MonoGame.WpfCore

MonoGame embedded inside a WPF app as a dotnet new template.

Prerequisites

This template uses .NET Core 6. If you're having trouble getting it to compile make sure you've updated to the latest version. I have confirmed that it works with:

• Visual Studio 2022 or later.
• .NET Core 6.0.422 which should install with Visual Studio anyway.
• The MonoGame NuGet packages are not .NET Core compatible, so you'll also need .NET Framework 4.7.2 installed.

Installing the template

To install the dotnet new template, clone this repository locally and install the template from a local directory.

dotnet new install MonoGame.WpfCore

After the template is installed you should see it in the list. To create a new project, first create an empty directory then run the template.

mkdir MyLevelEditor
cd MyLevelEditor
dotnet new monogamewpf

All done! Open the solution and run the project.

Simple.

There's no magic here.

• The WPF project references the official MonoGame.Framework.WindowsDX NuGet package. The same package can be used in your game.
• There's only a handful of files required to do the heavy lifting.
• The MonoGameContentControl is a standard WPF control in every other way.

Modern.

I've been using and refining the MonoGameContentControl in my own projects for many years. Everything else in this template was built from the ground up using the latest .NET technologies.

• Thanks to the new UseWPF flag introduced in .NET Core 3.0 we can build WPF projects in the new csproj format.

Customizable.

All of the code used to embed MonoGame in WPF is included in this template. You can edit and customize it however you like.

• The template includes a MonoGameViewModel as an example of how to get started. If you use a different view model architecture, just change it.
• The project references the MonoGame.Content.Builder.Task package so that it can automatically build your Content.mgcb file. You can load content using the Content manager just like you do in your games. If your editor doesn't need this you can simply remove it and the .config\dotnet-tools.json file.