With the introduction of the new Windows Phone XAML Apps, Microsoft released new controls that previously only existed in the Windows Phone Toolkit. For any years these controls existed in open source format, but did not allow for contributions. These controls would get some bug fixes, or new functionality/controls every now and then. Ownership of the toolkit changed hands many times and the toolkit was mostly forgotten.
There was often complaints from the community that Microsoft would put “must have controls” in a toolkit. I personally liked that these controls were in a toolkit in which I could see the source. It allowed me to learn from the people that know the core code the best.
Sidebar: Take advantage of open source software. Contribute or not, it is a great learning tool.
A nice thing about it being open was that you could fix bugs that you found. While the source was open, contributions were closed, so you could not submit bug fixes are add features to the toolkit. However, it was possible for bug fixes to come out at any time from the Windows team. With the transition to the new XAML platform, source will be closed. This means that you will not be able to fix any bugs that you find. You will have to submit a Connect ticket and hope it gets fixed in the next update of Visual Studio.
The new SDK comes with replacements or the following controls that were previously only in the Windows Phone Toolkit. I’ll walk through each one showing how to replace code that used the toolkit version with the new XAML controls.
ToggleSwitch
DatePicker
TimePicker
ListPicker
ContextMenu
Transitions