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I want to take advantage of the nice acrylic brush that is offered in UWP, but I also need to be able to access other process information and load DLLs for SDKs (e.g. Aura(needs dll) and Philips Hue(works without referencing dll) and detect system hibernation/wake (UWP cant't distinguish between going to the lock screen or going to hibernation or waking/logging in)).

I tried to make this in UWP, but the sandbox is making it impossible. I also tried in WPF, but I couldn't get as good and nice performing acrylic effect as UWP offered, only the aero blur which is not as strongly blurred. I lastly tried to create a WPF project that uses the Microsoft.Toolkit.Wpf.UI.Controls Nuget package, however it doesn't seem to come with the acrylic brush for WPF.

What are my alternatives in C#?

Is it possible to run a uwp app as the UI and have a WPF app as a constant background task without delay, messaging back and forth?

Alx
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3 Answers3

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Is it possible to run a uwp app as the UI and have a WPF app as a constant background task without delay, messaging back and forth?

Yes, sort of. You can add a desktop extension component to your UWP app.

@Stefan Wick has written a number of blog posts on the subject and also provided a code sample on GitHub that shows how to extend a UWP app with a "classic" .NET console desktop application that runs as a full trust process.

Please refer to his blog for more information.

mm8
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The question is asked in a kind of odd shape... however in WPF you can achive blur effect linke this:

    <Grid.Effect>
        <BlurEffect Radius="4" KernelType="Gaussian"/>
    </Grid.Effect>

The radius changes the "blurynes"

And no you cannot run seperate applications without any draw backs...

you should also check out: Apply blur to everything behind a chosen container

Denis Schaf
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  • Last time I tried, the integrated blur only blurs in-app controls that are behind, not what is behind the actual window of (e.g. the desktop or other apps) when the window's background is transparent. – Alx Mar 04 '19 at 08:51
  • thats true! but in your case just keep in mind "form follows function" and if you can achive what you can achive with wpf there is no reason to go uwp just for the sake of some fenacy design elements – Denis Schaf Mar 04 '19 at 09:02
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I think you are looking for Application Packaging Project in Visual Studio. You can find the examples on MS blog: https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2017/12/04/extend-desktop-application-windows-10-features-using-new-visual-studio-application-packaging-project/#KeIh8l8WoJ5OLGkE.97

Konrad Śledziewski
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