Support for WinUI 3 & C++?

[nlogozzo]

Hi all,

I know that there is support for WinUI3 in this library, however it only works with C#. I thought WinUI 3 was supposed to support C# and C++ as the components are universal winrt components. Why doesn't this library work with C++ and how hard would it be to add support for C++.
I'm a C++ developer who is looking to build modern windows applications for the desktop and I need some controls, such as the DataGrid, provided by this library in my app.

Thanks in advanced!

Hello nlogozzo, thank you for your interest in Windows Community Toolkit!

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[michael-hawker]

Duplicate of #3704

Hi @nlogozzo not all components have to be universal or "Windows Runtime Components" which work with both languages. Developing Windows Runtime Components has more overhead and limitations on the developers, so we didn't go down that path in the Windows Community Toolkit. Therefore our controls are mainly targeted towards C# development only.

However, (at least on UWP) it is possible still to consume our components within a "C# Island". Basically you can wrap components within a UserControl which you could then place within your app as a whole section of your UI (good for things like DataGrids). This still pulls in the .NET runtime though so adds footprint to your app, which is why in the past we haven't prioritized showing how to integrate them (as we've heard that many C++ developers don't want that either).

These two docs show how this scenario works for UWP:

• Use a C# component from C++/WinRT
• Building C++/WinRT apps that consume C# components

I've been working on putting a sample together for this.

However, I'm not sure how any of this applies to WinUI 3 yet. That's the next step in my journey for a future sample.

[michael-hawker]

I've published our UWP based C++ sample here: https://github.com/CommunityToolkit/Sample-Windows-CppWinRT

I have a new issue tracking a similar sample for WinUI 3 here: CommunityToolkit/Sample-Windows-CppWinRT#3