Windows Community Toolkit 7 contains the biggest set of updates and improvements yet.

Microsoft has released version 7.0 of the Windows Community Toolkit.

In a post on the Windows Blog, Microsoft says that the latest set of tools for Windows 10 app development has been released after “many months of invigorating the Windows Community Toolkit.”

Naturally, users can expect to see a host of new features and improvements.

In a nutshell, the Windows Community Toolkit helps simplify the process of building UWP and .NET applications for Windows 10. It does this by providing developers with “a collection of helpers, extensions, and custom controls.”

The toolkit’s usage is not limited to building PC apps. It can be used to develop applications for Xbox, mobile, IoT, and HoloLens as well.

Additionally, the official Windows Community Toolkit documentation mentions that it has been “built as an open source project hosted on GitHub with support from the community.”

Version 7.0 of the Windows Community Toolkit has been hailed by Microsoft as “one of the largest releases of the Toolkit.” This is evident due to an array of changes that have been made “to both around its underlying structure and code contracts.”

The first major change is the introduction of the MVVM Toolkit for .NET. According to Microsoft, “the?Microsoft.Toolkit.Mvvm?package is a modern, fast, and modular MVVM library.”

The core principles, around which the MVVM Toolkit revolves, include platform and runtime independence, flexible usability, freedom of choice when using components, and reference implementation.

Windows Community Toolkit v7.0 also comes with “improved notification support for Win32 and .NET 5.” This is made possible because of new and improved Toast Notifications helpers for both .NET and UWP.

Furthermore, the Animations package has been completely revamped in Windows Community Toolkit v7.0. This means that “the Animation package is now lighter weight to support just C# and XAML animations directly.”

Other changes to the Animations package include the addition of a new AnimationBuilder class that will allow users to create composition animations within C# and XAML.

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Other major features in Windows Community Toolkit v7.0 include a new TabbedCommandBar to “control commanding within your app”, a new version of ColorPicker, and a SwitchPresenter “to layout and organize your XAML.”

The complete release notes of Windows Community Toolkit v7.0 can be found on Github.

Needless to say, Microsoft has paid a lot of attention to version 7 of the Windows Community Toolkit. It has addressed long-time concerns of developers, and thanks to help from its community, Microsoft has delivered an all-around package that makes developing Windows 10 apps a lot easier.

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Users looking to get started with Windows Community Toolkit will need to download Visual Studio. Alternatively, users can also download the Windows Community Toolkit Sample App from the Microsoft Store to test out the latest features of the toolkit.

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