Add missing controls to Visual Studio Toolbox

[Nirmal4G]

Fixes #3620

• Adds almost all the Controls in the toolkit packages to the Visual Studio Toolbox.
• Fixes Markdown controls not appearing on the toolbox (due to incorrect assembly naming).
• Fixes controls appearing in WPF category of the toolbox (due to UIFramework not mentioned).

NOTE

When you have more than one version of controls packages containing VisualStudioToolsManifest.xml installed, you might see an entry for each version of the controls listed in the manifest. You can see the dicusssion below to know more.

PR Type

What kind of change does this PR introduce?

• Bugfix
• Feature
• Code style update (formatting)
• Build or CI related changes

What is the current behavior?

Many controls don't appear in the VS IDE Toolbox.

What is the new behavior?

The Controls now appear in the VS IDE Toolbox.

PR Checklist

Please check if your PR fulfils the following requirements:

• Tested code with current supported SDKs
• Contains NO breaking changes

Other information

• If you're editing this patch tree, please rebase on latest HEAD and then commit, without updating from the latest HEAD.
• When merging, please update the commit title to PR title instead of the default Merge pull request #xxxx from repo/branch, and commit message to either PR message or messages of individual commits. The auto-merge bot does this by default.

[ghost]

Thanks Nirmal4G for opening a Pull Request! The reviewers will test the PR and highlight if there is any conflict or changes required. If the PR is approved we will proceed to merge the pull request 🙌

[michael-hawker]

Marking as draft so we can know that it depends on #3894 first.

[XAML-Knight]

I'm having limited success with bringing in these items into my VS Toolbox.

After tracking down the individual dlls that get built, and bringing them in via the "Choose Toolbox Items" dialog, and adding to the Universal Windows Components tab (which seems like the best option of the available choices), the best I can do is get some of the items to appear under a "All WPF Controls" header, and not the expected "Windows Toolkit" header (I had a Sample Page *.xaml file open, in the VS Designer):

[michael-hawker]

That's really weird @XAML-Knight, what version of VS are you running? They should appear automatically once the NuGet package is installed to a UWP project. You shouldn't have to do any manual config.

Like here's our ContosoNotes sample:

Or in another project after I just installed the first Toolkit package for the Input (looks like TokenzingTextBox was missing in our 7.1-preview):

Just showed up instantly after installing NuGet. I'm on 16.11 now.

[Nirmal4G]

@XAML-Knight

Prior to this PR, the custom header is defined in the Visual Studio Toolbox manifest, not in the source. Also the control is not marked as UAP, so, that might be the reason it gets in WPF section.

Please check to see if it's the same with this PR's NuGet! Also, I've marked these controls as UAP here, so, let me know if you want these controls to appear for WPF projects too!?

[XAML-Knight]

When starting with a blank UWP app, I am now able to import & view the controls in my VS Toolbox (VS 2019 v16.10.3). However, to get to this point, I had to install each individual NuGet package by themselves (i.e., Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls.Input, Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls.Core, etc.), and wasn't able to bring in just one package, the all-up Microsoft.Toolkit NuGet package.

I'm also now seeing duplicate controls in the Microsoft.UI.Xaml grouping in the VS Toolbox:

[XAML-Knight]

let me know if you want these controls to appear for WPF projects too!?

No, not at this point

[michael-hawker]

@Nirmal4G would we have to do anything special for our meta Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls package for the toolbox?

[Nirmal4G]

@XAML-Knight

Does installing Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls package bring in all the individual controls packages?

You'd see duplicate controls because there might be two versions of WinUI installed in your solution. It was recently fixed as media controls had v2.5 and others having v2.6! but I don't know why it is happening again.

@michael-hawker No, I don't think so but as I mentioned above, we should look into the meta package if it doesn't bring in the individual controls packages.

[XAML-Knight]

So the good news is that installing the Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Controls NuGet package is all I need to bring in all the controls into VS Toolbox.

Unfortunately, though, in a blank UWP solution, I'm still seeing duplicate controls under Microsoft.UI.Xaml. Only v2.6.1 is being brought in:

[michael-hawker]

I just installed the latest PR package for the Control on my VS 16.11 (latest stable) and it seemed fine:

All that's left is lumping them all back into a single bucket.

[ghost]

This PR has been marked as "needs attention 👋" and awaiting a response from the team.

[ghost]

Hello @michael-hawker!

Because this pull request has the auto merge :zap: label, I will be glad to assist with helping to merge this pull request once all check-in policies pass.

p.s. you can customize the way I help with merging this pull request, such as holding this pull request until a specific person approves. Simply @mention me (@msftbot) and give me an instruction to get started! Learn more here.

[michael-hawker]

Installed the single meta package from the PR feed and everything LGTM:

@XAML-Knight any luck on your side? If not, we can try and fix-forward and identify if it's particular to your environment for some reason or a particular VS version?

[XAML-Knight]

Installed the single meta package from the PR feed and everything LGTM:

@XAML-Knight any luck on your side? If not, we can try and fix-forward and identify if it's particular to your environment for some reason or a particular VS version?

No need for any changes - my out-of-box experience is the same as you're seeing.