Getting started with WebView 2

Microsoft’s move to a new set of Windows controls as part of the WinUI 3 libraries is one sign of its rethinking how the Windows SDKs are developed and delivered. At heart it’s a decoupling of controls from APIs, a new method for both how they’re shipped and how you can package them with your code. Microsoft is changing its delivery model, no longer updating with Windows but as technologies change and as new features are developed.

One of the first new controls to get a release is an update to the familiar WebView. The original WebView used the EdgeHTML engine to embed HTML content in your applications. That meant it was limited to Windows feature updates for updates to HTML and JavaScript, with security fixes as part of Patch Tuesday. Relying on the Windows install for support ensured that you were tied to using the lowest common denominator set of features. Although you could use feature detection to work your way around CSS issues, more complex features required more code for fallbacks to lower specifications.

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