Friday, January 28, 2022

Windows Template Studio - reborn!

It was only a few weeks ago that I publicly announced that I'd given up on Microsoft taking the Windows Template Studio forward and so I was going to do it myself.

Now, things are changing again.

  • The official Microsoft project has been reborn as just Template Studio. (Yes, that's the name I was going to use too.)
  • I'll be bringing the work I've done on my own back to Microsoft's repository and the Windows-related apps that can be generated with it will all come from Microsoft.
  • I'll continue contributing as a "community member".
  • The extensions I've already released as previews (for UWP, & WPF) will stay as previews and be removed once official Microsoft equivalent versions become available.
  • I'm reserving the right to build my own extensions that can be used for things other than Windows apps.
  • There's more on the official roadmap.

As expected, the most common question right now is about the timeline.

The answer is that it's likely to take a few more weeks.

This is because:

  • I can't take my work "as is" and copy it all over. There are things I can't, don't want to, and shouldn't share from my code.
  • What's required in the official repo is different from my personal requirements.
  • There's functionality my version has removed that I need to find ways to reinstate for the official/public version.
  • There are still [regression] issues in my version (the previews) that I need to fix.


How can you help?

  • Try out the preview versions I've released. (There are some things that behave differently in the release builds and so need testing widely--which I can't do in testing.)
  • Raise any bugs or issues for things you find. (Are there things I've missed? If no one reports the things that I think are regressions, maybe they don't need fixing...)
  • Consider becoming a sponsor. You'll be credited in the previews and elsewhere, but I obviously can't include such images in the official Microsoft version. :(
Sponsor images shown in the wizard

Any other questions? You know where I am. ;) 

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