[Feature] Change the name of the Windows Community Toolkit Sample App

[niels9001]

Describe the problem this feature would solve

The current name of the WCT Samples App is pretty long.. and since it's an app having that in the title is maybe a bit too descriptive :).

Describe the solution

Potential names:
Windows Community Toolkit Gallery (aligning with WinUI => XAML Controls Gallery)
Windows Community Toolkit Samples

[ghost]

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[Kyaa-dost]

@niels9001 Thanks for the request. Our team will look into this and see if the name of the app hinders any work as you mentioned in the description.

[michael-hawker]

Thanks @niels9001! I like the idea of 'Gallery', I'll float this by the team and our communities and get some more input.

I've put this in the 7.0 bucket for now, as that'll be a bigger release with breaking changes, so it'd be a good time to rename the app and include that as part of the press release.

[Nirmal4G]

I propose the name to...

Windows Toolkit Gallery

OR

Windows AppKit Gallery

---

If we ever go cross platform with .NET UI (I absolutely refuse to call it MAUI), we could call it just...

Community AppKit Gallery

[Nirmal4G]

I also propose a root namespace change to the following for all community maintained projects.

Microsoft.Community.*

Windows.Community.*

OR

Microsoft.ToolKit.*

Windows.AppKit.*

Microsoft.GraphKit.*

[Kyaa-dost]

@nirmal these are all good suggestions. Going to open this up for further discussion with the community.

[michael-hawker]

@Nirmal4G as per our blog on WinUI 3 we've already started introducing a new CommunityToolkit.* namespace that we'll be moving to.

[Nirmal4G]

The namespace CommunityToolkit.* doesn't specify where it comes from. Also, we know it's a Toolkit, we specify them in the title, so don't need that word in the namespace.

That's why, I propose the following new names...

• Microsoft.Community.* for .NET Standard packages.
• Windows.Community.* for platform specific packages.

For example,

Previous	Now
Microsoft.Toolkit	Microsoft.Community.Common
Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI	Windows.Community.UI.Common

These are clean and relatable to the already existing namespace patterns from Windows API.

[michael-hawker]

@Nirmal4G we can't continue using Microsoft as a root. Also using Windows is a base is confusing using WinUI 3 which moves from Windows to Microsoft.

We have already made a decision on this point and have moved forward with this convention, we do not plan to change that decision anytime soon and will migrate everything to the new CommunityToolkit root by the time we migrate entirely to working with WinUI 3 only (+ .NET still of course).

[Kyaa-dost]

Will keep this issue open until the migration is completed. Thanks, everyone for the input ❤️

[Nirmal4G]

@michael-hawker What about just Community, then? The word Toolkit seems redundant!

[michael-hawker]

@Nirmal4G we did consider Community, but figured it'd be a bit too broad and could apply to things outside what we're trying to scope to.

[Nirmal4G]

Here's Visual Studio Community Toolkit project: Community.VisualStudio.Toolkit

Their project, package naming and namespaces are similar to what I proposed! We could follow something similar to what they did!!

For both packages and namespaces, same as what I proposed before but we can swap Community so that it comes first!

[michael-hawker]

@Nirmal4G we've already adopted and chosen CommunityToolkit as our root package identity and namespace, we won't be changing it.

[Nirmal4G]

Okay. What about the App name, then? Do you have any preference?

[michael-hawker]

@Nirmal4G we're still figuring out what to do with the next version of our sample app. Until we have plans we haven't been thinking about changing it. We want to know what our next direction is before we think about rebranding it.

[mmarinchenko]

+1 for a shorter name. Just to illustrate the issue:

[michael-hawker]

@brminnick we could host MAUI controls in a UWP app as well (I mean the UWP versions of them at least)? That should theoretically work, eh?

Wondering if it makes sense for us to coordinate more on the samples side as move forward with revamping our sample app. Then we could just have it be the "Community Toolkit Gallery" app?

FYI @Sergio0694 for .NCT as well.

[brminnick]

Unsure! MAUI uses WinUI under the hood for windows, so... maybe?

[mmarinchenko]

we could just have it be the "Community Toolkit Gallery" app?

There is also Xamarin Community Toolkit. I think it may be renamed to MAUI Community Toolkit or something similar in the future. Therefore, the new name should contain a reference to WinUI or AppKit (unless, of course, we are talking about combining 2 toolkits under one name).

[mmarinchenko]

For reference: XAML Controls Gallery has been renamed to WinUI 3 Controls Gallery in Microsoft Store (PR#664).

[michael-hawker]

@mmarinchenko yup we're working with the MAUI folks (who owned the Xamarin Community Toolkit as well), you can read about it on our blog post here and as they announced as well.

So, that's part of this discussion here is about working more together on our samples since there's some overlap in technologies potentially to make it work.

[mmarinchenko]

@michael-hawker thanks for the info! It's nice to see the joint efforts 👍

[Arlodotexe]

Knowing the future of the toolkit in depth
and considering the name of the Xamarin Community Toolkit,
the name that has always felt "right" to me is:

WinUI Community Toolkit

But a total rebrand is completely out of scope for this discussion, the sample app's Display Name is just a little long 😄