Experimental channel release notes for the Windows App SDK 1.3

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Important

The experimental channel is not supported for use in production environments, and apps that use the experimental releases cannot be published to the Microsoft Store.

The experimental channel provides releases of the Windows App SDK that include experimental channel features that are in early stages of development. APIs for experimental features have the Experimental attribute. If you call an experimental API in your code, you will receive a build-time warning. All APIs in the experimental channel might have breaking changes in future releases, but experimental APIs are especially subject to change. Experimental features may be removed from the next release, or may never be released.

Important links:

Latest experimental channel release:

Latest stable channel release:

Version 1.3 Experimental (1.3.0-experimental1)

This is the latest release of the experimental channel. To download, retarget your WinAppSDK NuGet version to 1.3.230202101-experimental1.

XAML Backdrop APIs

With properties built in to the XAML Window, Mica & Background Acrylic backdrops are now easier to use in your WinUI 3 app.

See the Xaml Backdrop API spec on GitHub for more information about the Window.SystemBackdrop property.

Of note in this release, you're able to set the backdrop only in code-behind, as below. Setting <Window.SystemBackdrop> in markup results in a compile error.

Additionally, the Xaml Backdrop APIs are currently missing an 'experimental' tag as they are under active development.

public MainWindow()
{
    this.InitializeComponent();

    this.SystemBackdrop = new MicaBackdrop();
}

Window.AppWindow

Replacing several lines of boilerplate code, you're now able to use AppWindow APIs directly from a Window through Window.AppWindow. See the Window.AppWindow API spec on GitHub for additional background and usage information.

New features from across WinAppSDK

  • ApplicationModel.DynamicDependency: PackageDependency.PackageGraphRevisionId that replaces the deprecated MddGetGenerationId.
  • Environment Manager: EnvironmentManager.AreChangesTracked to inform you whether changes to the environment manager are able to be tracked in your application. See the Environment Manager API spec on GitHub for more information.
  • MRT Core: A new event, Application.ResourceManagerInitializing allows your app to provide its own implementation of the IResourceManager interface, and gives you access to the ResourceManager that WinUI uses to resolve resource URIs.
  • With the latest experimental VSIX, you're now able to convert your app between unpackaged and packaged through the Visual Studio menu instead of in your project file.
  • A new event, DebugSettings.XamlResourceReferenceFailed is now raised when a referenced Static/ThemeResource lookup can't be resolved. This event gives access to a trace that details where the framework searched for that key in order to better enable you to debug Static & ThemeResource lookup failures. For more information, see issues 4972, 2350, and 6073 on GitHub.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed issues with touch input causing the soft keyboard to not appear on text boxes. For more information, see issue 6291 on GitHub.
  • Fixed issue causing an ItemsRepeater with an IElementFactory as its ItemTemplate to throw an ArgumentException. For more info, see issue 4705 on GitHub.

Additional Experimental APIs

This release also includes several APIs that are in early development.

The list below details the APIs introduced in this experimental release that we don't plan to ship in the 1.3.0 stable release.

**Microsoft.UI.Content**

    DesktopSiteBridge
        GetInputEnabledToRoot
        GetVisibleToRoot
        InputEnabled

**Microsoft.UI.Dispatching**

    DispatcherQueue
        FrameworkShutdownStarting

**Microsoft.UI.Input**

    InputLightDismissAction
        GetForIsland

    InputNonClientPointerSource
    InputPointerActivationBehavior
    InputPointerSource
        ActivationBehavior

    NonClientRegionCaptionTappedEventArgs
    NonClientRegionHoverEventArgs
    NonClientRegionKind

**Microsoft.UI.Input.DragDrop**

    DragDropManager
    DragDropModifiers
    DragInfo
    DragOperation
    DragUIContentMode
    DragUIOverride
    DropOperationTargetRequestedEventArgs
    IDropOperationTarget

**Microsoft.UI.Xaml.Automation.Peers**

    ItemContainerAutomationPeer
    ItemsViewAutomationPeer

**Microsoft.UI.Xaml.Controls**

    AnnotatedScrollBar
    AnnotatedScrollBarLabel
    AnnotatedScrollBarScrollEventArgs
    AnnotatedScrollBarScrollEventType
    AnnotatedScrollBarScrollOffsetRequestedEventArgs
    AnnotatedScrollBarSubLabelRequestedEventArgs
    AnnotatedScrollBarValueRequestedEventArgs
    ElementFactory
        GetElement
        GetElementCore
        RecycleElement
        RecycleElementCore

    IndexBasedLayoutOrientation
    ItemContainer
    ItemContainerInteractionTrigger
    ItemContainerInvokedEventArgs
    ItemContainerMultiSelectMode
    ItemContainerUserInvokeMode
    ItemContainerUserSelectMode
    ItemsView
    ItemsViewItemInvokedEventArgs
    ItemsViewItemInvokeMode
    ItemsViewSelectionMode
    Layout
        IndexBasedLayoutOrientation

    NonVirtualizingLayout
        IndexBasedLayoutOrientationCore

    RiverFlowLayout
    RiverFlowLayoutItemsInfoRequestedEventArgs
    RiverFlowLayoutItemsJustification
    RiverFlowLayoutItemsStretch
    VirtualizingLayout
        IndexBasedLayoutOrientationCore

    VirtualizingLayoutContext
        VisibleRect
        VisibleRectCore

**Microsoft.Graphics.Display**

    DisplayInformation
        AngularOffsetFromNativeOrientation
        DpiChanged
        OrientationChanged
        RawDpi
        RawPixelsPerViewPixel

    DisplayOrientation

**Microsoft.UI.Xaml.Hosting**

    DesktopWindowXamlSource
        CreateSiteBridge
        SiteBridge
        SystemBackdrop