Today, we're thrilled to announce the launch of Accelerate Phase 2 – a significant milestone in our journey to provide professional developers with the comprehensive tooling and components they need to build exceptional cross-platform applications with Avalonia.
When we introduced Accelerate earlier this year as part of our commitment to building a sustainable future for Avalonia, we promised to deliver tools that would transform how developers work with our framework. Phase 2 represents a major leap forward in fulfilling that promise, bringing five powerful new additions that address the most pressing needs of our community.
What's New in Phase 2
Phase 2 introduces a carefully curated suite of tools and components designed to accelerate your development workflow and expand what's possible with Avalonia applications. Each addition has been crafted based on extensive community feedback and real-world development scenarios.
Parcel: Cross-Platform Packaging Simplified
Packaging cross-platform applications has long been one of the most challenging aspects of desktop development. Different platforms require different formats, signing procedures, and distribution mechanisms. Parcel changes this.
Built specifically for Avalonia applications, Parcel provides both a GUI and powerful command-line tool for packaging. It's distributed as a .NET tool, making it easy to integrate into your workflow.
Key capabilities include:
True cross-platform packaging: Build, sign, and package applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux from any platform
Platform support: Windows 10+, macOS 13+, and Linux distributions with X11 and glibc 2.27 or musl 1.22.2 compatibility
Windows packaging: Create NSIS installers with customizable installation options, company organization folders, and Windows Apps & Features integration
macOS packaging: Generate universal executables supporting both Intel and Apple Silicon, create DMG installers and ZIP archives- **Linux packaging: Build Debian packages (.deb) and ZIP archives
Comprehensive code signing: Support for local certificates, Windows Certificate Store, Microsoft Trusted Signing, Azure Key Vault, AWS KMS, DigiCert, Google Cloud KMS, and SSL.com eSigner
Cross-platform notarization: Submit apps for Apple notarization from Windows, macOS, or Linux
MCP integration: AI assistant integration supporting VSCode with GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio with Copilot, Claude Code, and Cursor
The CLI provides granular control with commands like `pack` for automated builds and individual `step` commands for customized workflows, including publish, merge-mac, bundle-mac, sign-mac, notary-mac, sign-win, create-zip, create-dmg, create-deb, and create-nsis.
Visual Studio Extension: Enhanced Development Experience
The new Visual Studio Extension for Visual Studio 2022 (version 17.10+) brings significant improvements to the Avalonia development experience.
Features include:
Smarter IntelliSense: More helpful code completion while typing
Error highlighting: Real-time error detection with fix suggestions
Automatic XAML namespace imports: No more manual namespace management
Full XAML colorization: Enhanced syntax highlighting for better readability
"Go To Definition" navigation: Jump directly to element definitions
Intelligent hover tips: Context-aware information on hover
Document formatting and outlining: Automatically format documents and collapse elements for better organization
Markdown Viewer: Professional Content Display
The new Markdown Viewer (`Avalonia.Controls.Markdown`) provides a robust solution for displaying formatted content in your applications.
Core features:
Common Markdown support: Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, links, inline code, lists, blockquotes, tables, and images
Text selection: Enable text selection with customizable selection brush
Custom image loading: Support for SVG, remote images, and custom loading logic
Extensive styling: Over 70 customizable resources for complete control over appearance
The control provides:Properties: Text, SelectionBrush, SelectionStart/End, SelectedText, IsSelectionEnabled
Methods: Copy(), SelectAll(), ClearSelection()
Events: CopyingToClipboard for custom clipboard handling
Styling options include customizable margins for block elements, hyperlink colors (normal, visited, hover), code font families and backgrounds, header font sizes (H1-H6), quote block styling, and comprehensive table styling.
TreeDataGrid: Enterprise Data Presentation
The enhanced TreeDataGrid (`Avalonia.Controls.TreeDataGrid`) delivers enterprise-grade data presentation capabilities as part of Accelerate Phase 2.
Key features:
Dual mode operation: Hierarchical tree view with columns or flat 2D table
Data source flexibility: FlatTreeDataGridSource for non-hierarchical data, HierarchicalTreeDataGridSource for tree data
Automatic updates: Full support for ObservableCollection and INotifyPropertyChanged
Column types include:
TextColumn: With formatting, culture support, text alignment, trimming, and wrapping
CheckBoxColumn: For boolean values with read-only or editable modes
HierarchicalExpanderColumn: For tree display with expander controls
TemplateColumn: Complete customization with data templates
Advanced capabilities:Selection models: Row or cell selection with single or multiple selection modes
Sorting: Click-to-sort headers with custom comparers and optional tri-state sorting
Programmatic control: Expand/collapse nodes, select cells or rows, sort columns via code
Editing: Configurable edit gestures (F2, Tap, DoubleTap, WhenSelected)
Events: Rich event model for expanding, collapsing, selection changes
Virtual Keyboard: Touch-First Input
The Virtual Keyboard (`Avalonia.Controls.VirtualKeyboard`) provides comprehensive on-screen keyboard support for touch-based and kiosk scenarios.
Features include:
80+ language layouts: Including multiple English variants, European languages, Asian languages with IME support, Cyrillic scripts, and RTL languages
Two control modes:
VirtualKeyboardScope for automatic keyboard management based on focus
VirtualKeyboard for manual placement with fixed target
Automatic positioning: Prevents keyboard from obscuring active input with automatic scrolling
TextInputOptions: Configure content type (Normal, Email, Url, Digits) and return key behavior
The keyboard intelligently handles focus changes, automatically appearing when text inputs gain focus and hiding when they lose it. Multiple scopes are supported, though only one keyboard is visible at a time.
Building on Our Foundation
Phase 2 builds upon the strong foundation established in Phase 1, which introduced:
Dev Tools: Professional debugging and diagnostics tools for Avalonia applications
WebView: Embedded web content with full browser capabilities
Media Player: High-performance media playback for audio and video content
These existing components continue to evolve alongside our new Phase 2 additions, creating a comprehensive suite of professional tools and components.
Licensing and Availability
As outlined in our Building a Sustainable Future for Avalonia post, these new tools and components are available as part of Accelerate, our professional tooling suite. We've listened carefully to community feedback and structured our licensing to provide maximum flexibility:
Community Edition: Free for individuals, small organisations, and educational use. We estimate that 67% of our current users qualify for the Community License at no cost.
Business License: Perpetual licenses with no recurring fees, providing lifetime access to the tools you need.
Indie License: While no longer available for new customers, we have great news for existing Indie license holders – you now receive all the same functionality as Business tier customers. Although it remains a subscription model, we've opted to add more features than originally planned, ensuring you get maximum value from your investment.
30-Day Free Trial: Full access to all Phase 2 features, allowing you to evaluate everything before making a decision.
Importantly, the Avalonia framework itself remains completely open-source and free. You can continue building and shipping commercial applications with Avalonia, forever, without any licensing requirements. Accelerate simply provides additional tools and components for teams that need professional tooling and enterprise support.
Getting Started
Phase 2 is available today. Whether you're building your first Avalonia application or scaling an existing one, these new tools will transform your development experience.
To get started:
Start your free trial: Experience all Phase 2 features with our 30-day trial
Check eligibility: See if you qualify for the free Community Edition
Explore the documentation: Comprehensive guides and samples for each new component
Join the conversation: Share your feedback and connect with other developers in our community
Looking Forward
Phase 2 represents a major milestone, but it's far from the end of our journey. We're already working on Phase 3, which will bring even more powerful capabilities to the Avalonia ecosystem. Your feedback and support make this possible, and we're grateful for the trust you've placed in us.
The future of cross-platform development is here, and it's more powerful than ever. Welcome to Accelerate Phase 2.
Ready to accelerate your Avalonia development? Start your free trial today and experience the difference professional tooling makes.
