A Universal Windows Platform (UWP) program is a Windows 10 Store application.
Here is how Microsoft describes UWPs:
“A UWP app is:
- Secure: UWP apps declare which device resources and data they access. The user must authorize that access.
- Able to use a common API on all devices that run Windows 10.
- Able to use device specific capabilities and adapt the UI to different device screen sizes, resolutions, and DPI
- Available from the Microsoft Store on all devices (or only those that you specify) that run on Windows 10. The Microsoft Store provides multiple ways to make money on your app.
- Able to be installed and uninstalled without risk to the machine or incurring "machine rot".
- Engaging: use live tiles, push notifications, and user activities that interact with Windows Timeline and Cortana's Pick Up Where I Left Off, to engage users.
- Programmable in C#, C++, Visual Basic, and Javascript. For UI, use WinUI, XAML, HTML, or DirectX.”
Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/universal-application-platform-guide
The software development platform for programming UWPs is the nicest framework, in my opinion, that I have ever used to design and program a user interface.
This framework is most remarkable, as it provides a means to separate the programming of the user interface from the programming of computation code. Done properly, the user interface code could be programmed by a graphic artist and the computational code written by a programmer. A clever use of data binding links the user inputs and outputs, and all data, to the computational code. Changes could be made to the user interface without changing the code. You can also program a Visual State Manager to scale up when the program is running on large screens, taking advantage of the increased real estate, scaling down when running on small screens.
The user interface is programmed using XAML, which stands for Extensible Application Markup Language. The computation code can be programmed in C#, C++, Visual Basic, and Javascript. You can design beautiful user interfaces with XAML, which is similar to XML (Extensible Markup Language).
Learning about XAML, however, takes considerable time and much practice experimenting with the many, many XAML controls you can use to layout items on the user interface.
Microsoft’s Visual Studio has the tools to program a UWP application.
To learn about programming UWPs, I designed and coded two UWP applications as real-world programming exercises. I chose two simple programs for this:
1. A set of equations for personal finance.
2. A resurrection of a unit conversion program that I wrote back in the days of MS-DOS, as I already had an error free list of over 2,000 conversion factors.
These two applications will run only on Windows 10 devices. You can get my applications here for free.
Financial Equations
Conversion Factors