Microsoft open sources XAML Studio
Microsoft has open sourced XAML Studio.
XAML Studio is a rapid software application development prototyping tool that started out life as a Microsoft Garage project. It is intended to help developers to quickly build and preview User Interfaces (UI) using XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language).
The project itself is now 8-years old, but 2026 sees it move to open source.
Why would anyone want to use XAML Studio?
Because we know that although Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Visual Studio do include XAML editors, XAML Studio was engineered specifically for speed and experimentation purposes.
Among its core technology propositions is its ability to enable developers to write code and then look to see the rendered user interface instantly, all without the overhead and responsibility of having to create a full project, or indeed waiting for a build/compile cycle.
The team behind XAML Studio say that, from nearly the beginning, it was always envisioned as an open source project. So they offer a big thanks to the .NET Foundation for helping to make this journey happen and allowing it to become a new “seed project” within the organisation
Rapid prototyping
According to Microsoft senior software engineer Michael Hawker, XAML Studio is a developer tool for WinUI developers using XAML.
It lets coders rapidly prototype ideas before integrating them into an app within Visual Studio.
It provides a variety of tools and helpers that are useful, specifically for XAML-based development, such as:
- Live Edit and Interaction
- Binding Debugger
- Data Context Editor
- Auto-save and restore Documents
- IntelliSense
- Documentation Toolbox
- Alignment Guides
- Namespace Helpers
“Open sourcing is a feature! This was a lot of work to get to this point, but we’re super excited to continue this journey with the community of passionate WinUI developers out there,” said Hawker.
“XAML Studio v2 has a lot of cool features, but many of them are still experimental and early in their development cycle. We hope to continue improving these experiences and stabilising the code, especially with some still-needed larger changes needed to fully support some of the new experiences as well as WinUI 3,” he added.
The project is on GitHub here.
