The goal with the open platform of Windows is to make it easy for developers to build and run developer’s apps on Windows, whether they’re .NET, web, Android, C++, Linux, or any number of cross-platform frameworks. This makes it easy to use Windows for all developer’s workflows and distribution models and reach more users to build developers business developers way.
For building Windows desktop apps, the Windows App SDK and the WinUI 3 platform make it easy to build rich native apps for Windows 11 using C# or C++ while still reaching users on Windows 10. The latest Windows App SDK 1.1 update is in preview and will be released soon, with new features like Fluent visual materials in WinUI 3, updated desktop windowing APIs, enhancements to push notifications, new environment variable APIs for C++, and various performance improvements.
To help with getting started using WinUI 3 to build developers app, Microsoft is also updating two tools:
- Template Studio for WinUI (C#): this Visual Studio extension makes it easy to get started building a new C# WinUI 3 app. It provides project scaffolding for developer’s app UI, logic, and packaging.
- .NET Upgrade Assistant: Microsoft is working on an update to this open-source tool to help developers automate migration of .NET UWP apps to .NET 6, including updating from WinUI 2 to WinUI 3. There’s also a migration guide with more information.
For cross-platform app development, .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) 1.0 was just released. .NET MAUI helps developers build apps that can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows from a shared codebase and is built on top of WinUI 3 when running on Windows.
To build great Windows apps using the web, developers can create a Progressive Web App, which enables developers to distribute and install developers site like an app and take advantage of richer OS capabilities. Microsoft is constantly making PWAs more powerful on Windows and have most recently enabled new features like URL protocol handler registration and window controls overlay for custom title bars.
Developers can also use WebView2 to embed web content in developers Windows apps using a shared evergreen runtime. WebView2’s shared runtime gives developers access to the latest web platform features and security updates at the same time as the Microsoft Edge browser and enables great performance by minimizing disk footprint and runtime costs across apps. There are already thousands of apps taking advantage of WebView2 – including the new Teams chat experience on Windows 11, which leverages WebView2 and Fluent Design to create a great user experience. For more on the latest for web developers, see https://aka.ms/edgebuildblog2022.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has become an integral tool for many developers, dev-ops engineers, and others with Linux workflows, especially for the cloud and web. To make it even easier to install and update WSL, we recently made it available in the Microsoft Store.
The Windows Subsystem for Android™ (WSA) is being continually updated to improve compatibility, performance, and extensibility for Android apps running on Windows. This includes updating to Android Open Source Project 12.1.