WinJS 3.0 - release for all platforms

The Windows Library for JavaScript project team (WinJS) is in a hurry to announce the first release since the presentation of the open project at the conference // BUILD 2014 - to the WinJS 3.0 library. WinJS 3.0 release offers developers:

• Cross-browser / cross-platform support , covering the most common desktop and mobile browsers, as well as HTML-based applications such as Apache Cordova
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• A modular approach that gives developers control over performance optimization and loading only those WinJS library modules that are necessary for their website or application.
  
  
• Improved design of universal controls , providing more comfortable work for end users and covering phones, tablets, computers - form factors with different screen sizes and input devices

The release includes a number of improvements based on feedback and pull requests made by members of the GitHub community. We would like to express special thanks to all those who have already contributed to the project in this way.

You can start using WinJS.3.0 today using your favorite package manager (Bower, npm, or NuGet), using a CDN link, downloading a zip archive from our website or copying a repository to build your own copy from GitHub.

Cross-platform features and design improvements

For the past five months, the WinJS team has focused on ensuring that the library works seamlessly across various platforms and browsers. This means that you can now use WinJS not only for your universal Windows applications, but also for your websites and for creating HTML-based mobile applications using various platforms that use technologies similar to Apache Cordova. See the full table of browsers and operating systems supported by the WinJS library.

The main thing on which we focus in the release of 3.0 - improving cross-platform infrastructure for the composition of the interface, working with the keyboard, localization of strings and language support, which are written from right to left, as well as an exhaustive set of unit tests that work on our components for basic operating systems and browsers; on the design update for standard WinJS controls and embedded HTML controls, providing a single user interface across many platforms and browsers.

Design updates

Adding a font to the WinJS repository containing the characters used in AppBar, NavBar, FlipView, Ratings, Hub, and SearchBox; so now they are displayed on many operating systems and browsers. For example, this is what the Ratings control looks like:



ListView now supports Grid and List templates on all platforms. The template's dependency on the CSS Grid has been removed, so ListView with grouping elements is now supported.





AppBar now has a visual representation for hiding and calling the panel, thanks to which the panel no longer depends only on gestures from the edges.





FlipView navigation buttons are always displayed on platforms that do not support scroll anchor points in CSS.



The input range controls, the built-in HTML slider control, and other built-in controls received an appearance update on different platforms.



After the CSS Grid dependency was removed, the composition of the interface was updated for the NavBar control.



Search hints in the Searchbox control have become displayed on various platforms (after an interlayer has been created to support the hints API).



The Toggle switch control is no longer dependent on the embedded HTML slider and is fully featured and visually appealing on all platforms.



The Pivot control now has buttons on either side of the header, so you can use it with the mouse. Also, it is beautifully displayed on screens of all sizes (previously it was displayed only on small screens of mobile phones).

Modularity

Now WinJS 3.0 is divided into several dozen modules. You can continue to use the library with all modules, as in the past, or you can make a custom build of WinJS with only those modules that you need. This gives you the opportunity to control how you optimize your performance and the size of the resources loaded.

This is especially useful when using WinJS for a website or when using it with other popular libraries like AngularJS or Knockout. WinJS was designed from the ground up in order to have a good internal architecture and compatibility with other libraries. Now it is easy to make such assemblies WinJS, which will include only those layers that you use.

For example, if you want to use only AppBar in your application, you can build a custom build of WinJS that will contain the appropriate modules for the Appbar, excluding the rest of the WinJS library, and then use it with a library like Knockout, including data binding.

For instructions on building the WinJS custom library, see the wiki page on GitHub .

We made our own build in order to improve the speed of the try.buildwinjs.com site. The table below shows some of the custom builds you can do, as well as the corresponding sizes of JavaScript code.

Improved design of universal controls

In addition to cross-platform changes, we began the process of integrating our library. Thus, phones, tablets and computers will be supported by a single release of WinJS.

To achieve this goal, the animations that were previously available only for the phone are now available for all form factors in WinJS 3.0. The Pivot control, previously available only on the phone, is now also supported on all form factors. It has been improved in such a way that it can be controlled using the mouse and keyboard, as well as scaled to all screen sizes.

Stay tuned to keep abreast of further improvements in this direction!

Moving forward

The members of the WinJS MS Open Tech project team want to sincerely thank you for the warm welcome we received from the GitHub community, as well as for your interest and support.

Together, we can continue to build WinJS as a great open-source JavaScript library that adapts to the needs of web developers around the world and helps all of us create a delightful, user-based library that can share code between sites and applications. We encourage you to send pull requests and problems with files via GitHub or using the “ask a question” links on our website.

Check our Facebook page and follow us on twitter @buildwinjs , there we post large announcements about our project.

Additional links

WinJS on GitHub .
The main controls of the WinJS library are here .
Test the basic controls on try.buildwinjs.com .
You can read about using FlipView in universal applications here .
MVA mobile development course for web developers.
Download Microsoft Visual Studio here .