WinUI Best Practices

Layout & Navigation

Use NavigationView and SplitView to create responsive navigation that adapts to different screen sizes.

<NavigationView>
    <NavigationView.MenuItems>
        <NavigationViewItem Content="Home" Icon="Home"/>
        <NavigationViewItem Content="Settings" Icon="Setting"/>
    </NavigationView.MenuItems>
</NavigationView>

Performance

Prefer lazy loading and UI virtualization for large data sets. Use ItemsRepeater with DataVirtualizingCollection.

var items = new DataVirtualizingCollection(
    async (start, count) => await LoadChunkAsync(start, count),
    totalCount);
myRepeater.ItemsSource = items;

Accessibility

All WinUI controls are built with accessibility in mind. Add AutomationProperties.Name where needed.

<Button Content="Submit" AutomationProperties.Name="Submit form"></Button>

Theming & Styling

Leverage ThemeResources to switch between Light, Dark, and High Contrast modes.

<ResourceDictionary>
    <SolidColorBrush x:Key="ControlBackground" Color="{ThemeResource SystemControlPageBackgroundBaseLowBrush}" />
</ResourceDictionary>

Common UI Patterns

• Master‑Detail: Use NavigationView with a detail pane.
• Flyout: Leverage MenuFlyout for context menus.
• Dialog: Use ContentDialog for modal interactions.

Testing & Debugging

Integrate WinAppDriver for UI automation and use XAML Diagnostics to inspect visual trees at runtime.

WinAppDriver.exe
dotnet test MyApp.UITests.csproj