Microsoft has announced the release of Project Reunion 0.5. Project Reunion aims to encourage developers to build Windows applications by providing them with the latest Windows technologies and new features by decoupling features from the operating system. This means developers don’t need to wait for the operating system to update with those new features in order to use them.
“You’ve told us that typically you have to wait for your users to update to the latest Windows OS before you can consider adopting the latest features and integrating them into your app. For some of you that could mean a 1-2 year delay in a new feature being available, you being able to adopt it, and users seeing it in apps. Now, you can take the latest Project Reunion release whenever you want to get the latest features and can feel confident that they’ll work for all your users on Windows 10 version 1809 – which is the current Enterprise LTSC – and newer,” Andrew Clinick, partner group program manager at Microsoft wrote in a post.
The Project Reunion 0.5 release was focused on providing functionality based on feedback from developers. It includes stable releases for many preview features, such as the ability to create desktop apps with WinUI, Chromium-based WebView2 control, custom titlebar support, ARM64 support and SwapChainPanel.
Current technologies that already support the project or are planning to include Actipro Software, DevExpress, GrapeCity, Infragistics, Syncfusion, Telerik UI for WinUI, Uno Platformand Windows Community Toolkit.
Moving forward, Microsoft plans to add more technologies to the ecosystem, such as App Lifecycle for improved system and battery performance, a modern windowing system that combines Win32 and UWP, and notifications support for local and push scenarios.
Project Reunion 0.8 is expected in a few months and the 1.0 release will be available later this year.
