![\"Windows](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/ifdef-windows\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2023\/08\/Header.light_.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWe’re thrilled to announce the first official pre-release packages for the Windows Community Toolkit 8.0 have been released to NuGet.org! \ud83c\udf89\ud83c\udf89\ud83c\udf89 This blog is going to provide a brief overview of how to get started using these preview packages and how to provide feedback.<\/p>\n
This has been a culmination of nearly two years of work in understanding how we can better maintain the Toolkit, make it easier to contribute to<\/em>, target multiple platforms with a single codebase<\/strong>, and still maintain a high quality bar!<\/p>\n If you’re still new to the Toolkits, you can find an introduction video to them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n With this single-codebase<\/strong>, our components will work for WinUI 2<\/em> on UWP, the Windows App SDK + WinUI 3<\/a><\/em>, and Uno Platform<\/a><\/strong> (using WinUI 2 or 3<\/em>)!!!<\/p>\n Note though<\/em>, even with our upcoming official release, some features may not be available on all platforms due to platform limitations or unimplemented APIs. Our initial focus has been on UWP<\/strong> and Windows App SDK<\/strong> compatibility, followed by Web Assembly (WASM)<\/strong>. If you find an issue on a particular platform, please let us know<\/a>, but we may defer you to the underlying platform’s repository if an API is missing.<\/p>\n If you’d like additional information about some of the things referred to in this blog, be sure to read our previous update here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Regardless of which new package you use (see below), the namespaces<\/strong> for code within the packages are now unified<\/strong> with a root of Be sure in Visual Studio to check the \u201cInclude prerelease<\/strong>\u201d checkbox next to the NuGet Package Manager search box.<\/p>\n Then search for either If you’re using Uno Platform<\/a>, the same<\/strong> package can be used across your various platform heads now! Just be sure to select the package that corresponds to the target of your Windows<\/strong> platform head, either \u2018\u2728\u2019 denotes new or updated packages\/features from version 7.1.<\/p>\n \u2018\ud83c\udfa8\u2019 denotes updated XAML styling from version 7.1.<\/p>\n \u2018\ud83d\udcbb\u2019 denotes packages which only target UWP\/WindowsAppSDK<\/em>. However, its absence does not imply that every feature will work across all platforms (see note in introduction).<\/p>\n \ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udc09 Note<\/strong>: Mixing and matching<\/em> these new 8.0 packages with existing Windows Community Toolkit 7.x packages, especially UI controls, can lead to issues with the namespace changes and dependencies on common code (like the Visual Tree extensions). If there’s something that we haven’t yet ported but you need, open a discussion<\/a> to let us know or claim it and contribute!<\/p>\n \u2728 Did you know that just using this latest preview version and providing feedback is a way of contributing?<\/em> \u2728<\/p>\n If you want to try our pre-release packages in a new UWP<\/a>, Windows App SDK<\/a>, or Uno Platform<\/a> project, you can use the following instructions:<\/p>\n And that should be it!<\/p>\n If you have an existing project that is using the Windows Community Toolkit 7.1 packages, there’s a few changes you’ll need to make.<\/p>\n That should be it!<\/p>\n We recommend that if you’re also<\/em> migrating between UWP and WindowsAppSDK, you perform the Toolkit migration first<\/strong>. Once that’s complete and working, no other changes will need to be made to Toolkit code when migrating to the Windows App SDK. However, we do recommend switching package references from the For further information, if you’re also upgrading to WinUI 3, see platform documentation here<\/a> or Uno’s documentation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Toolkit has grown a lot since its inception, both in terms of the amount of code and the number of people using it. As we bring over components, we want to ensure they’re working across our supported platforms, well-documented, showcased with samples, thoroughly tested, and up-to-date with the latest Windows design language.<\/p>\n As part of this effort, we created Windows Community Toolkit Labs<\/a> as a place where we can incubate and iterate over new ideas, try things out without worry, see what gets used by the community, and then decide to bring them into the main repository when they’re ready and well-tested.<\/p>\n We’ve brought over the most commonly used controls from the existing codebase already, but this won’t include everything<\/em> even when we reach the stable 8.0 release. Future releases may include more, with a mix of new and prior components. Some things are even in the platform now, so we want to work on providing better guidance on how to utilize built-in equivalents for prior Toolkit components.<\/p>\n Based on feedback from our community in our new repository<\/a>, we will be archiving the existing Not sure how to get started contributing? Don’t worry!<\/em> Did you know that just providing feedback on what we’re doing and our new components is contributing<\/strong>?!?<\/p>\n Join in our discussion about this 8.0 prerelease on GitHub here<\/a>. We’re also active on Discord<\/em> in the UWP Community<\/a> server You can also reach out on Social Media with the If you’re interested in contributing documentation or code, here are a few extra steps:<\/p>\n For those new to Uno Platform<\/a> \u2013 it allows for creation of pixel-perfect, single-source C# and XAML apps which run natively on Windows, iOS, Android, macOS, Linux and Web via WebAssembly. It offers Figma integration for design-development handoff, and a set of extensions to bootstrap your projects. Uno Platform is free and Open Source (Apache 2.0) and available on\u202fGitHub<\/a>.<\/p>\nAt a Glance \ud83d\udd0d<\/h2>\n
\n
<\/a> One namespace to rule them all \ud83d\udc8d<\/h2>\n
CommunityToolkit.WinUI.*<\/code>. This ensures that if you target multiple platforms or migrate between them, no code referencing the Toolkit needs to change (just the package)!<\/p>\n<\/a> Available Packages<\/h2>\n
CommunityToolkit.Uwp<\/code> or CommunityToolkit.WinUI<\/code> (Windows App SDK), depending on your target platform, and one of the packages listed below should appear. Today’s release is version 8.0.230823-rc<\/code>.<\/p>\n.Uwp.<\/code> or .WinUI.<\/code> for the Windows App SDK corresponding to Uno.UI<\/code> and Uno.WinUI<\/code> respectively.<\/p>\n\n
CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Controls<\/code> namespace (see above):\n\n
<\/a> New Projects<\/h2>\n
\n
.Uwp.<\/code> packages or for WindowsAppSDK\/Uno.WinUI\/WinUI3, use .WinUI.<\/code> packages.<\/li>\n8.0<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/a> Existing Projects<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp<\/code> or Uno.Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp<\/code> packages will map to CommunityToolkit.Uwp<\/code>.<\/li>\nCommunityToolkit.WinUI<\/code> or Uno.CommunityToolkit.WinUI<\/code> packages will map to CommunityToolkit.WinUI<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\nCommunityToolkit.WinUI.*<\/code>. Note that the .UI.<\/code> part of namespaces and packages has been removed. For UWP\/Uno.UI based projects, this should be Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.*<\/code> currently.<\/li>\ncomponents\/*\/src\/<\/code> directory. We’ll provide a better mapping guide in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n.Uwp.<\/code> to .WinUI.<\/code> versions as a final step. By matching the proper packages, it allows migrating to Uno Platform for your project without requiring additional changes to Toolkit-based code (for packages that support Uno Platform).<\/p>\n<\/a> What about the current repository?<\/h2>\n
WindowsCommunityToolkit<\/code> repository to provide better access to its codebase for future migrations. This should allow us to migrate issues and discussions as needed as well to our new repository and Windows Community Toolkit Labs.<\/p>\n<\/a> Feedback & Contributing<\/h2>\n
#community-toolkit<\/code> channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n#WindowsCommunityToolkit<\/code> hashtag. Find us at @XAMLLlama<\/a>, @XAMLLlama@hachyderm.io<\/a>, @Niels9001<\/a>,\nand @Arlodottxt@fosstodon.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
OpenSolution.bat<\/code> file for a component and try to build it following the steps in the readme.<\/li>\nAbout Uno Platform<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n