Microsoft Issues the Final Preview of .NET 8

Development of .NET 8 is winding down, with Microsoft issuing the final preview today ahead of the release candidate phase.

“.NET 8 Preview 7 is now available,” Microsoft’s Richard Lander announced. “We’re already at the final preview release for .NET 8 and will now shift to release candidates. Almost all new features for the release are in their final shape. System.Text.Json and codegen have the biggest changes in this build. You’ll want to take a look at those. Now is a great time to pick up and test .NET 8 if you haven’t yet.”

Microsoft issued the first preview of .NET 8 back in February and has been on a very regimented preview release schedule ever since. I’ve not written about any of the 5 previews between then and now, but we know that Microsoft plans to release .NET on November 14, so there are only three months to go.

Aside from the changes Lander mentioned, today’s release of .NET MAUI in .NET 8 Preview 7 is also notable as it adds support for keyboard accelerators in addition to more fixes and improvements.

“Keyboard accelerators enable you to assign keyboard shortcuts to any menu item, whether visible or not, and attach them to any UI element,” Microsoft’s David Ortinau explains. “In the C# [code], you can then add a keyboard shortcut you wish to trigger the menu item, just as if someone had clicked or tapped on it.”

Microsoft isn’t done making changes to .NET MAUI before the final release, however: the coming RC will include support for Xcode 15 for the new versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Mac Catalyst, tvOS, and CarPlay that Apple will ship in September. Xcode 15 will be the default for .NET 8 going forward.