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windows-phonewin-universal-appframes

Using Frames or changing visibility

I'm new to UWP (windows 10), working on an app for windows phone, I wanted to know what is the difference between:

  1. Using multiple frames and navigate from one to other.
  2. Using a single xaml with no frames but with multiple grids (or other patterns), and instead of navigate- just change visibility so only the desired grid will be visible.

which option is better? and why?

Solution

  • The system keeps track of the Page you are currently on. So even when your App exists and even if it's removed from memory the OS can tell the App to reopen on that page.

    Similarily when your App provides other Apps with the capability of calling into it to open certain file types of to perform certain actions (e.g. start navigation, etc.) pages will be used.

    Lastly if you put everything on a single page and just manipulate visibility this will increase memory consumption of your App (as everything needs to be loaded even if it's not visible) and it also might increase load times.

    Of course how much that impacts you is up to the type of App you are building. In general however I'd advice you to start building using separate pages in case your App grows. Also you get a lot of stuff out of the box if you do so (e.g. animated transitions, etc.)