Microsoft has released a yet another major update for its wizard-based extension/tool called Windows Template Studio. The latest release 1.2 brings a number of wizard improvements, template improvements as well as the process improvements.
For those unfamiliar, Windows Template Studio (launched back in May 2017) is a Visual Studio 2017 Extension that empowers developers to speed up Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app development using a friendly wizard-based experience. Windows Template Studio has been here a while and replaced the old web-based App Studio, which Microsoft decided to pull the plug, recently.
What’s new:
Full list of adjustments in the 1.2 release, head over to WTS’s Github.
Improvements to the Wizard:
- Add new content to existing WTS generated projects in your solution window via right-click
- We will be working toward seeing how we can enable this for non-WTS generated projects
- Adjusted ordering of templates based on popularity and logical groupings
- Under the hood, we’ve done a lot of work toward localization and started some accessibility improvements
- Simplified descriptions
- Logo adjustment to help at smaller icon sizes
Feature updates:
- First-time load prompt
- What’s New prompt
Template improvements:
- Upgraded references to UWP Community Toolkit 1.5
- Styling adjustments
- Template generation post-action improvements
Process improvements:
- Added in pull request template
- Added in Issue template
How to get the update:
To get the latest update, you can follow one of the two paths described below:
- Already installed: Visual Studio should auto update the extension. To force an update, Go to Tools->Extensions and Updates. Then go to Update expander on the left and you should see Windows Template Studio in there and click “Update”
- Not installed: Head to https://aka.ms/wtsinstall, click “download” and double click the VSIX installer.
In future builds, Microsoft will be adding:
- Fluent design in the templates
- Project Rome features as options for your project
- Ink templates
- Improved Right-click->add support for existing projects
- Localization in the wizard
- Full accessibility supported in both wizard and in the templates
- Visual Basic support
