FluentAvalonia v2 Roadmap

[amwx]

I think at this point the biggest changes have been made for v2/Avalonia 11.0, both here an upstream - at least in terms of the public API. FA is now (or at least should be) compatible out-of-the-box on all backends, however, if you find something gives you trouble do raise an issue. I know very little about the wasm/mobile stuff and may not be able to help all that much, but someone else might - and we can try to get a solution working.

My time will be a little more limited through at least through the end of the year so I'm laying out my plans for the next little bit. Most likely, no new controls or features will be going into v2.0 at this point. It will just be bug fixes and ensuring compatibility with remaining changes for 11.0 upstream.

[Still todo before v2 release]

• Add simple docs site (via github pages) for basic documentation for FA
  • I've realized my only documentation is really in the sample app, which isn't ideal since you have to download and run it to see everything. So as part of my Sample App refactor, I'm going add a small documentation thing for things like getting started, basic info about controls, etc. Examples will still be in the sample app. Most of this will be auto-generated for my sake.
• Sample app clean up/face lift (also move sample app and FASandbox project into /samples directory for organization)
• Code clean up (try to reduce warnings)
• [Will add more if/as things come up]

PLEASE NOTE

• Until more documentation is available, please read the AppWindow PR for how to use AppWindow, including the necessary steps for styling and TaskDialog to work.
• Please do not submit any PRs for changes in the sample app, until changes are done

To recap what's been done so far (major features and PRs):

[Preview1]

• All controls were updated to use ControlThemes
• Controls/classes with duplicated names from upstream were given a 'FA' prefix
• See (FluentAvalonia v2-preview1 (11.0 compatible) #188) for full details

[Preview2]

• Minimal Localization was introduced for some FA controls ported from WinUI
• TeachingTip was ported
• PRs
  • Add More Fluent v2 ControlThemes #191
  • Feat: Localization support for FA controls #195
  • Port TeachingTip #197
  • Remove border from TransparentButton theme #199
  • Update ColorPicker control themes for upstream changes #202
  • Some fixes/updates #203
  • FluentAvalonia v2-preview2 #205

[Preview3]

• CoreWindow deprecated and replaced by AppWindow
• Move AppWindow to new package FluentAvalonia.UI.Windowing
• Added SettingsExpander control
• Improved navigation in Frame to allow resolving view by type or view model
• Improved system theme and accent color detection in linux
• Added TextVerticalAlignmentOverrideBehavior to FATheme for text positioning in some controls when Segoe fonts aren't available
• PRs
  • [v2] Style improvements #210
  • [v2] New Control - SettingsExpander #211
  • [Feat] Enhancements to Frame navigation #217
  • Improve system theme and accent color detection on Linux #219
  • New: FluentAvalonia.UI.Windowing & AppWindow #222
  • Preview3 Updates #223
  • More styling fixes #224
  • Add some FlowDirection fixes #227

[Preview4]

• Update compatibility for 11.0-preview4
• Updates to TabView
• PRs
  • Rework ColorPicker ControlTheme #229
  • TabView improvements #230
  • FluentAvalonia v2-preview4 #241

[Preview5]
Lot's of changes here, too many to list, so please see these PRs. Note preview5 contains many breaking changes
Most notable changes:

• ThemeDictionary support & improved theme switching
• Standardized to IconSource over FAIconElement
• Some DirectProperties were moved to StyledProperty
• For everything else, see these PRs
• [WIP] FluentAvalonia v2-preview5 #253
• Minor Fixes #271
• Migrate to ThemeDictionaries #283
• FluentAvalonia preview 5 #284
• Feature: Enable trimming and NativeAOT support #285

As a reminder, the HighContrast theme is broken in preview5 pending a fix for DynamicResource upstream.

[stevemonaco]

Avalonia 11-preview4 has made breaking changes to TextLayout's constructors to add letterSpacing. I got this exception in FA 2.0.0-preview3:

System.MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'Void Avalonia.Media.TextFormatting.TextLayout..ctor(System.String, Avalonia.Media.Typeface, Double, Avalonia.Media.IBrush, Avalonia.Media.TextAlignment, Avalonia.Media.TextWrapping, Avalonia.Media.TextTrimming, Avalonia.Media.TextDecorationCollection, Avalonia.Media.FlowDirection, Double, Double, Double, Int32, System.Collections.Generic.IReadOnlyList`1<Avalonia.Utilities.ValueSpan`1<Avalonia.Media.TextFormatting.TextRunProperties>>)'.
   at FluentAvalonia.UI.Controls.FontIcon.GenerateText()

Edit: Above has been fixed with FA v2-preview4

Besides that, SelectableTextBlock has been introduced and will probably need styling. I plan to try using it in ContentDialog for message boxes so the user can select and copy the body text.

[amwx]

FluentAvalonia v2-preview4 packages have been pushed

[Dynesshely]

Suggest VuePress as Docs site framework.

[AlphaNecron]

Make dynamic navigation icon as well as add Microsoft Store-like navigation view theme as a ControlTheme?