[Enhancement] Avalonia Migration (Please post any Application related rendering issues here)

[ItsEasyActually]

The Mod Manager is currently utilizing the WPF framework for UI rendering, and while it's been fine, there's some major issues with it. Namely a lot of issues with DPI and issues when running on non-Windows systems.

Avalonia is an alternate UI backend, similar to WPF. The idea is that with this move, the Mod Manager will run a lot better on other platforms and play nicely with DPI scaling in comparison to a lot of the issues it has currently.

The current proposed plan is to create a theme for Avalonia that we can recycle between applications, not just for use with the Mod Manager. Once complete, the Mod Manager can be migrated over. It's in the early stages and should be added as a repository to the organization at some point in the near future.

This Issue is mostly open now so we can filter incoming UI related bugs to be in here. It'll ensure those are checked for functionality as the new UI is built when this project begins.

[ItsEasyActually]

Below are some goals with the Avalonia move, some will reference issues from above. This comment will be updated if other issues come in that are not reported to this thread.

Existing Issues

• Resolve any potential issues with D3D9 conflicts. (#216)
• Fix window sizing to better scale with certain screens where possible. (#239)
• Allow text to be adjustable for legibility reasons. (#248)
• Resolve general DPI scaling issues.
• Try to resolve issues where launching the Mod Manager via Steam will cause visual issues and crash the program (#217).

Enhancements

• Add proper keyboard navigation (#249)
• Add gamepad navigation support. Avalonia does not have native support for this, so it will require building a system for it. (#249)

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Additional plans to the project include cleaning up a lot of the code backend to be generally better with no sacrifices to the existing configuration systems.

[declanmcmains]

i am so in how can i help

[ItsEasyActually]

I forgot to update this with a comment. The Avalonia Theme was completed and migration work has been slowly progressing on the linked branch.

Migration is also not entirely encompassing now as this is also a major refactor of the code along with new features we hope to implement.

I think I'll eventually be linking a discussions page for this for feedback as the UI gets further along.