Building amazing multi-platform solutions for iOS, Android, Mac, Linux and Windows
In the previous post I walked through creating an application using MVVM and the MVUX (developed by the Uno Platform) to give an overview comparison of the two frameworks. In this post, I’m going to explain a bit more about MVUX and I’m going to use MVVM as a point of reference. Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) Let’s … 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 two posts (here and here) I’ve talked about the new wizard that’s available for creating multi-platform applications with .NET and the Windows App SDK (WinUI), leveraging the Uno Platform. Now we’re going to jump in and take a look at the options that are available via the Customize button. In this post … 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
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 recent release of v1.2 of the Windows App SDK came support for developing third party widgets for Windows 11. What’s not immediately obvious from the documentation is that you don’t have to be using Windows UI (WinUI), or even the Windows App SDK, for your application. In this post we’re going to add … Read more
Microsoft just shipped v1.2 of the Windows App SDK, which includes support for creating third-party Widgets for Windows. During the previews, it was understood that there was a limitation that the widget provider (i.e. the functionality of the widget) needs to be developed using C++. However, this changed and the final release included support for … 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
In writing my previous post on Implicit and Explicit Styles in XAML I was reminded of a bug in the definition of the DefaultButtonStyle which prevents you setting the Foreground colour of a Button. The issue is documented, along with the fix, in this issue but for whatever reason (and I can’t think of one … Read more
I’ve touched on implicit and explicit styles a couple of times in previous posts (eg here and here) when talking about XAML styles. In this post I wanted to provide a more detailed explanation on what implicit and explict styles are and how they should be used in XAML to style controls. In discussing style … Read more
One of the questions that came up recently was how to make what appears to be a simple change to a Button – change the background colour of the Button to Red when it’s disabled. You’d think this would be simply a matter of changing a property on the Button but for most flavours of … Read more
In my previous post I started a series talking about using the Uno.Extensions that the Uno Platform team have been working on. This post was supposed to be a follow-on post but instead I want to recap one of the topics in the previous post. In case you missed the announcement, version 4.3 of the … Read more
This post will be the first in a series of posts talking about Uno.Extensions, a set of libraries that the Uno team have been working on to simplify common application scenarios and make it quicker and easier to build robust multi-platform applications using the Uno Platform. The source code for this post, and subsequent posts … Read more
One of the things that we take for granted when using applications that have been designed for Windows is the subtle cues that exist for when you’re using the mouse and/or keyboards. For example when you mouse over a button, or an item in a list, the background color changes slightly. Similarly when you use … Read more
The .NET Maui team at Microsoft recently dropped Release Candidate 1, so I thought it worth taking a quick look at how it compares to both it’s predecessor, Xamarin.Forms, and the Uno Platform, which is arguably the market leader for building multi-platform application with .NET. If you missed the announcement by Microsoft, here’s a tweet … Read more
One of the guilty truths of software development is that despite our best efforts we never write enough tests, and seldom do we write enough automated tests. This isn’t entirely our fault because for some reason testing frameworks, particularly those for UI testing, always seem to be an after thought. In this post we’re going … Read more
Code sample for this post is on GitHub: AppWindowSample One of the more significant differences between building apps for mobile devices, such as iOS and Android, and desktop pcs (Windows or Mac) is the concept of windows. On a mobile device, your app typically runs full screen, or perhaps split screen on some devices, so … Read more