Building amazing multi-platform solutions for iOS, Android, Mac, Linux and Windows
Earlier this week Six Labors announced the release of ImageSharp.Drawing v1.0 and it made me wonder whether this could be used as an alternative to Skia for controls that want to do custom rendering in a Windows, or multi-platform Uno Platform, application. For Skia there are already Uno (which includes Windows/WinUI) views (see source here) … Read more
In a previous post on the topic of hot reload I discussed using the CreateNewOnMetadataUpdate attribute to force updating of entire classes, rather than patching existing types. This makes hot reload more resilient but does require additional logic in order to apply the newly created types. In this post we’re going to walk through the … Read more
One of the things that sets WinUI apart from other UI frameworks is that provides a declarative way to define visual states for a control or a page. It also allows for the transitions between states to be defined. In this post we’re going to cover how to define both transitions and state animations and … Read more
This is the last post in the sequence talking about the new wizard that’s available for creating multi-platform applications with .NET and the Windows App SDK (WinUI), leveraging the Uno Platform (previously here, here, here and here). In this post we’ll look at the last three sections: Extensions, Application and Theme. Extensions The Extensions section is broken down into … Read more
This is the next post in the sequence talking about the new wizard that’s available for creating multi-platform applications with .NET and the Windows App SDK (WinUI), leveraging the Uno Platform (previously here, here and here). In this post we’ll look at the next three sections: Projects, Testing and Features. Projects In addition to the target … Read more
In my previous post on Creating Cross-Platform/Multi-Platform .NET Applications with Windows App SDK (WinUI) and the Uno Platform, I gave a quick introduction to the Visual Studio wizard for creating an Uno Platform application. In this post we’re going to look at using the Default (or recommended) preset configuration and an overview of some of … Read more
There are two main options for building applications in .NET and leverage the Windows App SDK, that target multiple platforms (aka cross-platform or multi-platform applications) with is Microsoft’s .NET MAUI and the Uno Platform. Before everyone jumps up and down that I’ve missed Avalonia UI, they don’t fit in this category because they don’t leverage … Read more
One of the most significant aspects of the XAML based applications is the concept of lookless controls. I’ve covered this topic a bit in the past but in summary it means that controls can be restyled without changing the behaviour. The Windows App SDK and the Uno Platform provide out of the box styles for … Read more
In the previous posts on building Widgets for Windows 11 (Getting Started and Adding to UWP) the design for the widget was defined in a json file that defines the contents and layout of the widget. In this post we’ll take a look at adaptivecards.io, a web-based designer that you can use to design and … Read more
With the transition from UWP to WinUI and from Xamarin iOS/Android to .NET for iOS and Android, we’re seeing the convergence of application development in the .NET ecosystem. This convergence shouldn’t be undervalued and is particularly evident when you realised that all of these once disparate platforms, can now take advantage of the common tooling … Read more
As part of the announcement of Windows 11 earlier this year, Microsoft touted the ability to run Android applications on Windows. Recently this feature was made available via the Beta channel of the Windows Insider program. In this post I’m going to step through setting up the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA), in order to … Read more
As a UWP developer I relied heavily on the framework to deal with managing application resources such as images and string literals. You might think this is quite simple as images are just files that are packaged with your app and strings can just be put in a constants file. Where this all gets complicated … Read more
With the recent excitement surrounding the announcement of Windows 11, there’s renewed interest in developing apps for the Windows platform. In this post we’re going to celebrate what it means to be a Windows App Developer, regardless of what framework or technology you chose. It’s not going to be an exhaustive list of options but … Read more
Whilst I was working on migrating the WeatherTwentyOne app from Maui to Uno I noticed that the Maui application includes a number images as SVG files. However, in the XAML there are only ever references to PNG files. On closer inspection of the bin folder for the WinUI project I noticed that for each SVG … Read more
As we progress through the various previews of .NET 6 it’s great to see the transition happening from Xamarin.Forms to dotnet MAUI. The other day, James Montemagno tweeted out an image that showcases the same application running on iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows (which is now based on WinUI Desktop!). This tweet inspired me to … Read more
Two years ago I posted on Getting Started with Platform Uno which focused on starting with a UWP application and extending it cross platform using the Uno Platform. For those tracking developments in the Windows development space, you’ll be aware that the 0.5 version of Project Reunion has just been released. It seem fitting to … Read more
As the first release of Windows UI 3.0 is imminent, there’s a bit of a dialogue going on about its relationship with the parent project, Project Reunion. More specifically the conversations focus on topics like naming, versioning and release planning. In this post I’m going to touch on these topics and provide my thoughts on … Read more
Ok, I know this post is probably going to annoy all those UWP loyalist out there that can’t unpackage their love for the platform and realise that Windows development is in the process of moving on. One of probably the biggest marketing nightmares that Microsoft has unleashed is UWP. To different people, UWP means different … Read more
Last month I posted on Building a Roadmap for Windows Development, where I discussed some of the components that need to come together in a coherent manner for the Windows developer platform of the future. These included things like running in the Windows App Container and the app having an Identity. In this post I’ll … Read more
A week or so ago David from the XF/Maui team kicked of a thread on twitter challenging devs to add a simple addition to a simple calculator. I particularly liked the transition animation that Robin added, so figured I’d translate this to a WinUI+Uno platform application. I’m going to try to keep as close to … Read more