On the heels of its ARM64 browser availability comes news that Microsoft has an update for its Windows Community Toolkit for developers.

The latest update marked version 6.0, is bringing support for ARM64 as well as XAML Island for .NET Core 3 and new features that include EyeDropper control, Win32 helper notifications on the dashboard and a preview of the highly touted Microsoft Graph with XAML enabled controls.

XAML Islands

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

ARM64 Support

The Windows Community Toolkit now supports applications that are targeting ARM64. This allows developer’s 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 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!

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.

To read about or get started with the new developer tools, head over to the Windows Blog post here, and Microsoft reminds developers that our docs.Microsoft.com tutorials are also another great source for development references.