Windows Template Studio

The Windows Template Studio is an open-source addin for Visual Studio that streamlines the process of creating a UWP application. It embeds a step-by-step wizard in Visual Studio, generating cross-platform templates of projects and frameworks to help you get started.

Provided you have Visual Studio installed on your PC, please note that the Universal Windows Platform development under Workloads also needs to be present. You can add this feature by running the VS installation file once more. The Windows Template Studio extension is quickly installed if you double-click on the VSIX file. Once the setup is complete, re-launch Visual Studio to view the new Windows Universal template when creating a new project.

The purpose of the Windows Template Studio is to facilitate the creation of new projects that target the Universal Windows Platform. It provides an intuitive wizard-like interface that allows you to select the project type, choose the desired framework, and the pages you want in your project.

Windows Template Studio enables you to generate navigation panes and tabs, but you can also start from scratch with a blank canvas. If you are interested in quickly designing the sketch of the app, then the "Code Behind" framework is the most suitable. Otherwise, you should consider choosing one of the MVVM models.

Once you decide upon the project type, it's time to go to the additional pages and features. There are different kinds of pages your UWP app can include: pages for web or media viewing, grid or chart pages, tabbed pages for convenient navigation, map pages, and more.

The wizard makes available a set of additional features that you can include in the app. For instance, the "Suspend and Resume" service can handle user start and exit actions, while the "Background Task" feature allows the app to run in the background and execute actions even if not in the foreground.

Following the steps of this wizard, you get a structured project with organized pages and readable code.