Uno Platform introduces unified rendering engine

Uno Platform 6.0, a major update to the open source tool kit for building cross-platform.NET applications from a single code base, introduces a new, unified rendering engine, called Skia, that gives developers a low-footprint, high-performance, hardware-accelerated option for running apps on iOS, Android, Web/WebAssembly, Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Described by the Uno Platform Team as the biggest release ever, Uno Platform 6.0 was announced in a blog post on May 7.

While Uno Platform also supports native UI rendering for these platforms, the Skia rendering engine brings “massive” performance advantages, the company said. These include up to 75% smaller footprint, 60% faster startup, 30% less memory, and 45 times faster to run, according to the Uno Platform Team.

Uno Platform 6.0 also introduces two new UI components. The Media Player Element from Windows UI now is available for all targets supported by Uno Platform, including the Skia-based targets. Also now available is the WebView2 control, which enables users to navigate to external content and display custom HTML content. WebView2 also facilitates communication between C# and JavaScript, the company said, supporting embedding scenarios such as interacting with JavaScript charting or data grid components.

Instructions on migrating to Uno Platform 6.0 can be found at platform.uno. Also announced was general availability of Uno Platform Studio, which features a suite of tools for building cross-platform apps. In coming months, the Hot Design visual designer that is part of the Uno Platform Studio will be fitted with more AI functionality along with richer editors and advanced item and page templates, the Uno Platform Team said.