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.NET Core 3.1 Preview 1 Focuses on Blazor, Desktop

The first preview of .NET Core 3.1 focuses on two of the big features highlighting the Sept. 23 release of .NET Core 3.0: Blazor (for C# Web development instead of JavaScript) and desktop development (Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation).

Rather than wholesale changes or completely new functionality, however, this first preview, announced today (Oct. 15), just provides minor polishing of those two features.

.NET Core 3.1, a long term support (LTS) release (supported for at least three years), is expected to debut in December. Richard Lander, .NET program manager, said v3.1 will include several improvements that didn't make this first preview, including C++/CLI, support for new macOS 10.15 Catalina security requirements and an improved Desktop Runtime installer. The latter, for WinForms and WPF, will gain the ability to install the .NET Core Runtime, which includes CoreFX and CoreCLR.

Lander noted that Visual Studio 16.4 Preview 2 -- also shipping today -- includes .NET Core 3.1, so an IDE update will provide both releases in one step.

More information on this first release can be found in an announcement post and the release notes.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

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