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November 13, 2019

Announcing Windows Community Toolkit v6.0

We’re thrilled to announce today the next update to the Windows Community Toolkit, version 6.0, made possible with help and contributions from our developer community. This release brings ARM64 support to the toolkit as well as an update to XAML Islands for .NET Core 3 support. In addition, we have new features like the EyeDropper control and new Win32 notification helpers. We also have an update to our preview of Microsoft Graph enabled XAML controls.

See more details on these features below.

XAML Islands brings UWP to WPF, WinForms, and Win32

XAML Islands enables a developer to enhance the look, feel, and functionality of an existing WPF, Windows Forms, or C++ Win32 application and make use of the latest Windows 10 UI features that are only available via UWP controls like inking:

Screen showing inking.

This release improves tooling support for .NET Core 3 and makes it even easier to get started.

Documentation for XAML Islands.

ARM64 Support

The Windows Community Toolkit now supports applications that are targeting ARM64. This allows developers’ apps to take advantage of increased performance and battery life by running on the native architecture for devices like the Surface Pro X. We also worked closely with the Win2D team to ensure it also now supports ARM64. This was important for Lottie and other toolkit features that rely on Win2D.

Lottie Animation Improvements

This update brings more Adobe After Effects features to Lottie-Windows, including Linear and Radial Gradients, Masks, Track Mattes, and codegen support for Image Layers. We hope that these additions will allow motion designers and application developers to create even more visually compelling user experiences on Windows 10. Since some of these features rely on newer SDKs, Lottie-Windows now also offers adaptive versioning. We rely on the community to prioritize feature work so please do keep providing your valuable feedback and suggestions for Lottie-Windows here!

Eye Dropper

The new Eye Dropper control allows you to provide effortless color selection functionality to your app.

Example of Eye Dropper control feature.

Documentation for EyeDropper.

XAML Graph Controls Preview

This new addition to the Windows Community Toolkit allows developers to easily authenticate and access Microsoft Graph in Windows 10 apps to create rich data and user connected experiences. These controls are available as a preview of our 6.1 release today and will work with UWP apps and in WPF/WinForms for Win32 apps via XAML Islands on .NET Core 3. In addition, with the help of Xamarin and the Uno Platform, you will also soon be able to use them on Android and iOS.

Example of PeoplePicker functions.

Read about these new controls in our original announcement or on GitHub for all the latest details.

Get started today

There are a lot more updates than we can cover here, be sure to read the release notes for more details on all the fixes provided in this update.

As a reminder, you can get started by following our docs.microsoft.com tutorial, or preview the latest features by installing the Windows Community Toolkit Sample App from the Microsoft Store. If you would like to contribute, please join us on GitHub! To join the conversation on Twitter, use the #WindowsToolkit hashtag.

Happy coding!