WinUI 3 Preview 3 is out with ARM64 support

Microsoft's brand new WinUI library has been created to supercharge developer projects with Fluent controls, modern features, and other UWP/XAML improvements. Today, Microsoft is releasing the third preview of WinUI 3, and among the new features is native support for ARM64 PCs.

The library allows using WinUI XAML components in WPF, WinForm and native apps. Microsoft has added most of the modern user interface elements to the WinUI framework.

The framework has been created for both Windows 10 and Windows 10X. Latter will be running native Win32 apps in containers, so Microsoft is interested in getting app versions native to Windows 10X. It is now possible with WinUI. Microsoft is expecting developers to update their apps by using the modern platform and make them compatible with Windows 10X.

The key changes in WinUI Preview 3

• ARM64 Support
• Drag and drop inside and outside of apps
• RenderTargetBitmap (only XAML content for now – SwapChainPanel content will be captured later)
• Improvements to our tooling/developer experience:
  • Live Visual Tree, Hot Reload, Live Property Explorer and similar tools
  • Intellisense now working for WinUI 3
• MRT Core Integration – making apps faster and lighter on startup and providing quicker resource lookup
• Custom cursor support
• Off-thread input APIs

Some extra details and instructions can be found HERE.

Note that Microsoft is also about to use it as a replacements for core user interface parts of Windows 10, including the Start menu, Action Center, Desktop and the taskbar. Besides the shell, WinUI is coming to the built-in UWP apps Windows 10 Photos app, Windows Calendar, Windows Maps, Movies & TV, Sticky Notes, and Calculator. Internally, Microsoft is already testing them. The apps have received rounder corners for menus, dialogs, and other elements.  Check out this:

WinUI-powered rounder appearance reached Windows 10 built-in apps