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Rapid XAML Toolkit

Creating a XAML UI can be slow or require lots of manual effort. These tools aim to reduce the time and effort required to get the basics working and allow you to customize the UI to meet your preferences or the specific needs of your app. We can't and don't try to create the whole app for you but we can make creating and working with XAML faster easier. The functionality of the toolkit is based common conventions but is highly configurable.

❗ BETA ❗

Consider this project as in an early beta stage. There's still lots to do before it is ready for a full release and there's more functionality we want to add but we're keen to get feedback as soon as possible and focus on the features people want.

Overview

The Rapid XAML Toolkit aims to help developers go from this

    public class OrderDetailsViewModel : ViewModelBase
    {
        public int OrderId { get; private set; }
        public Guid CustomerId{ get; set; }
        public DateTimeOffset OrderDate { get; set; }
        public string OrderNotes { get; set; }
        public decimal OrderTotal { get; }
        public ObservableCollection<OrderLineItem> Items { get; set; }
    }

to this

    <StackPanel>
        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.OrderId}" />
        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.CustomerId}" />
        <DatePicker Date="{x:Bind ViewModel.OrderDate, Mode=TwoWay}" />
        <TextBox Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.OrderNotes, Mode=TwoWay}" />
        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.OrderTotal}" />
        <ListView ItemsSource="{x:Bind ViewModel.Items}">
            <ListView.ItemTemplate>
                <DataTemplate x:DataType="OrderLineItem">
                    <StackPanel>
                        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind OrderLineId}" />
                        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind ItemId}" />
                        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind ItemDescription}" />
                        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind Quantity}" />
                        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind UnitPrice}" />
                        <TextBlock Text="{x:Bind LineTotal}" />
                    </StackPanel>
                </DataTemplate>
            </ListView.ItemTemplate>
        </ListView>
    </StackPanel>

in a couple of clicks.

Features

The toolkit currently includes the following features

  • Create the entire View (XAML & CodeBehind) from the ViewModel file.
  • Copy a property, selection of properties, or the whole class (from the ViewModel) into the clipboard and paste into the View as XAML.
  • Send a property, selection of properties, or the whole class (from the ViewModel) into the Toolbox and drag into the View as XAML.
  • Set the DataContext in the XAML file.
  • Set the DataContext in the CodeBehind file.

Learn more about features.

Principles guiding this project

  • Doing something is better than doing nothing.
  • The toolkit can't produce the final UI as every app may require unique customization.
  • Everything that is output should be configurable.
  • C# and VB.Net are supported equally.
  • The toolkit won't do things that Visual Studio can already do. (Without very good reason.)
  • This toolkit is focused specifically on tooling for working with XAML. It will not include controls, etc.

Installation

Please see our getting started guide.

Contributing

Please see the contribution guide.

The Rapid XAML Toolkit (RXT) is a sister project to Windows Template Studio (WTS). They're separate projects but some of the same people are behind both. Anyone using WTS should also benefit from using RXT.