Over the weekend I announced my library to enable inline design-time only data in UWP apps.
Now, I've released an update (v1.1) which allows it to work with the supported properties on any control.
This removes the limitation of only working on default classes and you can use it on any object with the relevant property. This could be your own (custom) control or one from a 3rd party library.
The source is also now available at https://github.com/mrlacey/UwpDesignTimeData
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Sunday, July 14, 2019
UWP Inline DesignTime data
TLDR: UWP apps can now simulate the inline design-time data that Xamarin.Forms supports.
Simply install `Install-Package UwpDesignTimeData`
Then, do things like this in your XAML: `dt:DesignTime:Text="Only shown in designer."`
---
Let's say you have a simple page in an app. Imagine something like this. It's a default settings page as generated by Windows Template Studio.
Now imagine this is a localized app and so all the text comes from a resource (RESW) file.
In this situation, the XAML will contain Universal Identifiers (`x:Uid`) for each element and the text will be defined in the resource file (for each language.)
These files will look something like this:
That's great, but if you want to change what the page looks like, the designer isn't a lot of help.
Here's what the designer shows.
This is far from great and it's something I can make better based on my knowledge of attached properties and the way the XAML designer works.
Simply install my new NuGet package. UpwDesignTimeData.
Then modify the XAML like this.
The designer now looks like this.
Yay!
It's not just great for localized content, it can also provide design-time data for values set with a binding.
It doesn't only work with text. It supports the following properties:
These should work with all the standard controls. It won't work with custom controls. Sorry.
It even works for a few things that you can't do in XAML with the regular properties.
For example, you can specify a date or time for the DatePicker (or TimePicker) as strings and it will try and parse the value and then show it.
It works with Visual Studio 2017 and 2019.
Things to note.
Xamarin.Forms already has native support for this functionality. Hopefully, UWP (and WPF) will get this officially at some point in the not-to-distant future. ;)
When that happens, I hope and expect you'll be able to simply remove this package from your app and replace all instances of "dt:DesignTime." with "d:".
Simply install `Install-Package UwpDesignTimeData`
Then, do things like this in your XAML: `dt:DesignTime:Text="Only shown in designer."`
---
Let's say you have a simple page in an app. Imagine something like this. It's a default settings page as generated by Windows Template Studio.
Now imagine this is a localized app and so all the text comes from a resource (RESW) file.
In this situation, the XAML will contain Universal Identifiers (`x:Uid`) for each element and the text will be defined in the resource file (for each language.)
These files will look something like this:
That's great, but if you want to change what the page looks like, the designer isn't a lot of help.
Here's what the designer shows.
This is far from great and it's something I can make better based on my knowledge of attached properties and the way the XAML designer works.
Simply install my new NuGet package. UpwDesignTimeData.
Then modify the XAML like this.
The designer now looks like this.
It's not just great for localized content, it can also provide design-time data for values set with a binding.
It doesn't only work with text. It supports the following properties:
- Caption
- Content
- Date
- Description
- FlowDirection
- Footer
- Header
- Icon
- IsChecked
- IsOn
- Maximum
- MaxRating
- Minimum
- OffContent
- OnContent
- PaneFooter
- PaneHeader
- PaneTitle
- Password
- PasswordChar
- PlaceholderText
- PlaceholderValue
- QueryText
- Source
- Symbol
- Text
- Time
- Title
- Value
These should work with all the standard controls. It won't work with custom controls. Sorry.
It even works for a few things that you can't do in XAML with the regular properties.
For example, you can specify a date or time for the DatePicker (or TimePicker) as strings and it will try and parse the value and then show it.
It works with Visual Studio 2017 and 2019.
Things to note.
- You may need to (re)build the project to force the designer to refresh and show the design-time data.
- If you find a bug or something that it doesn't work with, please log an issue with the details.
- If you define the actual and design-time versions of the same property, specify the design-time version second. This is necessary because of the way the XAML designer works.
- This should work regardless of the version of the SDK you are targetting (or have as the minimum.) If it doesn't work in your scenarios, please log an issue with the details.
- Documentation will follow.
Xamarin.Forms already has native support for this functionality. Hopefully, UWP (and WPF) will get this officially at some point in the not-to-distant future. ;)
When that happens, I hope and expect you'll be able to simply remove this package from your app and replace all instances of "dt:DesignTime." with "d:".
Sunday, July 07, 2019
Using data from SQL Server and/or Web API in UWP apps - Feedback wanted
In the next release of Windows Template Studio (the amazing tool for scaffolding your modern Windows apps) we'll be adding options to make it easier to connect to a SQL Server database or also create your own Web API.
If you've done, or are interested in either of these things your feedback will be gratefully appreciated.
SQL Server
In many enterprise scenarios, the ability to connect to data from a SQL Server database is a must. Adding appropriate references to a project can be more work than many developers would like and so this option makes setting up the project appropriately only require a single click.
Of course, it's still necessary to retrieve and load the required data but you'd have to do that anyway. What this option does is just set up the project so that this is easy to do. It also adds appropriate TODO notes so you know where the generated code needs to be modified. Additionally, there's also a method that shows how to use data from a NorthWind sample database as a replacement for the SampleData that is used by default by the pages included in the generated app.
This is deliberately not an option for generating an app based on the contents of a database. There are other tools available if that's something you want to do.
Web API (and HTTP data access)
Taking heavy inspiration from the MobileAppService option when creating a Xamarin.Forms app, we've added the ability to include an ASP.NET CORE Web API project in the generated solution. If you are creating a custom web-based API to go with your new app, this should make it that little bit easier.
Differences between these new options and the Xamarin.Forms version are that we take a dependency on the "App.Core" shared library to avoid duplication, return our own `SampleData` in the default controller, and we've separated the code for the app to retrieve content from the API in a separate `HttpDataService` class so that they're available in apps that don't want (or need) to include the Web API directly.
As with everything that is included in Windows Template Studio we tread a delicate balance between providing enough to avoid developers needing to do more than they must, but also not being explicit on how something must be done, or including lots of code that must be removed.
If you have thoughts on any of the above, I'd love to hear them.
As an own-trumpet-blowing aside, the addition of these options means I now personally claim responsibility for twenty (20) of the options available in the WTS wizard. I've done a load of other stuff too (VB.NET support & internal testing being the main areas) but thought this was a nice milestone to celebrate.
If you've done, or are interested in either of these things your feedback will be gratefully appreciated.
In many enterprise scenarios, the ability to connect to data from a SQL Server database is a must. Adding appropriate references to a project can be more work than many developers would like and so this option makes setting up the project appropriately only require a single click.
Of course, it's still necessary to retrieve and load the required data but you'd have to do that anyway. What this option does is just set up the project so that this is easy to do. It also adds appropriate TODO notes so you know where the generated code needs to be modified. Additionally, there's also a method that shows how to use data from a NorthWind sample database as a replacement for the SampleData that is used by default by the pages included in the generated app.
This is deliberately not an option for generating an app based on the contents of a database. There are other tools available if that's something you want to do.
Web API (and HTTP data access)
Taking heavy inspiration from the MobileAppService option when creating a Xamarin.Forms app, we've added the ability to include an ASP.NET CORE Web API project in the generated solution. If you are creating a custom web-based API to go with your new app, this should make it that little bit easier.
Differences between these new options and the Xamarin.Forms version are that we take a dependency on the "App.Core" shared library to avoid duplication, return our own `SampleData` in the default controller, and we've separated the code for the app to retrieve content from the API in a separate `HttpDataService` class so that they're available in apps that don't want (or need) to include the Web API directly.
As with everything that is included in Windows Template Studio we tread a delicate balance between providing enough to avoid developers needing to do more than they must, but also not being explicit on how something must be done, or including lots of code that must be removed.
If you have thoughts on any of the above, I'd love to hear them.
As an own-trumpet-blowing aside, the addition of these options means I now personally claim responsibility for twenty (20) of the options available in the WTS wizard. I've done a load of other stuff too (VB.NET support & internal testing being the main areas) but thought this was a nice milestone to celebrate.