MewUI Preview

Live preview for Aprillz.MewUI windows and user controls, rendered inside VS Code while you edit plain C#.

How it works

Run MewUI: Start Preview from a C# file. The extension launches your app as a preview session (dotnet watch under the hood): the app's real entry point, themes, and fonts run headless, and frames stream into an editor panel. From then on every save updates the preview, typically in under a second, without restarting the process.

Features

• Previews any Window/UserControl with a parameterless constructor (internal types included), plus the app's main window as-is.
• Opening a file automatically previews the component declared in it.
• .DesignSize(w, h) / .DesignWidth(w) / .DesignHeight(h) hints control the preview size; Design.IsPreviewMode guards side effects.
• Interactive: mouse, wheel, keyboard, and text typed on the preview canvas reach the running app.
• Toolbar: target picker, light/dark theme toggle, zoom (Fit-200%), refresh, session restart.
• Renders at the editor's DPI for pixel-crisp output on any monitor scale.
• Closing the panel keeps the session warm (configurable), so reopening is instant.
• No preview code ships in your app: the preview assembly is referenced only during sessions.

Requirements

• .NET SDK 8.0 or later (10.0 recommended) on PATH.
• A project referencing Aprillz.MewUI 0.20.0 or later (package reference or repo project reference).
• A trusted workspace (the preview builds and runs your project code).

Commands

Settings