Impact of .net runtime when dealing with low-level Windows-Messages, follow-up: Classic Samples Browser: Vanara Jñāna 🪅

[tajbender]

Hi everyone,

I am just asking if someone ever tried to do the native WinMain() msg-handling in C# over the .net bridge, when polling for every windows movement if ever done.

The background is, I had a native "Windows Glue" component about 25 years ago. That said, it was just for having some "magnetic" effect when moving app-windows around. When the borders of the window get close together, the window that the user is moving sticks to its counterparts, that is: every other application window.

I had stolen this from early Dreamweaver apps, who did exactly that as some kind of extended Docking-System.

However, I did this in native C++, that hard way we all learned to love so much 👅

As said, I wonder if such low-level hook will poor down performance.

Any ideas? Thanks.

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This was the Original post...

[dahall]

There are a bunch of hook examples and traditional winmain type apps ported from C++ to C# using Vanara libs in the WinClassicSamplesCS project. They match those in Microsoft's sample library. You could build them both and use the VS profiler to answer your question. In my subjective experience, there isn't a significant performance difference.

[tajbender]

Thanks, David! I thought that the .net <-> native Win32 bridge won't take that much performance...

Now, I will try to recreate this 😷

[tajbender]

BTW @dahall - I'm currently building some kind of WinClassicSamples - Browser. Don't know if u've ssen.

The aim is, to have this examples in such WinUi3 interface:

Just for convience.

[dahall]

That would be nice. I started something like this in winforms, but never made it far. It is in that same samples project.

[tajbender]

Thx! Never saw them, to be honest... ...and I'm always glad to help 👍🏻

[dahall]

You never saw it as I never published/committed it. I've attached it here. It really does nothing more than browse the current directory structure and suggest it can run a project in the console (not implemented).
Sampler.zip

[tajbender]

Thx. That was I wanted to do tonight - magic ⭕

[tajbender]

I wanted to run the Unit Tests. The Output should be redirected to a stream, then to be printed in the "docked command line"... I like the idea 🍯

[dahall]

One thought I have is a tool that like ILSpy can observe all the public classes, interfaces, enums, etc. in all the Vanara libraries and when you select an element, it finds references in WinClassicSamplesCS or in the unit tests that can help a developer see ways to code up their requirement.

[tajbender]

To mark your own words: That sounds fun! 🥇

As soon as I have something to show, you'll register.
Feel free to comment, change and extend what ever I push.

Have a good time, David!

[tajbender]

I guess, Reflection is the key to achieve this. I worked with Reflection some years ago, so long ago, but that's what I have in mind...

Connections / Links to NuGet and GitHub would be nice. However, I'm still investigating...

Suggestions are always welcome!

Regards, tajbender

[dahall]

Design considerations:

• Use NuGet API to discover versions and published libraries and place them in a drop-down or treeview for selection with default being the latest. Potentially sorting by download count as an option.
• Download latest package(s) and use NuGetPackage API to pull out assemblies
• Use reflection to list hierarchy of public code elements
• Have a discovery and caching mechanism, maybe with a file in Vanara's github, that caches the associated unit test and external references to each library, interface, and method
• Discovery could involve simple regex hashing of files or more complex mapping of types and methods through reflection

I can help with Reflection and the NuGet APIs. I've done a lot with them. I've done very little with WinUI3.

[tajbender]

NuGet API? Sounds interesting... Didn't hear of it, to be honest 😁

Thanks, David. That sounds like a ton of fun...

p.s.: https://github.com/tajbender/WinClassicSamplesCS

[tajbender]

...I have created a header for the app. To be honest, it's heavily "inspired" by CoPilot, although a did some photoshopping.

@dahall is it okay to use this a.i. asset? In our WinClassicSamples - WinUi app?

[dahall]

Looks good

[dahall]

Sure. No difference to me as long as there are no rights tied to it.

[dahall]

Few points:

• I think we can use the "indx" project to index all the content we want to expose to the browser
• I think we could consider pushing the list of assemblies out to ILSpy for browsing and looking up internal references rather than trying to include this to find the right commit to reference in github
• I'm working on a reflection library that given an assembly collects all the content for display in a treeview all based on a simple interface:

internal enum ElementType
{
	Assembly = 1,
	Class,
	Delegate,
	Enum,
	Field,
	Interface,
	Method,
	Namespace,
	Property,
	Struct,
}
internal interface IAsyncRefresh
{
	System.Threading.Tasks.Task RefreshAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken, IProgress<int>? progress);
}
internal interface IElementInfo : IAsyncRefresh
{
	public IEnumerable<IElementInfo> Children => [];
	public ElementType ElementType { get; }
	public string? ImageUrl => null;
	public string Name { get; }
}

This gets instantiated for all assemblies, types, fields, etc. Let me know what you need of this to work within the WinUI3 space.

[tajbender]

Thanks!

The Enumerations of the available modules was the next step I wanted to do.

Have to fix my Solutions .sln first, anyhow, I've learned so much about .net versions, Win App SDK, and especially WinUi while dealing with multi-version builds, it is a mess, especially in Visual Studio.

• NU1605 Detected package downgrade in 4.2.1 is in fact related to WinUi build environment, e.g.

I'll share my findings as Q&A and Wiki docs:

• WinAppSDK Runtime Issue on Windows 11
• Update Vanara.WinUI.Extensions to WinUi 3 v1.5. Import initial Shell 32 controls
  

Short Words: Don't use Visual Studio 2026. 😮

[tajbender]

fyi: https://www.nuget.org/packages/ilspycmd/

[tajbender]

This gets instantiated for all assemblies, types, fields, etc. Let me know what you need of this to work within the WinUI3 space.

It's not that hard, on the WinUI3 side, it's just using ObservableObject(), ObservableCollection(), etc. I guess it's pretty much the same as WPF worked.

On the technical side I work with ViewModels, as supposed to when using WinUI:

[dahall]

I just checked in my early Sampler work where I've included two helper class files, NuGetUtils.cs and AssemblyElements.cs. The first has methods to discover all the Vanara assemblies on nuget.org, download them, and extract version specific assemblies. The second has the methods and classes to enumerate the contents of an assembly.

Form1.cs and NuGetPackages.cs are WinForms that show how to use those helpers.

[tajbender]

that'd be cool... I have new idea, I'll integrate an PowerShell interface...

So someone could run tests inside built-in Powershell Console 🍯

[tajbender]

..and a GUI Template Builder :)

Build Vanara via drag'n drop, .json and PowerShell in the background 🥊

[tajbender]

Years ago, I bought a (...printed...) book, Professional Windows PowerShell Programming: Snap-Ins, Cmdlets, Hosts and, Providers

Should be excellent. Could use this Knowledge, now 🙌🏻

[dahall]

I think running the code is a nice idea, but I believe developers will benefit the most from being able to easily do the following first:

1. I have a method or interface I'd like to use
2. Help me find which Vanara assembly I need to include (or tell me there isn't one)
3. Show me all the sample code that shows how to use that method or interface correctly

[dahall]

It may also be valuable to show the developer when there is a wrapper available (e.g. IShellItem -> ShellItem)

[tajbender]

since your code is very well documented, this sounds like some kind of 🍖 project :)

[dahall]

For wrappers, I think I should attribute the wrapper classes with the type they wrap. Then we can use that in the tool and I could even use it for some of the analyzers I'm writing to help developers while they're coding.

[tajbender]

...sounds like a Swiss army knife. I'm glad to contribute. Thx.

[tajbender]

https://github.com/tajbender/WinClassicSamplesCS/releases/tag/integration-test

[tajbender]

A HexEdit View is obligatory, o'cause. 🍪

[tajbender]

@dahall I'm building the modules now 🎉

[tajbender]

@dahall I've switched my current main dev branch: https://github.com/tajbender/WinClassicSamplesCS.git

[tajbender]

[tajbender]

@dahall Re-Branded to Vanara Jñāna 🪅

[tajbender]

@dahall ...an actual screenshot:

[tajbender]

tajbender/Vanara-Jnana@a8ab8d0

[tajbender]

@dahall
after some downtime, the UI framework is now in place, so I’m moving on to the functional components.
Here’s a quick look at the current state of the app. The navigation model, layout structure, and overall interaction flow are set — next step is to bring the actual feature modules to life.
More updates coming as the “meat” gets added to the bones.

dahall/WinClassicSamplesCS#12 (comment)

[tajbender]

I've worked on NuGets Page, which works (...with some quirks...) so far.

You may take a look at the screenshots below. On the left-side pane, I would like to add the available package versions as subitems to the TreeView. However, currently the latest package versions are listed and selectable.

The Details Pane works so far, although the Markdown-Rendering for the README.md-file has some Issues - it's a control taken from Community Toolkit - Labs, so it's still in development. See the first Screenshot. However, the markdown links work, so it's somehow interactive already.

For performance reasons I've added a cache for the NuGet-Items which gets serialized as .json-file, which reduces heavy load on the NuGet server. See Screenshot number two.

The next big step would be to implement the ILSpy stuff. However, I would like to update the existing pull request containing the then latest version.

I've have any comments, concerns, ideas or improvements let me know.

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[tajbender]

Hi @dahall 👋

I’d like to clarify one part of the workflow I’m currently wiring up:

• On the NuGets page, I show the list of available packages
• Single‑click → loads the metadata into the details pane (README, versions, tags, etc.)
• Double‑click → navigates to the Assemblies feature and loads the selected package for deeper inspection

My idea is that the Assemblies page would use a generic “disassembler engine” (🔍) with ILSpy libraries providing the underlying functionality (PEFile, TypeSystem, decompiler, etc.).

Before I proceed, I’d love to hear how you envision this part:

• Would you prefer a thin abstraction layer over ILSpy, or a more explicit, ILSpy‑native integration inside Jñāna?

Thanks — just want to make sure the direction aligns with your expectations.

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📊 Vanara Jñāna – Project Timeline (Gantt Overview)

Below is a high‑level Gantt‑style timeline showing the evolution of the project
from initial concept to the current development phase.

🗂️ Gantt Chart (Text-Based)

WEEK: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---

Genesis & Vision
███████████▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉

Early Runtime Experiments
███████████████▉▉▉▉▉

Architecture & Pipeline Design
████████████████████████▉▉▉▉▉

UI Evolution (Initial Sketches)
████████████▉▉▉▉▉

Retro-Futuristic Mockups
████████████████▉▉▉▉▉

GitHub Tile & API Integration
███████████▉▉▉▉▉

Documentation & Discussion (#606)
██████████████████████████████████████████

📘 Interpretation

• Genesis & Vision starts early and continues lightly throughout the project.
• Runtime Experiments form a focused technical block.
• Architecture & Pipeline Design spans multiple weeks as the backbone of the tool.
• UI Evolution begins once the core concepts stabilize.
• Retro-Futuristic Mockups represent a creative peak.
• GitHub API Integration is a fresh, ongoing development area.
• Documentation (Impact of .net runtime when dealing with low-level Windows-Messages, follow-up: `Classic Samples Browser`: `Vanara Jñāna` 🪅 #606) runs across the entire timeline as the living project chronicle.

[dahall]

Thin layer is fine. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

[tajbender]

[tajbender]

[tajbender]

Mockups

AMIGA ❤️ Mockup by Copilot

• “Exploring how Vanara Jñāna could look if the Workbench met the Amiga 4000 Tower — a fusion of retro engineering and modern UI clarity.”

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• “Retro‑futuristic concept render of the Vanara Jñāna Workbench — inspired by the Amiga 4000 Tower aesthetic.”

---

[tajbender]

@dahall:
I've updated environment:

• Windows App SDK v2.2.0
• Windows Community Toolkits
• Vanara v5.0.5

...and adding some sniffy docking service, cause multi-windowing in WinUI 2+ makes so much fun 😁

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When I was bored I asked Copilot to sum things up:

📊 Vanara Jñāna – Project Timeline (Gantt Overview)

Below is a high‑level Gantt‑style timeline showing the evolution of the project
from initial concept to the current development phase.

🗂️ Gantt Chart (Text-Based)

WEEK: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---

Genesis & Vision
███████████▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉

Early Runtime Experiments
███████████████▉▉▉▉▉

Architecture & Pipeline Design
████████████████████████▉▉▉▉▉

UI Evolution (Initial Sketches)
████████████▉▉▉▉▉

Retro-Futuristic Mockups
████████████████▉▉▉▉▉

GitHub Tile & API Integration
███████████▉▉▉▉▉

Documentation & Discussion (#606)
██████████████████████████████████████████

📘 Interpretation

• Genesis & Vision starts early and continues lightly throughout the project.
• Runtime Experiments form a focused technical block.
• Architecture & Pipeline Design spans multiple weeks as the backbone of the tool.
• UI Evolution begins once the core concepts stabilize.
• Retro-Futuristic Mockups represent a creative peak.
• GitHub API Integration is a fresh, ongoing development area.
• Documentation (Impact of .net runtime when dealing with low-level Windows-Messages, follow-up: `Classic Samples Browser`: `Vanara Jñāna` 🪅 #606) runs across the entire timeline as the living project chronicle.

[tajbender]

@dahall Regards, Some add-ons I added, for your interest.

I'm finishing and cleaning up things, I guess the next days you can have a 1st look

Handle - Inspector

Search for opened file handles across the system, just like SysInternals did it. Then, kill this process to avoid reboots when it crashed:

Hex-Editor

Well, just it, an Hex Editor ❤️ 😍

[tajbender]

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