developer-guide.md

Developer Guide

The following document describes the setup and workflow that is recommended for working on the Windows Forms project. It assumes that you have read the Contributing Guide.

The Issue Guide describes our approach to using GitHub issues.

Machine Setup

Windows Forms requires the following workloads and components be selected when installing Visual Studio 2022 (17.0.0):

• Required Workloads:

  • .NET Desktop Development
  • Desktop development with C++

• Required Individual Components:

  • Windows 10 SDK
  • C++/CLI support

• Required Windows Features

  • 'Media Features' including 'Windows Media Player Legacy (App)' (Windows 11) or 'Windows Media Player' (Windows 10)

  ⚠️ CMake 3.21.0 or later is required. Install CMake from the official website or via Chocolatey:

  choco install cmake --installargs 'ADD_CMAKE_TO_PATH=System'
  

• Useful Visual Studio extensions:

  • Editor guidelines, see #4836 for more information
  • VS Color Output
  • Productivity Power Tools

Workflow

We use the following workflow for building as well as testing features and fixes.

You first need to fork then clone this Windows Forms repository. This is a one-time task.

1. Build the repository.
2. Debug the change, as needed.
3. Test the change, to validate quality.

More Information

• How to write good docs for .NET
• .NET Docs and Guidelines
• "help wanted" issues