19May

MvvmGen 1.1.0 and the New Special Edition: PURE CODE GENERATION – No Runtime Dependency For Your Project!

In the last blog post I introduced you to MvvmGen, the new MVVM library built with a strong focus on C# Source Generators. Some of you asked in the comments of the blog post and also per email if also the library could be generated, so that there is no runtime dependency.

Today, I'm happy to announce that this is now possible. Check out the requested special edition on NuGet: MvvmGen.PureCodeGeneration. This edition generates everything for you, not only the ViewModels, but also the full library. That means, there is no runtime dependency for your application. Let's look at this edition in this blog post, and let me also show you what's new in version 1.1.0.

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12May

Introducing the brand-new MvvmGen Library – Writing ViewModels for your XAML Applications Has Never Been More Productive and Easier

In the nights of the past weeks, I built a brand-new MVVM library that you can use in your XAML-based .NET applications. The library is called MvvmGen. It uses Roslyn-powered C# Source Generators to create all the ViewModel-specific boilerplate for you, and it is built with .NET Standard 2.0, which means you can use it in your WPF, WinUI, Uno Platform, Xamarin.Forms and .NET MAUI apps.

MvvmGen is a modern, next-generation MVVM library that I built from ground up with a strong focus on C# Source Generators. All the repetitive code (also known as boilerplate) that you normally write to create a ViewModel class gets generated for you. So, let's welcome the new library and let's take a look at it.

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05Feb

What is Actually the Universal Windows Platform and what is WinUI, MSIX, and Project Reunion / Windows App SDK?

This morning I got a wonderful message from a very smart and great person who watched my latest Pluralsight course, Fundamentals of Building .NET Desktop Applications. The course explains the .NET UI frameworks Windows Forms, WPF, UWP, WinUI (including Uno platform), and .NET MAUI in an overview and shows how to build your first .NET Desktop Apps for Windows with WinUI, WPF, and Windows Forms. The structure of the course is like this:

  • Knowing the UI frameworks for .NET Desktop Apps
  • Creating Your First WinUI App
  • Building Your First WPF App
  • Writing Your First Windows Forms App
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23Apr

.NET Core 3: Use UWP Controls in WPF with XAML Islands

In this blog post, you will learn how to use XAML Islands to host the UWP MapControl in a .NET Core 3 Preview 4 WPF application.

XAML Islands is a technology that allows you to host modern UWP controls in your WPF, Windows Forms, and Win32 applications. You can use for example UWP's InkCanvas or the MapControl, or you can use your custom UWP Controls. This allows you to modernize your apps with Windows 10 features.

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10Mar

Building a Classic Tabbed and Databound Desktop Application with UWP and MVVM

What kind of business applications do you build? Do they have a tabbed user interface? Most of mine do so. After spiking (=prototyping) the Visual Studio Shell I wanted to go deeper into building a tabbed user interface with UWP, of course databound with MVVM. As you might know, UWP does not contain a TabControl. But it contains a Pivot-Control that has pretty much of the functionality needed for a classic tabbed UI. So, let's go with the Pivot and let's see how far we can get. (more…)
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18Feb

Lessons learned from Building a Visual Studio Shell with UWP

Note: There's a MS Dev Show Episode where @ytechie, @carlschweitzer and I are talking about UWP and the Visual Studio Shell built as part of this post. You find it here on www.msdevshow.com
UWP is the technology to build native applications for the Windows Platform. But there's still some stuff missing that is required by a typical line-of-business application for the classic desktop: TreeView, DataGrid, Validation, SqlClient and more. Some parts like a DataGrid are available as 3rd-party controls. Other parts like the TreeView are already in development, as you can see in the Windows Dev Platform Backlog. That backlog shows that Microsoft is working on a TreeView, which is awesome! And I'm pretty sure, at some point in the future we'll also get a DataGrid. This was the case for WPF and also for Silverlight. But let's see, the future will tell us and for today we've great 3rd-party DataGrids. But what else is required to build a classic desktop application? (more…)
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