WinUI 3.0 no XAML designer view?

[jixc2008]

I know WinUI 3.0 is in alpha and early days, but I just want to confirm if the designer view is something that exists yet, or if it doesn't.

[jixc2008]

I hope to have a XAML designer view similar to WPF to speed up development .

[anawishnoff]

Hi @jixc2008, the XAML Designer is currently not supported in WinUI 3 Preview 3. We don't have a guaranteed timeline for this, but we're expecting to look into this after WinUI 3.0 ships.

[lone-wolf-akela]

Hi @jixc2008, the XAML Designer is currently not supported in WinUI 3 Preview 3. We don't have a guaranteed timeline for this, but we're expecting to look into this after WinUI 3.0 ships.

The problem is, in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/winui3/ , the line that was saying "no Visual Designer" in preview 2 is now removed in this document for preview 3. This is kind of misleading.

[anawishnoff]

@lone-wolf-akela Great point - I believe this got removed because it was lumped together with other developer tools (Intellisense, Hot Reload, etc.) which are now working. I'll go ahead and add this back into the known issues list.

[vmx17]

OMG. orz. Is it ok to close? Really? No designer nor Blend support? I've been chasing project reunion to spread knowledge of WindowsForms in C++/WinRT to all over my colleague but this ISSUE stops it. Programmers, should accept any new APIs (yes, I agree) but designers cannot try/prototype/demonstrate without such tools. Delay of such items discourage us to go with...

[Aaron-Corp00]

@anawishnoff Thank you for the information around the Visual Designer. When you have the chance can you detail or link to Microsoft's thought processes around not including a Visual Designer in WinUI 3 v1.0? This is a major regression in functionality compared to all other desktop UI frameworks Microsoft has released over the last 25+ years. On my team this missing feature is causing an internal re-evaluation of the choice to use WinUI 3 for future and current projects. As such we'd like to know if there has been any updates to the timeline around the introduction of a Visual Designer for WinUI 3?

[JonPerkinsOldGit]

I have a workaround that I use, and I am not suggesting that it is satisfactory but at least it works. I had a rather complex page to assemble last week so I opened an older WinUI 2.4 (UWP) project and added a new blank page. I was able to do most of the visual assembly here because that platform is supported with the visual designer, and then I just cut and pasted the XAML over to my Reunion 0.8-preview project and was able to finish the final refinements by hand. I think the main issue was that I had to alter a couple of namespace declarations at the top to non-UWP alternatives, but otherwise the XAML is are largely code-compatible.

Having said that, I've written quite a few pages now without the designer and it is less hassle than I thought it would be; I too almost decided not to move up to 3.0 without the designer. I am kind of surprised by the comment further up this page that the team haven't even got around to "looking into this" yet, but that was seven months ago in fairness

[vmx17]

Thank you replying my delayed-asking. With the movement of C++/WinRT and Project reunion, I've considered to change compilers FROM OUT OF Microsoft. This is our selfish story.

I'm a member of SI'er company working on medical and industrial fields. We are holding very large and old, complicated, vender-dialect program core. I thought we should shift to brand-new software NOW. Considering the C++/C#/WinRT and project reunion, now is the best time to preparation. As for medical programs, .Net (core or framework) was sufficient for productivity (DB and Web). Even FA field, .Net core can be adoptable (but FA device companies still supplies 32bit drivers only). As for industrial field, it request performance of C++ because our customer draws more than one million lines in one screen to measure center of gravity, and have to solve NP-hard problems repeatedly.

For example, think of CAD. Do you think it can be separated from desktop? I cannot imagine drawing with fingers and screen- or battery-driven bluetooth keyboard. It use mouse and wired keyboard to input accurate value. This ground is the place where Microsoft can dominate with desktop software. I know changing GUI controls (binary) costs so expensive then I want to move to the newest one, means WinUI3. With the most performance of C++/WinRT, WinUI desktop seems the most suitable solution. But at least, such environment, like VS Code with open source compilers, lacking GUI designer assist is insufficient for official use. To develop XAML code from nothing seems not productive enough.

Timelines. the cost of changing to C++17 (or 20, I prefer) from another company's old one may be equivalent cost to C#/WinRT. Starting from now on, new design (small start because I'll try TDD with VS), evaluate difficulties, train young programmers, hmm... at the time we get WinUI3 or .net 6 (or Windows11, whatever), I want to be able to draw multi-window desktop design.

At the same time, some other person start talking about gcc because Windows seems going to light-weight, like wsl2, and container-based operating system. Is it true?

[LJ-Court]

Wait so are there no plans to introduce an xaml designer view for WinUI 3.0 or is it just not arriving in near future?

[vmx17]

I think, by now, we can get XAML Studio and XAML Controls Gallery but they are not "windowing" tool. Are there any other tools useful to develop WinUI3 Desktop? At least, I need some reference or knowledge base.

[GeorgeKerwood]

Respectfully jumping on the chain to lobby for, at the very least, some clarity on Microsoft's plan to support a means of visual design for WinUI 3.0. Its lacking currently presents a serious barrier of entry for those of us not gifted with xaml second sight.

[asouth]

There should be some warning or note about this in VS to make it clear there is no Designer at the moment for WinUI 3.0, its wasting peoples time unnecessarily.

[Beji-kun]

Exist some alternative for XAML desinger for WInUI

[jonasnordlund]

Respectfully jumping on the chain to lobby for, at the very least, some clarity on Microsoft's plan to support a means of visual design for WinUI 3.0. Its lacking currently presents a serious barrier of entry for those of us not gifted with xaml second sight.

Even being fairly seasoned in XAML, this is very important to me to get a continuously updated view of what I'm doing. A 300 row, six level deep XAML tree is awesomely structured for a computer, less so for a human to get a bird's eye view.

[megastary]

I wanted to write our new app using WinUI3, but after being stuck for couple days with various things, discovering this tragic information was the last nail in the coffin. Back to the WPF!

[fourdragons]

So, I've really just been wasting hours the past week trying to get this to work? No, I didn't spend all the past week trying to get it to work, just have tried numerous times while I stumbled across different tips/tidbits while exploring UWP/C#. Nothing has worked, even for 0.8. Well, now I know WHY. LOL. Just wasted precious hours. (Not really, I did learn a lot.) Guess I'm stuck using UWP by itself for the foreseeable future.

[GeorgeKerwood]

To anyone continuing to follow this thread in hopes of alternatives or designer news may be interested to visit #5917.

Whether is it specially new to Windows App SDK 1.0.0 or not, I don't know, however VS 2019 is supporting both Hot Reload and Live Visual Tree for WinUI 3.0 xaml. In my opinion resolves the greater part (of course not all) of the no-designer-issue.

[bugproof]

Is it just me or there is no intellisense for C++ WinUI3 apps in XAML files?

[arthur-s]

Is it just me or there is no intellisense for C++ WinUI3 apps in XAML files?

same to me

[TheMR-777]

Is it just me or there is no intellisense for C++ WinUI3 apps in XAML files?

Same here mate. Still no IntelliSense support for C++ projects,

[JonPerkinsOldGit]

I have become used to writing the XAML purely in the code window (even without the IntelliSense) and then just seeing how it looks when I run it, but I am very disappointed by the three-years-and-counting absence of the XAML designer which disappeared since the discontinuance of UWP. I would prefer to see this reinstated in favor of everything else that the team are looking to add in the next WinApp SDK. That it was missing at v1.0 was a surprise but after all this time it is just sheer failure.

[a-M1NG]

Is it just me or there is no intellisense for C++ WinUI3 apps in XAML files?

Same problem, I found out that C++/WinRT doesn't support either. However, at about 4:13 in this video, the VS2019 used by the video uploader seems to support intellisense

[GuildOfCalamity]

Hot-Reload is not a solution for this problem, rarely does it update the app properly.
I understand MS is going x-plat so showing Windows controls might not make sense to everyone, but at least you could use them as placeholders during the UI design phase.

[jonasnordlund]

I agree with @GuildOfCalamity that a subset of this feature would still be totally useful! Such as a stack of solid fill rectangles where the bottom most elements would have the least opacity (this would normally be a Grid element etc), with ever increasing opacity the higher up in the stack you go. And a solid, thick border for the active element (as defined by the one your cursor is within in the XAML text editor).

This would still help me a lot at least, as I use it mostly to get a visual idea of the layout. I don't care much for a pixel perfect representation of each element and its contents.