Template for Avalonia-based applications, based on Avalonia templates, with added functionalities:

• Splash screen
• Initialization during splash screen
• Services and Background Services (similar to Generic Host)
• Material.Avalonia theme
• Material.Avalonia.Dialogs

After generating a new repository from this template, you may want to:

• Change solution and project name from MyAvaloniaTemplate to new names
• Refactor MyAvaloniaTemplate namespaces and root namespace
• Customize splash screen visuals in Views/SplashWindow
• Adapt settings properties in Models/SettingsModel.cs
• Adapt sample settings properties for design-time settings and sample configuration JSON in CreateSample() method in Models/SettingsModels.cs

The App class has ActiveWindow property which gets updated automatically when a AppWindow is Activated.

Useful for setting dialog owner, accessing TopLevel, cast Application.Current into App and access App.ActiveWindow. For example:

if (Application.Current is App app)
{
    if (app.ActiveWindow is Window window)
    {
        var filePickerResult = await window.StorageProvider.OpenFilePickerAsync(new FilePickerOpenOptions()
        {
            FileTypeFilter = new FilePickerFileType[]
            {
                new("CSV Files")
                {
                    Patterns = new[]
                    {
                        "*.csv"
                    }
                }
            }
        });
    }
}

To create a background service:

• Create a class that implements IBackgroundService interface that comes with this template.
• Register the background service in ConfigureServices in App.axaml.cs, TODOs are reserved for service registration.

services.AddBackgroundService<MyBackgroundService>(); // register types directly
services.AddBackgroundService<IMyBackgroundService, MyBackgroundServiceImpl>(); // register as interface

• Background services are created and ran when IocExtensions.CreateBackgroundServices() is called;

Unlike Generic Host BackgroundService, IBackgroundService does not have StartAsync. I suggest using Task.Run() or TaskFactory for long-running tasks, or DispatcherTimer if your background service somehow interacts with Avalonia user interface.