Windows App SDK
About
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Documentation
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Release notes
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Samples
Windows App SDK (formerly Project Reunion) is a set of libraries, frameworks, components, and tools that you can use in your apps to access powerful Windows platform functionality from all kinds of apps on many versions of Windows. The Windows App SDK combines the powers of Win32 native applications alongside modern API usage techniques, so your apps light up everywhere your users are.
- WinUI 3 support: WinUI embodies Fluent Design to enable intuitive, accessible, and powerful experiences and the latest user interface patterns.
- Access modern features: Modern resource tooling, modern lifecycle helpers, startup tasks, and more without having to rewrite your app.
- Backwards compatibility: Down to Windows 10 1809 (build 17763). There may be some API that are dependent on new OS features
(like new Action Center functionality), however we will do our best to ensure this is the exception and not the norm, and provide reasonable fallbacks when possible. - Wide platform support: Win32, WPF, WinForms, and more.
- Use your current installer: no requirement to use MSIX, but there are reliability/security benefits to using MSIX.
📋 Getting started with Windows App SDK
- Build your first app with Windows App SDK
- Developer documentation
- Samples & resources
- Windows App SDK samples
- WinUI 3 Gallery
- AI Dev Gallery (Preview)
- Windows Community Toolkit
- Template Studio
- FAQ
- Contribution guide
- Roadmap
- Windows App SDK family repositories
- WinUI
- C++/WinRT and C#/WinRT
- MSIX packaging
👨💻 Join in and stay connected
Interested in WinUI and Windows App SDK? Come join us on the quarterly WinUI Community Calls.
You can find and tag us on X using #WindowsAppSDK.
🖼️ WinUI 3 Gallery
Make sure to also check out the WinUI 3 Gallery, our interactive sample experience showing everything you can do with WinUI and Windows App SDK.
📢 Contributing
- File a new issue: Tell us what problem you’re trying to solve, how you’ve tried to solve it so far, and what would be the ideal solution for your app. Bonus points if there’s a gist or existing repo we can look at with you.
- Ask a question: Also, have a look at our FAQ on WinAppSDK page, which we will update periodically.
- Start a discussion: Let’s start a Discussion issue to see if others are interested in a cool new idea you’ve been thinking about that isn’t quite ready to be filed as a more formal Feature Proposal.
- Code contributions: See our contributing guidelines.
Data collection
This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Note, however, that no data collection is performed when using your private builds.
Privacy information can be found at https://privacy.microsoft.com
Code of Conduct
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct.
For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or
contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Other names | Project Reunion |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
| Initial release | 29 March 2021 |
| Stable release |
1.6.1[1] |
| Preview release |
1.6.0-preview2[2] |
| Repository |
|
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Windows 11, Windows 10 version 1809 and later |
| Platform | x86-64, ARM64, IA-32 |
| Type | Application programming interface (API) |
| License | MIT License |
| Website | learn |
Windows App SDK (formerly known as Project Reunion)[3] is a software development kit (SDK) from Microsoft that provides a unified set of APIs and components that can be used to develop desktop applications for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 version 1809 and later. The purpose of this project is to offer a decoupled implementation of capabilities which were previously tightly-coupled to the UWP app model.[4] Windows App SDK allows native Win32 (USER32/GDI32) or .NET (WPF/WinForms) developers alike a path forward to enhance their apps with modern features.[4]
It follows that Windows App SDK is not intended to replace the Windows SDK.[4] By exposing a common application programming interface (API) primarily using the Windows Runtime (WinRT) through generated WinMD metadata, the tradeoffs which once characterized either app model are largely eliminated. NuGet packages for version 1.4 were released in August 2023 after approximately four months of development.[5]
Features and components
[edit]
While Microsoft has developed a number of new features, some of the features listed below are abstractions of functionality provided by existing APIs.[4]
Most of the investment[6] into the decoupled UI stack[7] has gone towards bug fixes, improvements to the debugging experience, and simplifying the window management capabilities made possible by switching from CoreWindow. An API abstracting USER32/GDI32 primitives known as AppWindow was introduced to expose a unified set of windowing capabilities[8] and enable support for custom window controls.
A replacement for the UWP WebView control was announced early on.[9] This is because it was based on an unsupported browser engine.[10] A new Chromium-based control, named WebView2, was developed and can be used from WinUI as well as other supported app types.
While MSIX is included in the Windows App SDK and considered to be the recommended application packaging format,[11][12] a design goal was to allow for unpackaged apps. These apps can be deployed as self-contained or framework-dependent. Support for dynamic loading of app dependencies is included for both packaged and unpackaged apps.[13]
DWriteCore is being developed as a decoupled and device-independent solution for high-quality text rendering.[14] Win2D has also been made available to WinUI 3 apps.[15]
Resource management
[edit]
MRT Core allows for management of app resources for purposes such as localization. It is a decoupled version of the resource management system from UWP.[16]
With the stable releases delivered after its initial launch, Windows App SDK now supports several app lifecycle features which previously required a considerable amount of effort for developers to implement in Win32 applications. These features include power management notifications, rich activation, multiple instances, and programmatic app restart.[17]
Support for push notifications was initially implemented as a limited-access, preview feature.[18] However, the APIs for it have since been stabilized and push notifications can be delivered to app users. Official documentation states that access to the feature can be revoked by Microsoft at their discretion.[18][19] Additionally, apps can now easily display local app notifications without the need to create an XML payload.[20]
Third-party integration with the Windows Widgets system in Windows 11 has been included as part of the stable release channel.[21] Developers can design custom widgets for their app using adaptive cards[22] and surface them on the widgets board.[23]
- DWriteCore & Win2D
- Uno Platform
- Windows Driver Kit (WDK)
- ^ «Release 1.6.1». 1 October 2024. Retrieved 27 October 2024.
- ^ «Release 1.6.0-preview2». 23 August 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
- ^ Ramel, David (June 24, 2021). «Windows 11 Development: Open Ecosystem Store, Project Reunion Rebrand and More». Visual Studio Magazine. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
- ^ a b c d Windows App SDK — Calling all Windows developers!, Microsoft, 2023-05-25, retrieved 2023-05-26
- ^ «Microsoft.WindowsAppSDK 1.4.230822000». nuget.org. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
- ^ «Release v1.3.0 · microsoft/WindowsAppSDK». GitHub. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ Karl-Bridge-Microsoft (2023-03-13). «Windows UI Library (WinUI) — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ «Discussion #370: Announcement: Proposed approach for windowing in Project Reunion». microsoft/WindowsAppSDK. GitHub. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
- ^ Blog, Microsoft Edge; Team, Microsoft Edge (2020-10-19). «Announcing Microsoft Edge WebView2 General Availability». Microsoft Edge Blog. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ «New Microsoft Edge to replace Microsoft Edge Legacy with April’s Windows 10 Update Tuesday release». TECHCOMMUNITY.MICROSOFT.COM. 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ dianmsft (2021-12-30). «What is MSIX? — MSIX». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ stevewhims (2023-03-03). «MSIX framework packages and dynamic dependencies — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ stevewhims (2023-04-19). «Use the Windows App SDK runtime for apps packaged with external location or unpackaged — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ stevewhims (2022-02-24). «DWriteCore (Windows App SDK) — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ stevewhims (2023-05-25). «Win2D — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ hickeys (2023-03-13). «Manage resources MRT Core (Windows App SDK) — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ hickeys (2023-01-31). «App lifecycle and system services — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ a b hickeys (2023-03-16). «Push notifications overview — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ hickeys (2022-06-03). «Notifications design basics — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ vaheeshta (2022-07-12). «App notifications overview — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ drewbatgit (2023-03-09). «Widget providers — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ drewbatgit (2022-11-10). «Create a widget template with the Adaptive Cards Designer — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- ^ drewbatgit (2023-03-09). «Windows Widgets — Windows apps». learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
- Official website
- WindowsAppSDK on GitHub
- WindowsAppSDK-Samples on GitHub
Windows App SDK It has become one of the key tools for modern desktop application developers on Windows. Since its release, it has gained traction as a solution that seeks to unify and modernize the development ecosystem on this operating system.
In this article we explain in detail what it is, how it works and what advantages it has use the Windows App SDK, as well as learn about the latest developments, such as version 1.6 and its new features designed to optimize performance and user experience. If you’d like to delve deeper into app development, you could also check out What is an SDK? to better understand this type of tools.
Windows App SDK is a set of tools, components, and APIs that Microsoft offers developers to build modern desktop apps on Windows 10 (since version 1809) and Windows 11Unlike the classic Windows SDK, this new set is not tied to the operating system, but is distributed independently through NuGet packages, making it easier to access new features without having to wait for OS updates.
This SDK does not replace to existing development environments such as .NET, Win32, WPF, or Windows Forms. Instead, complements them with a common API surface that can be used across any of those platforms, bringing consistency, efficiency, and modernity to development apps desktop.
Key Features of the Windows App SDK
One of the SDK’s greatest strengths is the inclusion of multiple features designed for both users and developers. Some of the most important are:
- WindowsUI 3: is the native user interface framework for Windows. It allows you to create applications with a modern, accessible, and consistent look, in both C# and C++. If you’re considering modernizing your application, check out how the life cycle of a bug may be affected by the use of this SDK.
- Text rendering with DWriteCore: offers high-quality text rendering, with multi-format support and acceleration by hardware.
- Resource Management with MRT Core: makes it easy to manage strings, images, and other resources in different languages or visual configurations.
- Application lifecycle: Provides control over app instantiation, activation, and power management.
- Window management: allows you to create and manage multiple windows within the same application.
- Notifications— Support for cloud push notifications and local notifications is included, ideal for Azure-connected apps.
- Compatibility and deployment: allows you to deploy packaged (MSIX) or unpackaged apps, adapting to different environments.
Key benefits for developers
The main value of the Windows App SDK is that reduces fragmentation on the development platform. Previously, developers had to choose between different application models, each with its own limitations and APIs.
With the Windows App SDK, you can access a unified surface of modern APIs. regardless of whether you are using a WinUI 3, WPF, WinForms or even XAML islands projectThis greatly simplifies the development and maintenance of long-term projects. Additionally, if you’re interested in development news, you can also explore the future of Windows laptops to understand how these types of technologies are changing the landscape.
Another key aspect is that these APIs work from Windows 10 version 1809, which means that you can reach a very broad user base without having to worry about features that depend on the operating system version.
Frequent updates and operating system independence
One of the big differences from the classic Windows SDK is that The App SDK is updated separately of the operating system. While traditional SDK versions were updated with major Windows updates once or twice a year, Windows App SDK has a semi-annual update cadence.
This allows Microsoft to implement new features, fixes, and improvements without having to wait for a new OS release, and developers can benefit from them almost immediately. In this context of rapid updates, you might be curious about how the updates are managed. common errors in Windows that may arise during development.
What’s new in Windows App SDK version 1.6
Microsoft released the version 1.6 of the Windows App SDK in September 2024, bringing with it several significant improvements aimed at improving both performance and the developer experience:
- Native AOT (Ahead-Of-Time): Allows applications to be compiled directly into native code. According to internal testing, this reduces startup times by up to 50% and package size by up to eight times.
- WebView2 decoupled— You can now select the WebView2 component version from NuGet, giving you more control over your dependencies and access to the latest features for displaying web content.
- Improvement in TabView: Support for dragging tabs and separating them into new windows, emulating the typical behavior of browsers like Edge or Chrome.
- Enhanced MSIX: New APIs allow you to detect local updates, remove unnecessary packages, and manage packaging in a more flexible and optimized way.
- Improved controls: Both PipsPager and RatingControl have been optimized to offer more customization options and fluidity.
Development Experience: How to Get Started
To start working with this SDK, it is ideal to use Visual Studio 2022 or Visual Studio 2019 with the necessary extensions and corresponding project templates. The SDK can also be installed as NuGet package in existing projects.
Once installed, you can create a new WinUI 3 project from scratch or integrate SDK components into an existing one. Microsoft provides official documentation and practical examples to help you set up the environment and start programming. For those new to development, check out the offer of educational games on Windows It can be a great way to become familiar with interactive dynamics.
Furthermore, being a project open sourceYou can contribute directly or post questions and suggestions in the official Windows App SDK GitHub repository. Microsoft actively encourages collaboration with the community.
Windows App SDK vs. Other Environments
One of the most frequently asked questions among developers is whether they should migrate from UWP, WPF, or WinForms to the Windows App SDK. The reality is that The SDK is not intended to completely replace these environments, but rather provide an additional layer of modern APIs that can be used from any of them.
For example, if you have a WPF application that you want to modernize with a current aesthetic, you can integrate certain WinUI 3 controls or take advantage of some features of the new SDK. without having to rewrite the entire app. On the other hand, if you are still evaluating the pros and cons of migration, we recommend that you know the Google’s dominance on Windows and how this could influence your decisions.
New applications, however, are recommended to be natively developed with WinUI 3 using the Windows App SDK, as this ensures greater future compatibility, access to the latest technologies, and a more modern design from the start.
The Windows App SDK is becoming the immediate future of desktop app development in the Windows ecosystem. Its modular approach, OS-independent updates, and support for multiple programming languages make it easy to use. programming such as C# and C++, and its modern feature set such as Native AOT, WebView2, Or the Improved WinUI 3 controls, making it a very powerful option for those looking to build reliable, fast, and attractive apps without having to rely on the evolution of the base operating system.
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Windows App SDK has revolutionized the way developers build Windows apps. This toolset offers a modern and flexible platform for developing desktop experiences on Windows 10 and Windows 11, integrating technologies like WinUI 3, notifications, localized resources, and a simplified API architecture.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll go over Everything you need to know about the Windows App SDK: from its key features, competitive advantages, implementation methods, compatibility with existing projects, and much more. If you’re a developer or just starting out in Windows development, you’ll be interested in learning about this powerful tool that Microsoft has brought to the table.
What is Windows App SDK?
Windows App SDK is a unified set of APIs and tools provided by Microsoft that allows Windows desktop applications to access modern functionality that was previously limited to certain types of UWP apps. Through this SDK, modern components can be integrated into applications developed using technologies such as .NET (Windows Forms, WPF) o Win32 with C++.
It is not a replacement for the traditional Windows SDK, nor does it intend to replace existing types of projects. Its main objective is complementary These solutions feature a common set of APIs accessible across multiple versions of Windows, from Windows 11 to Windows 10 version 1809 and higher. For more on the evolution of Windows, you can read about how the end of Windows 10 support will force many to upgrade their PCs.
What technologies does the Windows App SDK include?
This SDK incorporates a number of key components that enable desktop applications to have a modern and consistent experience, regardless of their underlying technology. These are the main ones:
- WindowsUI 3: The native graphical interface framework for desktop applications. Compatible with C++ or .NET applications, WinUI 3 enables you to create beautiful, responsive, and accessible interfaces.
- DWriteCore: Enables advanced, hardware-independent text rendering. Includes support for Microsoft ClearType, subpixels, hardware acceleration, and multi-format text.
- MRT Core: Application resource manager, facilitating multilingual support, scales, contrasts, and variants, without depending on the app logic.
- App lifecycle management: Through specific APIs you can control everything from multiple instances to rich activations or power management.
- Local and push notifications from the cloud: Compatible with Azure to send notifications to your users, both online and offline.
- Window management: Modern APIs to create and manage windows in your application in a controlled manner.
Competitive advantages of the SDK
Perhaps the greatest strength of the Windows App SDK is that decouples application development from the operating system release cycleThis means you can take advantage of new features without waiting for users to update their version of Windows.
When working through NuGet, the SDK allows for a faster delivery of updates, avoiding dependence on annual operating system updates. Currently, there is a rate of approximately a new version every six months.
Additionally, Windows App SDK unifies the development experience for Win32, .NET, UWP, and other applications, making it easy to access modern features from any technology, whether it’s a WPF, WinForms, or native app with or without XAML. If you’ve been struggling with time changes on your PC, this tool could make managing some aspects of your app easier.
Compatibility with different versions of Windows
One of the headaches in Windows development has always been compatibility between versions. The Windows App SDK solves much of that, as its APIs They work from Windows 10 version 1809 onwards hereinafter, obviously including Windows 11.
This eliminates the need to write adaptive code based on the operating system version, reducing complexity and improving code reliability. For those experiencing slowness issues with Explorer.exe on Windows 11, this is great news, as it simplifies the development process.
How to get started using the Windows App SDK in existing projects
If you already have a desktop application in C# or C++, you can easily add the SDK using NuGet. These are the basic steps:
- Open your project in Visual Studio (works on both 2019 and 2022 versions).
- Make sure you use the PackageReference format for NuGet management.
- From Solution Explorer, right-click on the project and select “Manage NuGet Packages.”
- Activate the “Include preview” option and search for the package Microsoft.WindowsAppSDK. For older versions (0.8), you should look for Microsoft.ProjectReunion.
- Click Install in the right panel to add the SDK to your project.
Note: If your project isn’t packaged (for example, it doesn’t use MSIX), you’ll need to manually load the Windows App SDK runtime to access its APIs. To do this, you’ll need to use the bootstrap API or properly configure your runtime. If you need help disabling SmartScreen on Windows 10 and 11, you may want to search for additional information.
Additional requirements in C++
If you are working with C++ and need to access Windows Runtime APIs, you need to enable support for C ++ / WinRT. This is done by installing the package Microsoft.Windows.CppWinRT from NuGet. Without this reference, Visual Studio won’t find the necessary headers.
Ways to deploy an application with the Windows App SDK
When it comes to distributing your app, there are two main strategies:
1. Framework dependent
In this case, the Windows App SDK runtime environment is installed separately or as part of the installer. This option is the default and has several advantages:
- Small size— Only your app is packaged, not the full SDK.
- Repairability: SDK maintenance updates are applied automatically without any intervention from you.
But there are also limitations:
- Additional dependencies: You need the SDK environment to be present on the target system.
- Risk of unintentional uninstallation— If the SDK is used by multiple apps, uninstalling one could affect the others.
2. Independent
This implementation type, introduced starting with SDK version 1.1 Preview, allows you to package all necessary SDK dependencies with your application. It has the following features:
- Greater control over the SDK version: : you decide which version you use.
- Isolation: Applications do not affect each other if they use different versions.
- Xcopy type deployment: You can distribute the app by copying the binaries, without the need for complex installers.
Of course, there are also drawbacks:
- Heavier downloads: : Size increases when including the full SDK.
- Greater use of resources: By not sharing code with other processes, more memory is consumed and loading is slower.
- It is not automatically admissible— If an SDK update is released, you’ll need to integrate it manually by creating a new version of your app.
What types of apps are supported?
The Windows App SDK is designed to work with various types of traditional desktop applications. This includes:
- Win32 Desktop Applications: that use technologies such as pure C++ or MFC.
- Applications in .NET: Using WPF, Windows Forms and other frameworks that can coexist with WinUI or use it in island mode.
- Hybrid applications: that mix modern interface elements with legacy logic.
Support is quite broad, precisely because its purpose is to modernize without imposing restrictions on how the application is internally structured.
Windows App SDK version chain and update channels
The SDK follows a channel-based release strategy, allowing you to choose between different options for your projects. These channels include:
- Stable: for production, guarantees stability and support.
- Preview: includes new features not yet validated for critical environments.
- Experimental: Contains early-stage features, ideal for testing and innovation.
Open collaboration and source code
Microsoft has developed the SDK as a open source project. You can find it in their official GitHub repository, where there is also much more technical documentation, roadmaps and guides to contribute.
If you’re a developer and want to participate, you can ask questions, report bugs, or even propose ideas directly to the maintenance team. This transparency helps the SDK evolve based on the real needs of the ecosystem.
The Windows App SDK represents a step toward a more unified development platform for Windows, bringing modern technologies to all types of desktop applications. With its decoupled approach to the operating system and constant updates, it’s becoming one of the most relevant tools for Windows developers today. Share this guide and help other users learn about this tool..
We are proud to announce that version 1.6 of the Windows App SDK is now available! Whether you’re looking for the incredible performance boost and footprint reduction of Native AOT support, enhancements for deploying your package, or quality of life improvements for controls like PipsPager and RatingControl, WinAppSDK 1.6 offers a raft of new features, performance boosts and structural changes that enable you to make your native Windows apps better than ever before.
The Windows App SDK provides a rich set of APIs and tools to help you build beautiful and fast Windows desktop apps, including any C++ Win32 or C# .NET app. You can harness the modern controls and polish of WinUI 3, which ships as part of the WinAppSDK, or if you have an existing app that uses Win32 such as WPF, you can take advantage of only the parts of the SDK that you need. The WinAppSDK also stays up to date with frequent and OS-independent releases so your app can always access the latest innovations.
Get started with the Windows App SDK
Check out the Windows App SDK overview page to learn more about it and see how to get started. Then, if you’re ready to dive into Visual Studio and begin with your first WinUI 3 app, see our setup instructions to start developing Windows apps.
New features and improvements
Native AOT support
With 1.6, the Windows App SDK now supports native Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation! When publishing your app as a Native AOT app, you produce an app which has been compiled ahead of time to native code for faster startup time and a smaller memory footprint.
We’re very excited to bring the powerful capabilities of Native AOT to developers through the Windows App SDK! In our sample Contoso Camera app, we measured a 50% reduction in start time, an ~8x reduction in package size when using a framework package and a ~2x reduction in package size when using Windows App SDK in self-contained mode. While your results might vary, we encourage you to give Native AOT a try if it’s right for your app!
For more information about Native AOT, see Native AOT deployment. To get started with Native AOT in your Windows App SDK app, see our release notes for 1.6 for what you need to know and how to set it up.
Decoupled WebView2 versioning
Instead of embedding a hard-coded version of the Edge WebView2 SDK into the Windows App SDK, we now consume the Edge WebView2 SDK as a NuGet reference in 1.6. If your app uses WebView2 to display content, you can now choose a newer version of the Microsoft.Web.WebView2 package if you need to instead of the version that came with the Windows App SDK. Additionally, you can now reference NuGet packages which also reference the Edge WebView2 SDK, streamlining your dependencies.
With these updates, we’ve decoupled the WinAppSDK from the Edge WebView2 API surface and brought NuGet’s sophisticated package management capabilities to the WebView2 space. Your WebView2-powered app experiences are now more versatile than ever and can tap into the newest WebView2 offerings at any time!
New Package Deployment APIs
Flexible and robust package management has been a mainstay of the Windows App SDK since its inception, and with the release of 1.6 we’re only making it better. We’ve improved package management APIs with new enhancements and quality-of-life updates including package removal, provisioning and detection of pending registration and locally available updates, easy feature availability detection for light-up scenarios and more. If your app uses MSIX packaging, these enhancements are tailored to make your life easier!
For more details, you can peruse the pull request here or take a peek at the full spec here.
Improved TabView tab tear-out
The WinUI 3 TabView control has received a substantial update to the tab tear-out experience in 1.6 in the form of a new CanTearOutTabs mode, overhauling how a user drags tabs out of your app in a major way. In the new mode, dragging a tab out of your app’s TabView is very similar to the tab drag experience in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome where a new window is immediately created during the drag. This allows users to visually see feedback of their action right away and it lets them drag the new window to the edge of the screen to maximize or snap it in one continuous motion.
If you enable the new CanTearOutTabs mode in your TabView, you won’t have to worry about any drag-and-drop API limitations because it doesn’t use them. And, you won’t have to worry about whether tearing tabs out of your app will work if the app is run as an Administrator, because that’s supported. The developer and user experiences are seamless and smooth. If your app uses TabView, you should take the new tear-out mode for a spin!
Other control updates
While smaller in scale, in 1.6 we’ve added some polish and updates to a few other controls in WinUI 3 as well. PipsPager now supports a new mode that wraps between the first and last items:
And RatingControl is now more customizable since we moved some previously hard-coded properties to the theme resources. Now, you can override these values in your app to handcraft RatingControl’s appearance.
We’ve also unsealed ItemsWrapGrid, which is a backwards-compatible change.
Additional updates
And finally, we’ve added a few other new APIs and features to round things out for 1.6. We filled a gap from UWP with a new ColorHelper.ToDisplayName() API, and we added a new Microsoft.Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages class in MRTCore that includes a new PrimaryLanguageOverride feature for fine-tuning your app’s display language.
Staying in the loop
You can stay up to date with the team on the Windows App SDK GitHub repo and the WinUI GitHub repo, and through our quarterly WinUI Community Calls where we share roadmap updates and other exciting news, as well as demo new features.
You can also connect with us on X using #WindowsAppSDK and @WindowsUI.
We look forward to seeing the beautiful apps you create with WinAppSDK 1.6 & WinUI 3!
Happy coding!
Windows App SDK team