Of all the new controls featured in Windows 10, SplitView is perhaps the most emblematic. SplitView makes it easy to implement “hamburger menu” interfaces like the ones featured in Windows 10’s built-in News, Sports, and Photos apps, among others. A hamburger icon consisting of three horizontal bars sits atop a ribbon on the left side of the window. The ribbon contains iconic buttons, most of which navigate to another page in the app when clicked. Typically, but not always, clicking the hamburger icon expands the ribbon to reveal labels to the right of the icons. It’s an easy navigation pattern to learn, and even if somewhat controversial, it’s already familiar to users who have seen similar UI paradigms used in Web sites and mobile apps.
Most developers who set out to use SplitView for the first time are surprised at how lean it is. SplitView has little in the way of a default UI other than a pane that expands and collapses. There is no SplitViewItem class for placing buttons in a SplitView, and precious little guidance on how to implement them. Plus, incorporating a SplitView in your app requires some restructuring of the code that Visual Studio dumps into App.xaml.cs.… Read more
