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From YouTube: Getting started with UWP

Description

The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) lets you build apps for any Windows device including PCs, Xbox One, HoloLens, and more.
In this episode, Stefan Wick (@StefanWickDev) comes on the show to give us an update on what has been going on in the world of UWP.

01:00 - How is UWP different from other desktop frameworks on Windows?
02:28 - What other programming languages can be used with UWP?
03:20 - How can WPF and Windows Forms developers move their applications to UWP?
05:06 - What are Windows Application Packaging projects?
09:42 - How do updates get pushed to UWP applications?
11:53 - What are some of the new UMP features?
13:04 - What is the Fluent design language all about?
16:32 - How does the Windows Template Studio help developers get started with UWP?
23:47 - How can developers get started with developing for UWP?

You can learn more about developing for the UWP using the links below:
Windows Dev Center: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows
Universal Windows Platform documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/?WT.mc_id=ondotnet-channel9-cephilli
Windows Template Studio Download: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=WASTeamAccount.WindowsTemplateStudio
Windows Template Studio on GitHub: https://github.com/microsoft/windowsTemplateStudio
Stefan's Blog: https://stefanwick.com/

Get your questions answered on the Microsoft Q&A for .NET - http://aka.ms/dotnet-qa
Learn .NET with free self-guided learning from Microsoft Learn: http://aka.ms/learndotnet

A

In this episode of the on.net show,, we're going to be talking to stefan wick about what's been going on inside of the uwp platform.

A

Hi, welcome to another episode of the on.net show.

A

My name is cecil philip, and today I have with me stefan wick. hi, cecil., thanks for having me.

B

So,, stefan, why don't you tell us.

A

A little bit about who you are and what exactly it is that you do. my name is stefan wick.

B

I'm a program manager lead on the windows, developer, platform. and my team is responsible for the app model in windows. 10.

A

Got you. so, that includes uwp and some of these other types of technologies? correct. yeah. that spans like win32, apps,,.

B

Winforms wpf, electron, uwp,.

B

The whole spectrum of apps on windows.

A

So, any of the desktop focus like applications?.

B

Correct. all the desktop types as well as.

B

Applications for all our other device types, such as xbox,, hololens., oh,, really. okay., got you.

A

As a developer,, I've played with windows once before.

A

I've played with wpf before. but,, I haven't played with uwp so much..

A

Why don't you tell me a little bit about, like how is that different from some of these other technologies?, and what exactly would I build with that?.

B

Uwp is the native developer platform on windows, 10.

B

Because uwp developers can take.

B

Advantage of all the device capabilities on their windows, 10 devices., whether it's on pc, hololens,, xbox, or any other windows, 10 device..

B

If you have a background, in.net, winforms,, wpf,,.

B

You are actually well set up to jump on uwp and be productive there right away., and we are continuing to make it easier to bring your existing skills, your existing code and your existing applications over to uwp on windows, 10.

B

Got you. so that means that I could.

A

Take code that I've written in some of these other frameworks and bring them over and have them run just fine inside of uwp? yeah, absolutely.

B

So, with the fore-created update in 2017.

B

Windows, 10 and the universal windows platform.

B

Now supports.net standard 2.0.

B

And so, with that, there is.

B

A great degree of compatibility for.

B

All your new packages, libraries that you have that are compliant with the.net standard 2.0.

B

You can bring them into your uwp application and they will work just fine.

A

Great. and so, is this focus primarily to on.net developers,, or can I use other languages to develop uwp? yes. great question there.

B

Uwp at its core is a language and framework agnostic, platform.

A

So,, we welcome any type of developer.

B

You can build applications in c++ against directx,.

B

You can build javascript application with html.

B

But obviously, in the.net, space,, c#, or vb,.

B

We have strong basis of developers who build application for this platform.

A

Got you. so,? Why don't we take a look really quickly and see how we could take advantage of some of those code-sharing, capablilities.

B

Yes, yes. actually,, before we jump in to visual studio,, let me expound on that a little bit. so, in addition to the code-sharing in terms.

B

Of sharing with packages or libraries we've done at standard 2.0,, another thing that we've worked on over.

B

The last year with the visuals studio team, as well,.

B

Is to bring great support into the platform to move.

B

Your existing winforms and wpf applications into the windows 10 app model.

B

So,, this is a technology.

B

And tooling, that we call the desktop bridge,.

B

Which helps existing desktop investments.

B

To go to the windows, 10 application, model,.

B

Take advantage of the modern deployment capabilities,.

B

And then get access to all the new windows 10 apis, such as windows, hello,,.

B

Cortana, and so on, and so forth.. So let me show this in visual studio.

B

Here, real quick on a simple example.

B

So,, this is an app,, maybe you've seen it before. If you've done wpf., it was one of the early samples that we probably.

B

Shipped about ten years ago, with the original release of wpf., so this is just a very simple game, written in wpf.

B

And now,, I want to use visual studio to.

B

Bring it forward into the windows 10 app model.

B

And to do this,.

B

I add a windows application packaging project to my solution.

B

I mean, give this a name. slide.

B

While you're doing that, so.

A

Windows application packaging projects..

A

Does that mean that I could use this project type to publish to the windows store?

A

B

Correct., this is one of the important benefits you get from it.

B

Just by packaging,, you automatically take advantage of.

B

The windows, 10 deployment pipeline and packaging format.

B

And you are ready to go to window store.

B

you're, also ready to go to intune or other distribution mechanisms of your choice.

B

Got you. so, this project doesn't have any code actually.

B

It's just there are two kind: of, wrap your existing application into a new package.

B

So all I need to do is just reference. The application that I want to package.

B

I change the startup project in my solution.

B

So now I can configure my package a little bit.

B

I don't want to do too much here in the demo.

B

Just one thing,, so we can easily find our application in the system..

B

I just want to give it an icon.

B

So, tell me a little bit about this screen.

A

What are you doing right, now? yes.? This is.

B

The app manifest editor.

B

In visual studio that exists for uwp application.

B

Now,, I can apply it to my wpf application as well,.

B

So I can specify what is my icon,.

B

What does my tile look, like, and things like that.?

B

I can assign capabilities that are needed to access certain windows, 10 features.

B

I can declare extensions if I want to do background tasks or app services in my application.

B

Those are all basically, entry points for new windows. 10 features that are now available in my wpf application.

B

got you. so,. Now, if I hit the pipe, my same application.

B

Obviously,, I haven't changed any code, and hopefully it runs the exact same way. Still, is here.

B

But now we can see, we have our icon, here.

B

It shows up automatically in my app list.

B

I can pin it to start,.

B

So now it runs in our modern windows, 10 app model context.

A

The application has an identity.

B

It has access to all the windows, 10 features now.

B

And I can continue to evolve it with wpf code,.

B

But at the same time, I can take advantage of all the new uwp features as well..

B

So it's a great way to get the best of both worlds.

B

The more classic desktop win32 world,.

B

As well as the new windows, 10 uwp world,,.

B

Without having to rewrite your code or start from scratch, with your project.

B

so,, I think that's a great story for.

A

Our longtime desktop developer. so,. It doesn't matter if my application is,, like you, said, windows, forms that I've written in visual basic a while.

A

Ago or whether I'm using wpf or using xhml.

A

I could take my application as is,.

A

I can add it to this packaging project, and I can make use of things like you, said,, like cortana,, and maybe the location api and some of the things that we have inside of windows. 10.

B

Yes. those are all great examples. windows, hello, and so on, and so forth.

B

okay. great.. One last thing before we close the demo.

B

now,. If I right click on my project,, I actually see here the options.

B

To associate with the windows store.

B

I can create app packages, so those packages can go to the store., but also I can choose to just create the packages for my own purposes.

B

For example,, I want to distribute them in my enterprise via webshare, or want I to use them in intune and not through the microsoft store..

B

So those are all options that are available.

B

So now my package is complete.

B

having a package. Also means,, you don't need an installer anymore,, because the package on windows 10, is you installer.

B

So,, let me show you this.: here's your own package,, that visual studio has created for my "wpf application".

B

I can double click on it, and now this provides me with.

B

The installer ux that comes natively with the windows, 10 os.

B

In this case, it detects the app is already installed, because I have deployed it from visual studio.

B

yep. but,. If weren't installed,, the user could now hit the "install" button, and install it from here., I mean frequent. well,. I just.

A

Want to highlight this at the bottom, it says,, a newer version was detected.

A

so,. If you need to push updates or anything like that, like the installer itself, is intelligent enough. To,, it's going to go check the "file share" or the "windows store" or whatever,.

B

Yeah,, that's a great point. yeah,. Our update mechanism is actually fairly elaborate.

B

We are able to provide you with differential updates.

B

So, consider you have a game that is beyond 10 gigabytes,.

B

And you change just one level there, with a couple of kilobytes and you want to push it update,. You don't want to push a five gigabyte update to all your customers,.

B

You only want to send those few kilobytes that are actually changed.

B

and our pipeline is able to actually.

B

Detect all the data and then only send down the data.

B

That's really good. and yeah.. Those updates can come from the store..

B

They can also come from your website. If you want to host the installer on your website.

A

So,, that's probably really good for enterprises, because that means that they can control when the updates happen,.

A

What actually goes in the updates, unlike, and we've seen they can control what the devices they go on using things like active, directory,, intune and things of that nature.

B

Yeah, exactly. and they can save a lot of network bandwidth through the differential updates.

B

A

The other benefit also.

B

Is disk space saving on the machine,.

B

Because in our packages,.

B

When you package for example, the telerik control, tweed or some other common framework,.

B

You, you might have 100 apps on your system that all package the same essential framework.

B

our pipeline on the system, is smart enough to detect those duplicates and only store one copy of it on the system and then use hard links from the others,.

B

So that you can get some substantial storage savings on your system.

B

So,, that means that there's some common storage area.

A

That all the applications that are packaged like this are going to look forward to see.

B

Yeah. any common files or frameworks that can be shared in this way.

B

A

And this comes for free,.

B

So the developer does not need to do extra work for that.

A

Anything extra. okay, that sounds pretty good., so [inaudible] ,. We saw how we could take our existing apps and kind of move them over into this new model.

A

so,. What about all the stuff? That's been happening in that uwp space,.

A

Like what are some of the new features that are coming up? and what are some of the things that we can look forward to going? Forward? yeah,, I think, if you look at the year, 2017,.

B

We've had some dramatic improvements in uwp.

B

The platform first was.

B

Released in 2015 was the first release of windows, 10.

A

And since then, year after year,.

B

We've had dramatic improvements in the platform.

B

In 2017,, one of the big things that we have achieved was the fluid design system,.

B

That you are starting to see now more and more apps picking up in the windows ecosystem, both in our first party apps, as well as into third party apps.

B

You'll see some of the new ui paradigms.

B

So,, this is a big thing to look for.

B

Well,, we're also continue to improve this design language, and in this release and the next one.

A

One of the things that, for me, as, a developer, not a designer that always trips me up, is when people say design, language.

A

so,. When we talk about design language, we're really talking about patterns, practices,, some constraints around how to build the user experience and the ui of application.

B

Yeah,, that's correct., and there is that., and a lot of this is baked into the native controls with uwp.

B

So, as a regular developer,.

B

You get a lot of these for free without actually.

B

Being a designed or knowing about all those parents.

B

That for using standard controls like the "navigation view",, all of this comes built in..

B

But then, if you are actually designing or very ui savvy,.

B

Developer, you have all the knobs to find tune. This.

B

And customized this to the exact design that you want to accomplish., that's great.

A

So,, this is a big one.

B

The other big one is that is coming up,.

B

Is continuing this path that I've touched on here with.

B

Combining your winforms at wpf.

B

And win32 applications with modern concepts.

B

So, really sharing a ui.

B

Between those worlds is.

B

A big focus for new feature development for us.

B

So, one thing that is in the current release,.

B

In the 1803 release, that's hiting rtm any day, now,.

A

Is the ability to host the more and vep.

B

View control in your wpf for winforms application.

A

So, this way you get.

B

More advanced and more secure edge based html engine.

B

In your winforms or win32 application.

B

And along those lines, we are continuing to support more and more of these modern concepts, also in.

B

Your existing classic windows, applications.

B

So,, how we use.

A

The web browser control in windows, roms application,.

A

And I think it was some version of,.

A

I think you can specify the version of the browser you use.

A

so,, it's something similar or are you using like the actual core browser using certain components of it? [Inaudible].

B

Well,, it is based on the edgehtml engine,.

A

So you use the same components.

B

This action have the same, more advanced support that edge provides.

A

Got you. all right,, so why don't we talk a little bit about? How can I actually get started with uwp.?

A

What are some of the things I need to know? About, you know,. What do I need to have installed in my machine or in visual studio?.

B

Yeah, that's a great question. so, yeah,, with visual studio, 2017,.

B

You have everything basically there.

B

It comes with the latest windows sdk,.

A

And you know all the bits and pieces that you need.

B

To get started and get going.

B

If you start that way,, what you see typically is,, we have a blank project that basically gives you the hello world twp, which is great for.

B

People who like to do that and start with completely empty and clean slate.

B

However, we've also received.

B

A lot of feedback from our developer,, they said they want a richer experience.

B

To get their project started and get a lot.

B

Of the boilerplate code out of the way and.

B

Start with that functionality coding right, away.

B

So, to come, satisfied that need, the windows team has delivered a tool. That's called windows, template studio,.

A

It's available in the visual studio gallery.

B

As a free download., and so I've already installed it here., and so let me show you how this looks like and.

B

How this helps you get started with uwp.

B

So I'll start a new project and I use the windows template studio here..

B

So you have a template for templates, studio?.

A

Exactly, yeah. so now,.

B

This gives you kind of an a la carte model.

B

To put together your starting point for an application.

B

I want an application that uses a navigation pane,.

B

It's a common pattern. These days, and I can pick between different frameworks, here.

B

I just want to do old school code behind,, that's how I work best.

B

and now I can add some content pages to.

B

My application, because most applications will need a settings page.. I also want a web view. Here.

B

So let me just add a few of these to show how all these look.

A

So what you're, adding now? are these pages? are these controls? yeah? These are pages within.

B

The navigation view where basically.

B

The user can switch between different types of content.

B

Got you. okay. and I also can select a couple of app model.

B

Features that I want to add to my application, so I don't need to go to msdn and look up,.

B

Hey, how do I add a ui key or things like that,.

B

I can do this here with just a couple of clicks.

B

Let me just add a "live tile" here,.

B

That's a popular feature, and now I'm going to create my project.

B

So this will take a couple of seconds.

B

What's happening here is now the code gets generated for.

B

My project so we're not just giving you libraries for these features, we're actually making this your code, so you can then go into it..

B

You can edit it and you can customize it. got you.

B

So this all becomes your code..

B

The windows template studio itself also.

B

Is open source so you'll find it on github.

B

You can look at all the things we're doing there.

B

And you can contribute.

A

So I think that was an interesting point. You brought up because when you brought it up, and there was a section at the bottom that said frameworks, and I saw there was prism,- there was abm light,, and so those are some really popular community driven frameworks, right?

A

yeah, that's right.! So I'm guessing,. If I decide to create my own mvvm framework or something like that,.

A

I could go into the github repo,, I can clone a repo,, I can make a contribution, and then anybody that installs, the template,.

A

They would just see my contribution.

B

Absolutely., so that's a possibility., so we have a couple of different contributors in the template: studio, today.

B

We have the telemetry controlled suite, for example, as part of it,, and some of the popular mvvm frameworks as well.

B

Got you. so the generation is done., so we see a here in the solution. Explorer,.

B

All of our code,, the markup and the code behind..

B

So let me launch this real quick., so you get an idea of what you get..

B

So this could be your first uwp app and right out of the gate. You already have.

B

A pretty good starting point here, which.

B

Is a bunch of the boilerplate code out of the way.

B

So here are the different pages that we've added.

B

So here's my web view for example,.

B

Use a media player.

B

some video from build, I guess, last year.

B

"Masterdetails", so this is kind of hooked up already so.

B

You can replace the sample content with your own easily.

B

We have chart control tier, so this is a contribution from telerik for example,.

B

So telerik chart controls.

A

This is the settings page.

B

Most apps need this here for example,.

B

You can switch to the dark theme for your application.

B

You get all that for free., so this gives you a really solid starting point and you can have fun coding right. Away.. You don't need to study like.

B

Hours and hours to figure out how to change the theme of my app or things like that..

B

Can we take a look at.

A

One of the xaml files really quickly?.

B

Yeah. sure. for example, web view page,. It should be pretty easy.

B

So yeah, bunch of styles here.

B

Probably not too interesting and the actual xaml down here..

B

So what I wanted to ask was,.

A

If I've been built, a xamarin forms.

A

Out before I built a wpf app before, like I'm using xaml,.

A

Or is this the same xaml? was that similar?, it's very similar.

B

It is not the same xaml though., so like a different version or different flavor?.

A

You will have to learn the uwp dialect.

A

B

Yeah, wpf, uwp, and xamarin each have their own dialect. Version.

A

The learning curve is pretty easy. There.

B

Right. but pretty much like you,.

A

You selected a couple options, and now we have a lot of code that we could look at,, we can expect,, we can customize,.

B

If you wanted to build our own uwp application.

B

Another great thing about the template studio also is that, at any point in time,. You can go back to it and actually add to it.

B

I actually forgot to add my datagrid, so now you can add it here.

B

It now shows you, hey. This is the code. I will be adding to your solution.

B

It's kind of a dev.

B

For all the different files that are changed.

A

You can review that, and accept it,.

B

And so now it's added to your project.

B

And if I run it again,, I have one additional page in my project with the telerik datagrid control.

B

That's awesome.

A

So,, let's take a look real quick., so while this is loading up,.

A

Why don't we talk a little bit about the.

A

Getting started experience in terms of like: where can I get documentation?? Where do I go to actually see the tools that I need to get started? With?.

B

Yeah,, so the main entry point is dev.windows.com,.

B

If you go there from there,, you will pretty much find everything.

B

link to template. Studio,.

B

Link to the documentation., we have a ton of samples out there on github that are linked from there.

B

a lots of more detailed kind.

B

Of scenarios and case study documents and things like that., great. well,, I feel like there's.

A

So much more that we could talk about but,, we'll we have you come back on another time when we can dig into some more of the details. yeah we should. This again. sounds great.

A

great. well, again this is another episode of the on.net show and we just learned all of the good stuff about the uwp platform.