rrebuffo.BaseUISupport

UI framework for WPF desktop apps with a special focus on CasparCG clients.
It is the result of many years of work and iteration, and it is pretty much a work in prorgess.

Main features

• Unified UI and color scheme with light and dark modes.
• Compact windows and dialogs with custom areas for status items, menus and controls.
• Standarized buttons, toggles, labels, progress indicators and other controls.
• Rich tab controls and tabbed panels with support for closing tabs, pinned tabs and buttons.
• Custom behaviors for lists and other control boxes, supporting drag and drop, focus and other behaviors.
• Counters support.
• JSON settings library for apps.
• App initialization (checks for single instance and arguments) and splash windows.
• Multiple value converters compatible with binding and multibinding.

Installation

• Create a new C# WPF Application project in Visual Studio 2022 targeting .NET 8 Desktop

• Add the nuget package 'rrebuffo.BaseUISupport'

• Open App.xaml and append the following resources inside the <Application.Resources/> tag:

       <ResourceDictionary>
           <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
               <ResourceDictionary x:Name="Colors" Source="pack://application:,,,/BaseUISupport;component/Styles/DarkColors.xaml"/>
               <ResourceDictionary Source="pack://application:,,,/BaseUISupport;component/Styles/ControlTemplates.xaml"/>
               <ResourceDictionary Source="pack://application:,,,/BaseUISupport;component/Styles/Icons.xaml"/>
           </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
       </ResourceDictionary>
  

• Open App.xaml.cs and add the constructor:
  (This will change the text selection to solid colors instead of the semi-transparent selection that WPF defaults to)

   public App() : base()
   {
       AppContext.SetSwitch("Switch.System.Windows.Controls.Text.UseAdornerForTextboxSelectionRendering", false);
   }
  

  If the goal is to have a single instance of the application, add override the OnStartup method:

   protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
   {
       base.OnStartup(e);
       _ = AppInitHelper.SingleInstanceCheck("UNIQUE_NAME_FOR_THIS_APP");
   }
  

  Then add the following event handler to the window that should be activated when launching another instance:

   using BaseUISupport.Helpers;
  
   public MainWindow()
   {
       InitializeComponent();
       AppInitHelper.RequestActivate += ActivateSingleInstance;
   }
  
   private void ActivateSingleInstance(object? sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       Application.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
       {
           WindowState = WindowState.Normal;
           Topmost = true;
           Activate();
           Topmost = false;
       });
   }
  

• Convert windows to AppWindow or DialogWindow:

  • Add namespace to both XAML and C# files:
    xmlns:ui="clr-namespace:BaseUISupport.Controls;assembly=BaseUISupport"
using BaseUISupport.Controls
  • Change base class to ui:AppWindow or ui:DialogWindow in XAML and extend AppWindow or DialogWindow in C# files.