Template Studio is so outdated, I UNrecommend it!

[Jay-o-Way]

Let's be honest here, last real update was in 2023. In the mean time, things changed, so Template Studio is falling be hind. To a point where I wonder if it still is worth using.

Just saying.

[Abdulsaboorhabibi]

Yes, Even we could not generate application with dotnet 9 or 8 and all packages are still dotnet 7 related and lot of are deprecated. when update the packages the application crashes and not working anymore.

[Jay-o-Way]

@microsoft are you reading this?

[WWW4R4E]

Extremely difficult to use. If you still want to use it, you need to manually modify the .csproj file, update the dotnet version and RuntimeIdentifiers. Additionally, you must update related NuGet packages and fix the using directives in the created files. Due to the deprecation and updates of community packages, some components are no longer available, and you still need to resolve these issues manually. After fixing all these, you can finally run it, but there are still many problems left for you to address.😣🤐

[DamagedDingo]

what to use in its place?

[Jay-o-Way]

what to use in its place?

Online docs and copilot?

[DamagedDingo]

what to use in its place?

Online docs and copilot?

Thanks Einstein.

[Semmu]

Not a complete replacement, but I found these starter templates useful: https://github.com/egvijayanand/winui-templates

[jonathanmcnamee]

I've suffered with this for a couple of days too - trying to reference a .net9 project makes it scream and you have all the fun @WWW4R4E & @Abdulsaboorhabibi mentioned above - made me reconsider win32!

I'd love a new release that has all this fixed, but as it stands, I agree - this project is unusable for modern development until it is updated, if it ever will :(

[jonathanmcnamee]

I'm slowly making my through this by creating a new blank project, copying over elements bit-by-bit and refactoring as I go. Separate to namespaces, the following need to go:

ListDetailsPage
ContentGridPage
DataGridPage
LocalSettingsService
WebViewService

I also installed the latest version of each of these nuget packages

CommunityToolkit.Mvvm
CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Animations
Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection
Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting
Microsoft.Windows.SDK.BuildTools
Microsoft.WindowsAppSDK
Microsoft.Xaml.Behaviors.WinUI.Managed
Newtonsoft.Json
WinUIEx

I use perplexity and just input the error messages as I get them - Hopefully this helps someone!

The error "Unknown type 'AdaptiveGridView' in XML namespace 'using:CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls'" occurs because the AdaptiveGridView control was part of the older Windows Community Toolkit UWP packages and has not been migrated to the newer Windows Community Toolkit v8.x for WinUI 3.

The error "Unknown type 'DataGridTextColumn' in XML namespace 'using:CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls'" happens because the DataGrid and its related column types like DataGridTextColumn are part of the Windows Community Toolkit's DataGrid control, but this control is considered somewhat deprecated or aging and has limited support moving forward.

The error "'ContentGridDetailPage' does not contain a definition for 'RegisterElementForConnectedAnimation'" occurs because RegisterElementForConnectedAnimation is an extension method, not a method defined directly on your ContentGridDetailPage class.

Key points to resolve this:

The extension method RegisterElementForConnectedAnimation is defined in the CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Animations.Connected namespace.

To use it, you need to add this using directive in your code file:

csharp
using CommunityToolkit.WinUI.Animations.Connected;

The control ListDetailsView is part of the CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls namespace and provides a master-detail layout where a list of items is shown alongside detail content for the selected item.

Current status summary:

ListDetailsView exists in CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls but has not been ported yet to the latest Windows Community Toolkit v8.x versions. It is popular for desktop app development but currently missing in v8.x, as noted in community discussions.

The official .NET API documentation still shows ListDetailsView in version 7.x under CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls.

It supports properties such as ListHeaderTemplate, ListPaneWidth, SelectedItem, NoSelectionContent, and MapDetails for flexible presentation.

For more modern WinUI 3 development, there is no direct replacement control yet, though developers build master-detail UIs using ListView or the newer ItemsView combined with separate detail views.

In short, ListDetailsView is deprecated in the sense that it is not part of the new v8 Windows Community Toolkit, with no direct upgrade or migration, but still exists in legacy 7.x versions. Developers often use other master-detail patterns or controls for similar functionality.

The namespace/package CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls is effectively deprecated in the newer versions of the Windows Community Toolkit. With the release of version 8.0, the toolkit was restructured, and most UI controls were separated into individual packages under namespaces like CommunityToolkit.<Uwp|WinUI>.Controls.*.

There is no longer a single umbrella package named CommunityToolkit.WinUI.UI.Controls. Instead, different controls have been moved to more specific packages or integrated into WinUI itself. For example, some controls were migrated into WinUI or other sub-packages such as Controls.Primitives, Extensions, or Behaviors.

This change is part of a broader migration from version 7.x to 8.x, where mixing old and new packages can cause namespace issues. The migration guide for v7 to v8 indicates breaking changes including this restructuring, with recommendation to use specific packages for different subsets of controls.

[jonathanmcnamee]

I've done a quick write up on this https://livegalleryapp.com/fixing-template-studio-for-net-9 and posted the fixed code on GitHub - https://github.com/jonathanmcnamee/Community-Template---Ported-to-.net9

[gmgallo]

@jonathanmcnamee I for one thank you very much to share your work with the community.

I've been using TS for a few years now and love it. I ran into the same issues that you described trying to migrate a .NET 6 project to .NET 9. Eventually, after working out some of the same issues that you did, I made it work in .NET 8, which is long term support.

Hopefully MS don't forget to update this valuable tool.

[jonathanmcnamee]

thank you @gmgallo

Unfortunately, looking at this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaKgNKLpeGA&t=253s - the writing is on the wall for WinUI3. I'll likely move to Uno in due course

[gmgallo]

Not been English my mother language the guy in the video is hard to follow for me, but I got the main point. Let's see what's the future of winUI3...