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Tutorial: Create your first Universal Windows Platform application in Visual Studio with XAML and C#

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

In this introduction to the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE), you'll create a "Hello World" app that runs on any Windows 10 or later device. To do so, you'll use a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) project template, Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), and the C# programming language.

If you haven't already installed Visual Studio, go to the Visual Studio downloads page to install it for free.

Create a project

First, create a Universal Windows Platform project. The project type comes with all the template files you need, before you've even added anything!

  1. Open Visual Studio.

  2. From the top menu bar, choose File > New > Project.

  3. In the left pane of the New Project dialog box, expand Visual C#, and then choose Windows Universal. In the middle pane, choose Blank App (Universal Windows). Then, name the project HelloWorld and choose OK.

    Note

    Make sure that the location of the source project is on a New Technology File System (NTFS) formatted drive, such as your Operating System (OS) drive. Otherwise, you might have trouble building and running your project.

    Screenshot showing the Windows Universal project template in the New Project dialog box in the Visual Studio IDE.

    Note

    If you don't see the Blank App (Universal Windows) project template, click the Open Visual Studio Installer link in the left pane of the New Project dialog box.

    Screenshot showing the link to 'Open Visual Studio Installer' in the New Project dialog box.

    The Visual Studio Installer launches. Choose the Universal Windows Platform development workload, and then choose Modify.

    Screenshot of the Visual Studio Installer showing the Universal Windows Platform development workload.

  4. Accept the default Target version and Minimum version settings in the New Universal Windows Platform Project dialog box.

    Screenshot of the New Universal Windows Platform Project dialog box showing the default Target version and Minimum version settings.

Note

If this is the first time you have used Visual Studio to create a UWP app, a Settings dialog box might appear. Choose Developer mode, and then choose Yes.

Screenshot showing the UWP Settings dialog box with the option for enabling Developer Mode.

Visual Studio installs an additional Developer Mode package for you. When the package installation is complete, close the Settings dialog box.

Create the application

It's time to start developing. You'll add a button control, add an action to the button, and then start the "Hello World" app to see what it looks like.

Add a button to the Design canvas

  1. In the Solution Explorer, double-click MainPage.xaml to open a split view.

    Screenshot of the Solution Explorer window showing the properties, references, assets, and files in the HelloWorld project. The file MainPage.xaml is selected.

    There are two panes: The XAML Designer, which includes a design canvas, and the XAML Editor, where you can add or change code.

    Screenshot showing MainPage.xaml open in the Visual Studio IDE. The XAML Designer pane shows a blank design surface and the XAML Editor pane shows some of the XAML code.

  2. Choose Toolbox to open the Toolbox fly-out window.

    Screenshot showing the tab for the 'Toolbox' fly-out window highlighted on the left side of the XAML Designer Pane.

    (If you don't see the Toolbox option, you can open it from the menu bar. To do so, choose View > Toolbar. Or, press Ctrl+Alt+X.)

  3. Click the Pin icon to dock the Toolbox window.

    Screenshot showing the Pin icon highlighted in the top bar of the Toolbox window.

  4. Click the Button control and then drag it onto the design canvas.

    Screenshot showing 'Button' highlighted in the Toolbox window and a Button control on the design canvas.

    If you look at the code in the XAML Editor, you'll see that the Button has been added there, too:

    Screenshot showing the code for the newly added Button highlighted in the XAML editor.

Add a label to the button

Add an event handler

An "event handler" sounds complicated, but it's just another name for code that is called when an event happens. In this case, it adds an action to the "Hello World!" button.

What did we just do?

The code uses some Windows APIs to create a speech synthesis object and then gives it some text to say. (For more information on using SpeechSynthesis, see System.Speech.Synthesis.)

Run the application

It's time to build, deploy, and launch the "Hello World" UWP app to see what it looks and sounds like. Here's how.

  1. Use the Play button (it has the text Local Machine) to start the application on the local machine.

    Screenshot showing the drop-down box open next to the Play button with 'Local Machine' selected.

    (Alternatively, you can choose Debug > Start Debugging from the menu bar or press F5 to start your app.)

  2. View your app, which appears soon after a splash screen disappears. The app should look similar to this:

    Screenshot showing the running UWP 'Hello World' application.

  3. Click the Hello World button.

    Your Windows 10 or later device will literally say, "Hello, World!"

  4. To close the app, click the Stop Debugging button in the toolbar. (Alternatively, choose Debug > Stop debugging from the menu bar, or press Shift+F5.)

Next steps

Congratulations on completing this tutorial! We hope you learned some basics about UWP and the Visual Studio IDE. To learn more, continue with the following tutorial:

Create a user interface

See also