Microsoft releases the latest version of Windows Community Toolkit (version 4.0), which is an open-source collection of helper functions, custom controls and app services. It simplifies and demonstrates common developer tasks building UWP apps for Windows 10.
The latest version of the Windows Community Toolkit introduces new DataGrid with fluent design, two new Microsoft Graph controls and many bug fixes.
What's new in Windows Community Toolkit 4.0?
New fluent DataGrid control
Along with Windows Community Toolkit 3.0, Microsoft introduced a preview version of a fluent DataGrid control for Windows 10. The control is now stable with more new features, reliability and accessibility.
The DataGrid control is now generally available in Windows Community Toolkit 4.0, which retains the programming model for DataGrid from Silverlight and WPF. So the XAML developers can now create a highly flexible tabular visualization of data with editing, data validation and data shaping functionalities with a few simple lines of code in Windows 10.
New controls to access Microsoft Graph
In the Windows Community Toolkit 3.0, Microsoft introduced a new category of UWP controls to enable developers access the Microsoft Graph. With the new updated toolkit, Microsoft introduced two new Microsoft Graph controls: PlannerTaskList and PowerBIEmbedded.
The PlannerTaskList enables developers to integrate tasks directly into their apps and allow users to interact with the Microsoft Planner tasks. Whereas the PowerBIEmbedded control enables developers to embed a rich PowerBI dashboard directly in their apps and allow users to interact with the rich data directly.
Standardizing services to target more frameworks
The Windows Community Toolkit contains APIs to make it easy to work with web services such as Twitter, OneDrive, LinkedIn, Microsoft Graph and more.
Along with Windows Community Toolkit 4.0, Microsoft moved most of the services (e.g. Twitter, OneDrive, LinkedIn, Microsoft Graph) to .NET Standard services package (Microsoft.Toolkit.Services), so that, those services will now be available to any framework implementing .NET Standard 1.4 and above.
How to download the latest version of Windows Community Toolkit?
You can download or upgrade to the latest version of Windows Community Toolkit using the NuGet Package Manager. From the Visual Studio IDE, open your project/solution, then navigate to Tools | NuGet Package Manager | Manage NuGet packages for solution... and then search for the packages that you want to download.
Here's the list of packages available in the Windows Community Toolkit:
- Microsoft.Toolkit
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Parsers
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Services
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.Notifications
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.Notifications.Javascript
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.Services
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Animations
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls.DataGrid
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.Connectivity
- Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.DeveloperTools
What are the top issues fixed in Windows Community Toolkit 4.0?
Controls
- WebView (win32)
- Update asserts hit in DEBUG builds for WinForms WebView
- Correct issues with ApiInformation implementation
- WebView project targets Insiders SDK 17713
- Fixed issue preventing ScriptNotify from raising as expected due to a timing issue during initialization
- Moved WWAHost process creation into dispatcher
- WPF WebView: Protect actions and delay navigation until last moment
- Add Close before HWND destroyed
- Fixed deadlock on InvokeScript
- HamburgerMenu
- Fixed focus indicator for keyboard navigation
- GridSplitter
- Prevents exception on hovering / pressing GridSplitter when its background isn't a SolidColorBrush.
- MarkdownTextBlock
- Fixed memory leak on subscribing event handlers
- Fixed name parameter for the SchemeListProperty
- MasterDetailsView
- Fixed exception when control is not hosted in a Frame
- InfiniteCanvas
- Fixed exporting and loading canvas content in release mode
Extensions
- TextBoxRegex
- Fixed negative index validation
- Deprecated NavigationView extension
Helpers
- ThemeListener
- Added sample in sample app
Services
- Facebook service
- deprecated publish_actions and dependencies
- MicrosoftGraph service
- Fixed setting IsAuthenticated to false after logout complete
- Updated flow when required scopes/permissions are changed
- Deprecated Bing services
Gaze
- Improved GazePointerProxy robustness to out-of-sequence unexpected Load/Unload events
- Fixed gaze feedback being hit testable and made Loaded/Unloaded logic assert when stressed
Helpers
- AdvancedCollectionView
- Fixed sorting when PropertyChanged notifications has no parameters
Documentation
- Added new accessibility guidelines
- Add
AddWebAllowedObject to unsupported API list
- Update Expander Header Docs
Other
- Updated Microsoft.NETCore.UniversalWindowsPlatform to 6.1.5
- Correct typo in license.md
- Enabled "TreatWarningsAsErrors" on release builds
- Removed Json.NET dependency from Parsers library
- Enabled Install-WindowsSDKISO.ps1 to suppress strong naming
- Updated to latest MSBuild.Sdk.Extras
- Added script for installing Windows SDK from ISO
- Added CommitHash assembly metadata
- Updated InheritDoc version
- Moved Win32 packages in a new solution
