Windows Template Studio

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:

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

Source