👨‍💻☎ WinUI Community Call: October 19, 2022

[gabbybilka]

This live event has now ended, but you can view the recording on YouTube at the link below. If you didn't get your question answered, feel free to open a Q&A discussion. Thanks all for joining!

https://youtu.be/mWEPWRwpe-o

Details

Date: October 19, 2022
Time: 16:00-17:00 UTC (9:00-10:00am Pacific)

Anyone and everyone is welcome - no pre-registration is required.
This will be an informal interactive live stream directly with members of our engineering team.

Format

The community call is a call among the WinUI team that is live-streamed onto YouTube. We present on new updates, share information, welcome guests, and answer your questions. The agenda for the October call will include feature overviews about Widgets (@JeanRoca) & IL Trimming for .NET apps as well as the latest updates regarding releases in WinAppSDK.

Agenda

• Intro
• Feature spotlight: 3P Widgets in WinAppSDK - @JeanRoca
• Feature spotlight: IL Trimming in .NET apps via CsWinRT
• Latest news regarding WinAppSDK & WinUI
• Q&A

Q&A Code of Conduct

• To help ensure Q&A remains beneficial for the majority of the call's developer audience, please consider whether your question could be framed so that it might be more broadly relevant to our larger developer audience by ensuring it is reasonably concise, broadly beneficial, well-suited for the fast-paced live Q&A format, or able to spark open ended discussion.
• Please understand some questions are not well-suited for the fast-paced live Q&A format and should be filed as standalone Q&A discussions where they can be most appropriately handled. Excluding presentation topic requests, this generally includes requests for dedicated follow-ups or technically complex questions that require investigative time or expertise not included in this month's guest list.

Leave us your questions in the comments on this issue or live in the YouTube chat during the stream!

[pubtom]

Thank you Ryan for taking the time in previous community call to answer my questions. Now I insterested about the progress:

1.) Will there be a fix for #5299 ?

2.) In the previous community call you said that probably Xbox support for WebView2 in WinUI2 will never happen, but there is a "We are working on Xbox support now, but I wouldn't expect it to already be working. It's requiring work on both our (WebView2) side, as well as the OS." sign here: MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback#2155 . So is there any hope for XBox support for WebView2 in WinUI2?

Thank you!

[Balkoth]

When will restart api be in a working condition downlevel to 21H2?

• It is not working in unpackaged apps #2792
• It is not respecting the auto update mechanism #2863

Then there are longstanding bugs in winui like this:

• XAML x:Bind Selected Value won't bind to nullable int #6558
• Window.Activate does not activate and bring window to foreground in WinUI3 if window is in background but not minimized #7595

Then there are framework bugs like #2597 that receive initial comments and are then never touched again.

[pubtom]

Is there any plan to support DirectX in the Windows App SDK? (or in .NET ....)
https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Incorporate-DirectX-into-the-Windows-Run/393776
https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/still-not-directx-support-in-net-5/1345366

[DarranRowe]

@pjmlp
I have no idea what you are going on about there.

I was directly referencing the original poster's question of support for DirectX in the Windows App SDK. I don't know if you are a native English speaker or not, but support only implies the capability of using it in this case. So, the fact that Xaml exposes interfaces to interoperate with DXGI is supporting.

Having a completely separate component like Win2D is a completely different issue.

Also, as a side note, just mentioning the existence of something also doesn't imply whether it is a good or bad thing. It also doesn't imply my position on whether it is a good or bad thing.

[pjmlp]

Win2D was created during Windows 8.1 timeframe,. because everyone on .NET Native side was complaining about having to deal with C++ and those UWP components.

So basically your suggestion is to code in 2022 like we were in 2016.

[DarranRowe]

@pjmlp
Again, I still have no idea what you are going on about.

I don't see where I suggested that people should be using the raw Direct3D interfaces. What's more, I also explicitly stated "On the C++ side", so why are you bringing .NET into this?
Pointing out the existence of something means nothing more than pointing out the existence. I find it disconcerting that you have seen my thoughts on this an implied so much. Especially since it is so wrong.

But since it seems like you are unable to understand the point I am making, or you are purposefully misunderstanding, then I'll explain.

If you want to ask, "Is there a plan to bring a library like Win2D in box?" then ask THAT question. The term support is very problematic since the interop means that Direct3D content (this includes Direct2D) is supported in the Windows App SDK/WinUI 3. In other words, use this as a hint to ask a better question.

[pjmlp]

Because WinUI is sold as being usable by C++ and C# developers, all of them.~

So it is quite bad in developer experience that so many years after Windows 8, still lags behind Apple and Google platforms, in API surface available to managed languages.

Those kind of APIs on Apple and Google platforms are equally accessible to Objective-C, Swift, Java, Kotlin, and C++ developers.

The question regarding Win2D is down below.

[castorix]

Is there any plan to support DirectX in the Windows App SDK? (or in .NET ....) https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Incorporate-DirectX-into-the-Windows-Run/393776 https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/still-not-directx-support-in-net-5/1345366

I use Direct2D with P/Invoke in C# and VB and it works fine (it is as fast as in C++, either in Winforms or WinUI 3)

[AathifMahir]

Any news on Supporting NativeAOT on Windows App SDK? This can really solve startup performance and overall performance issue with Windows App SDK and Also Performance of Windows App SDK could be as good as UWP

[pjmlp]

When will Win2D finally get feature parity in WinUI 3.0 with its UWP version?

Looking at the commit history, there is hardly any real work taking place into this direction, beyond updating project settings to new versions of dependencies.

This is really a big minus point compared with the developer experience using System.Drawing, SkiaSharp, or what Android (android.graphics), Apple platforms (CoreGraphics) provide by default to everyone (including 3D bindings to all platform languages).

Regarding yet again the lack of productivity in C++/WinRT versus C++/CX, or the competition products from Qt and C++ Builder, I was made aware that now there is a VS extension done by a Microsoft employee, while the developer experience still isn't what it used to be like, it is at least a step into the right direction of what should be the experience provided in the box. Any updates on this front?

[k563]

Can we have an update please on the status on issue 5221, 'App.UnhandledException doesn't catch exceptions'. This is actually a very nasty bug which causes an app to silently quit if an exception is thrown and not handled locally. It was claimed in the release notes for 1.2-preview 2 that the problem had been fixed, however it's still there.

Scott has heroically investigated what's going on, and three new issues that are at the root of this problem have been raised as bugs (#5221 (comment)). However it seems that no one has been assigned to these. Presumably the original 5221 issue still exists. How does it make sense for 5221 to have been closed, if the underlying problem hasn't been fixed ?

Is there any prospect of the crashes being really fixed for 1.2, or will we have to wait for 1.3 ? If it's not fixed for 1.2, will you publicise the problem in the 1.2 release notes and mention the workaround that Scott has come up with ?

[Scottj1s]

Thanks for your patience @k563, as you know I'm determined to resolve all these issues. Unfortunately, we're out of runway for 1.2. But will work to get this into the first 1.2.1 servicing release.

[pubtom]

Will we be able to use WinUI 3 & Windows App SDK to develop for Xbox (Hololens etc.)?

[ryandemopoulos]

Will we be able to use WinUI 3 & Windows App SDK to develop for Xbox (Hololens etc.)?

Hi @pubtom, there are no plans to support Xbox or HoloLens. For the foreseeable future, WinAppSDK (including WinUI 3) will be focused on Windows desktop development.

[lhak]

Two questions:

-Touchpad behavior has regressed in all 1.2 experimental and preview releases compared to 1.1 (see #7572 and #2513). Will this be fixed for the stable 1.2 release?

-One regression compared to using WinUI 2 XAML islands is that composition of UI content with a swapchain or system backdrop (e.g. mica) does not work. Any timeframe on when this will be possible again?

[teh173]

"XAML Islands" is listed as "Experimental" on the Roadmap https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/blob/main/docs/roadmap.md
What does this mean, are there samples demonstrating its usage (C# and C++), what is its current status, and is it in a state to provide feedback?

[DarranRowe]

Well, it is in a state to provide feedback. You just have to use a version of the Windows App SDK that is marked as experimental (currently, 1.2 experimental 2 is the latest version.)
The documentation and samples are in a pitiful state, but that is actually the same as UWP Xaml Islands. The majority of what I have put together has been a mix of the UWP Xaml Islands samples, and some of the extra things found that you need to do to get WinUI 2 running in a UWP Xaml Island application. This isn't properly documented.

[teh173]

The example posted doesn't seem to be using XAML at all, but ContentIslands. I'd like to see a sample embedding third party controls into XAML and using them from a WPF application, if that's possible. There are some very old samples for UWP XAML Islands.
https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsAppSDK-Samples/tree/main/Samples/Content/cpp-win32/Squares

[DarranRowe]

It was those very old samples for UWP Xaml Islands that I was referring to. Besides changing the namespace to reference the Windows App SDK versions, those old UWP Xaml Islands samples should be usable as a starting point for the Windows App SDK Xaml Islands.

[teh173]

Transparency has been a request for 3 years. It has long been supported in WPF and is a basic and essential feature for us. What is the status or priority of this?
#1247
https://portal.productboard.com/winappsdk/1-windows-app-sdk/c/44-transparent-window-backgrounds
(I'll add that it's very confusing to have multiple locations for the status of issues by the way)

Seems the best option (either with WS_EX_LAYERED for hit testing, or WS_EX_NOREDIRECTIONBITMAP and no hit testing) is to not use WinUI and instead rely on lower level technologies, or 16 year old WPF.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2014/june/windows-with-c-high-performance-window-layering-using-the-windows-composition-engine

[ghost1372]

When will this bug be fixed?
We cant publish our winui 3 as Single File Exe and self-contained with an InfoBar.

#7143

[ghost1372]

Hi @ryandemopoulos
can you track this issue? #7143
No one gives me an answer!

[ghost1372]

Is there any plan for simplify adding windows 11 Shell Context menu?
Currently, this process is complicated and difficult and requires C++ and Sparse package and we cant use it in UnPackaged app.

[ghost1372]

can you upload full sample?
there is some codes that is not recognized such as Hwnd, POINT, SFGAO,SHGNO,Shell

[gautambjain]

I don't have access right now. Will post the files after a week.

[ghost1372]

Thank you

[gautambjain]

Download files from this link: https://file.io/FX0AFerKkfRn

[c2ssb2]

Download files from this link: https://file.io/FX0AFerKkfRn

The link is deleted. Could you please upload it