 3 decouples the XAML, Composition, and Input layers of Windows 10, and ships them independently via NuGet for any app targeting Windows 10 1803 and above. It can be used in both C++ and .NET-based apps.

WinUI 3 Preview 1 is the first pre-release of WinUI 3 that can be used in both UWP and Desktop apps, allowing every developer a chance to tap into the very latest UI technologies from Microsoft for building Windows apps. You can learn more about WinUI here.

What’s new in WinUI 3 Preview 1?

In addition to the aforementioned ability to use WinUI from Desktop apps, Preview 1 will also support .NET 5 when run in this Desktop context. Preview 1 is also the first preview of WinUI 3 to include the SwapChainPanel control – this is key for developers working with DirectX for providing custom graphical rendering as a part of their user experience.

In February, the WinUI team released an Alpha of WinUI 3 with an all-new Chromium-based WebView2 control. This same control carries through to Preview 1 and has been updated with several improvements. Preview 1 also offers several other advancements compared to the February Alpha:

Support for the .NET versions of several interfaces when using .NET 5. In Preview1, .NET 5 is used with Desktop apps. The interfaces (and a class) are: INotifyPropertyChanged, INotifyCollectionChanged, ObervableCollection<T>, and ICommand.

New, recently released controls ported forward from WinUI v2.4.

Several important bug fixes & stability improvements.

A full articulation of the capabilities and limitations of Preview 1 can be found in the WinUI 3 Preview 1 Release Notes. Of special note: Preview 1 should not be used in production apps, as it does not guarantee forward compatibility and may break in future updates we make to Windows 10.

Who’s using WinUI?

At Build 2020 we’ll share stories of customers and ecosystem partners we’re working with to improve & develop WinUI 3. Examples of these partnerships that will be referenced during the conference include:

Magix, a developer of audio & video solutions for creators, who’s showcasing how they’ve harnessed the power of WinUI to modernize some of the UI components in their Win32-based VEGAS Pro app

Esri, market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, using ArcGIS Runtime, .NET and SwapChainPanel with WinUI 3 Preview 1 to render gigabytes of geospatial data in rich, high performance mapping components

Telerik, a leading vendor of high quality .NET and JavaScript components for building modern, high performance, feature rich web, mobile and desktop apps

Uno platform, an open source platform for building apps that span across mobile endpoints, Windows, macOS, and the Web

These are just some of the great companies exploring and engaging with us as we develop WinUI 3, and in the coming months you’ll learn more about these and other engagements as we prepare for the eventual release of WinUI 3.0 for general availability.

How can I get started?

To start with WinUI 3.0 Preview 1, head over to our download and release notes page. You can also find more information and technical setup details in our documentation on creating a Desktop app with WinUI.
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Source: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdev...i-3-preview-1/

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Brink · Nov 17, 2020

Announcing Open Source of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI

At Build 2018, I outlined our approach to helping you be more productive when developing apps, including the introduction of .NET Core 3.0. We also started decoupling many parts of the Windows development platform, so you can adopt technologies incrementally. Today at Microsoft Connect(); 2018 Conference we shared the next steps – specifically to support innovations in UI:

.NET Core 3.0 Preview 1 adds support for building client apps using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Forms, and XAML Islands.

WPF, Windows Forms, and Windows UI XAML Library (WinUI) are now open source, so you can create experiences with the freedom you want.

.NET Core 3.0 Preview 1 available

As Scott Guthrie announced today, the first preview of .NET Core 3.0 is available. This version of .NET adds support for building Windows desktop apps using WPF and Windows Forms. You will now be able to:

Run multiple instances of .NET Core 3.0 side-by-side on the same computer so you can update WPF and Windows Forms apps to a new version of .NET without updating the entire OS.

Use modern controls and Fluent styling from the WinUI XAML Library via XAML Islands from .NET Core 3.0 apps.

Read about .NET Core 3.0 Preview 1, try out the preview, and give us feedback. The next version of the .NET Framework, .NET Framework 4.8, will include new controls that use the latest browser and media players in Windows 10, support the latest standards, and WPF and Windows Forms apps will have access to WinUI via XAML Islands for modern look and touch support. The .NET Team blog details the differences and compatibility between .NET Core and .NET Framework moving forward.

WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI ready for your contributions

This journey is our continued commitment to creating the development platform with you, through open source. Our three, popular Windows UX frameworks are ready for your contributions on GitHub: WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI. Open sourcing these technologies provides transparency between the product team and the community, helps democratize Windows development, and enables the community to engage and contribute to these repos.

We look forward to your contributions. You can get started with Windows Forms and WinUI now. WPF is starting with System.Xaml, with more to come over the following months.
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Source: Announcing Open Source of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI at Microsoft Connect(); 2018 - Windows Developer Blog

See also: .NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Source Windows Desktop Frameworks - Windows 10 Forums

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