On .NET Live - Fluent UI Blazor: The next step

TL;DR

• 1

  Fluent UI Blazor v5 is a major cleanup release: Denny and Vincent say the library is now aligned more closely with Fluent UI web components v3 and React naming, old underlying components are no longer maintained, and the team is already at release candidate 3 with only a couple components left before launch.

• 2

  Setup is much simpler in v5: after adding the Microsoft.FluentUI.AspNetCore.Components and icons packages, registering AddFluentUIComponents() handles CSS and script plumbing automatically, which Frank immediately called out as easier than older versions.

• 3

  The demo builds a real expense tracker from scratch: starting from an empty Blazor Server app, they add Fluent layout, navigation, forms, validation, dialogs, file import, cards, and later swap the list for a DataGrid with sorting, resizing, reordering, row selection, and panel-based editing.

• 4

  Global defaults are one of the most practical new features: instead of setting properties on every control, v5 lets you define app-wide defaults in Program.cs, like making all buttons circular or setting every date picker to French culture, while still allowing per-component overrides.

• 5

  Customization goes beyond CSS tweaks: the library exposes theming services, responsive data-media flags, localization hooks, accessibility support, and even an 'exact color' option so teams can force strict brand colors instead of Fluent's usual contrast-adjusted palette.

• 6

  Charts are coming next: Vincent previews a separate chart package, still in preview, and shows donut and horizontal bar charts updating live from expense data, with more chart types planned in the underlying web components.