Universal Windows Platform (UWP) Community Toolkit Updated to Version 1.2

The latest update to the UWP Community Toolkit adds several new features and updates others.

Richard Hay, Senior Content Producer

November 22, 2016

2 Min Read
Universal Windows Platform (UWP) Community Toolkit Updated to Version 1.2

The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) Community Toolkit is an open source tool that can be used to simplify the development of apps for Windows 10 based devices or to help you bridge an app over to Windows 10 UWP from the desktop version of the software.

The toolkit even has a UWP Community Toolkit Sample App that can be downloaded from the Windows Store so you can preview the capabilities in the toolkit ahead of installing it and the Windows SDK.

The initial version of the UWP Community Toolkit was released back in August and this latest update adds several new helpers and updates others.

Here is the rundown from Microsoft for version 1.2.

New Helpers

  • BackgroundTaskHelper to help you work with background tasks

  • HttpHelper to help you deal with HTTP requests in a secure and reliable way

  • PrintHelper to help you print XAML controls

  • DispacherHelper to help you work with tasks that need to run on UI thread

  • DeepLinkHelper to simplify the management of your deep links

  • WebViewExtensions to allow you to bind HTML content to your Webview

  • SystemInformation to gather all system information into a single and unique class

Along with the addition of a new MasterDetailView control, the following items were updated in this new release:

  • ImageCache was improved to provide a more robust cache

  • HeaderedTextBlock and PullToRefreshListView now accept ContentTemplate customization

  • Facebook service now supports paging when requesting data

  • Renamed BladeControl to BladeView. BladeView now also derives from ItemsControl. This will allow for more common convention like data binding and will make the control aligned with SDK naming. To guarantee backward compatibility, we kept the previous control and flagged it as obsolete. This way, developers can still reference the new version and everything will work just fine. A compiler warning will just encourage you to use the new version. The current plan is to keep obsolete classes until next major version and then remove them.

If you want to see what is in the works for the next update to the UWP Community Toolkit you can check out this GitHub milestone tracker.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.

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Microsoft

About the Author

Richard Hay

Richard Hay

Senior Content Producer, IT Pro Today (Informa Tech)

I served for 29 plus years in the U.S. Navy and retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer in November 2011. My work background in the Navy was telecommunications related so my hobby of computers fit well with what I did for the Navy. I consider myself a tech geek and enjoy most things in that arena.

My first website – AnotherWin95.com – came online in 1995. Back then I used GeoCities Web Hosting for it and WindowsObserver.com is the result of the work I have done on that site since 1995.

In January 2010 my community contributions were recognized by Microsoft when I received my first Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for the Windows Operating System. Since then I have been renewed as a Microsoft MVP each subsequent year since that initial award. I am also a member of the inaugural group of Windows Insider MVPs which began in 2016.

I previously hosted the Observed Tech PODCAST for 10 years and 317 episodes and now host a new podcast called Faith, Tech, and Space. 

I began contributing to Penton Technology websites in January 2015 and in April 2017 I was hired as the Senior Content Producer for Penton Technology which is now Informa Tech. In that role, I contribute to ITPro Today and cover operating systems, enterprise technology, and productivity.

https://twitter.com/winobs

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