Microsoft’s .Net 6 Development Framework and Visual Studio 2022 arrived in late fall 2021, but their .Net MAUI has been delayed until the first half of 2022, with supporting controls vendors unlikely to have complete offerings until into the second half.
Using what is so far available, all JwContactsUD code was converted to .Net 6, with the first such release (Version 1.17) just sent to the Microsoft Store for posting. That makes six releases since my April, 2021 blog post.
Besides the never-ending pursuit of bug fixes, JwContactsUD’s features are constantly being augmented. Here are four of the more notable since April:
- Stimulsoft’s multi-language Reporting Engine was added, providing a number of enhanced, detailed, multi-column reports, some also indexed.
- The internal Spreadsheet Editor can now display in the user’s language much JwC data as Excel workbooks, which some may find easier to grasp. After editing by a JwC editor, the data can be saved back.
- Data Exchanges (via .csv file imports / exports) with five scheduling programs by other brothers are now supported to the extent each program allows. Programs included are JW Scheduler, CLM Explorer, TSWIN, Majestic Software’s KHS and FSG.
- Timing of meeting parts can be tracked in real-time and reported. If a brother has a habitual issue with timing, an Assistant Counselor might chose to log some instances and kindly review them with the brother.
Some work has been done toward helping brothers schedule private Zoom meetings without having to send a flurry of availability requests among potential attendees. Time will tell if that gets fully realized.
So much time has been spent on JwContactsUD that further work on the Android and iOS JwContacts versions has had to take a back seat. The iOS Beta trial ran its course with some improvements made, but is now expired.
The 2022 arrival of Microsoft’s .Net MAUI, an overhaul of the current Xamarin framework used by JwContacts, is keenly desired, as it would finally allow JwContacts to run on the Apple Mac, using almost the same codebase as the Windows Desktop version. I anticipate sometime in 2022 running the full codebase for both Windows and Mac as a product named JwContactsD (for desktop) and for Android and iOS as a subset product named JwContactsM (for mobile). Even before MAUI is released as a stable product, its cadence of constantly changing Previews (#11 is just around the corner) will hopefully coalesce where I can begin serious coding. Thank you for your interest and for reading.
