Remove Legacy/Deprecated Symbols

[robloo]

Describe the bug

Microsoft is now on the third revision of the symbols font with Windows 11 and WinUI3.
Segoe UI Symbol -> Segoe MDL2 Assets -> Segoe Fluent Icons

However, default styles in this repository continue to use Unicode points for symbol glyphs that are from the original Segoe UI Symbol font in Windows 7/8.x. These all need to be updated to the modern Unicode points.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/style/segoe-fluent-icons-font#icon-list

Steps to reproduce the bug

Search the source code for the mentioned Unicode points.

Expected behavior

Should be using the valid symbols with latest Unicode points described here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/style/segoe-fluent-icons-font

Note that these are for the most part backwards compatible with Segoe MDL2 Assets; however, glyphs must exist in both fonts for full compatiblity.

Screenshots

A quick source code search only returned the following legacy symbols that need to be updated.

Version Info

NuGet package version:

Windows app type:

UWP	Win32

Windows version	Saw the problem?
Insider Build (xxxxx)
May 2021 Update (19043)
October 2020 Update (19042)
May 2020 Update (19041)
November 2019 Update (18363)
May 2019 Update (18362)
October 2018 Update (17763)
April 2018 Update (17134)
Fall Creators Update (16299)
Creators Update (15063)

Device form factor	Saw the problem?
Desktop
Xbox
Surface Hub
IoT

Additional context

[StephenLPeters]

@MarissaMatt FYI, thoughts?

[StephenLPeters]

@licanhua FYI

[Jay-o-Way]

@StephenLPeters @bpulliam what's keeping this?

[robloo]

I saw another commit that probably fixed this.

[Jay-o-Way]

@robloo May I ask what commit/pr? "probably" is...

[robloo]

@Jay-o-Way I thought it was yours #8379

[Jay-o-Way]

Alrighty 😁
Any idea what's the status on the SymbolIcon issue?

[robloo]

No idea on the status. If you think I should re-open this and there is more to address, I can do that.

[Jay-o-Way]

Well, it's closely related, but not exactly the same. There's issue MicrosoftDocs/winrt-api#2363 in the MSdocs repo. I wish I knew where the "source code" for that enumeration / function was, so I could look in to it...

[robloo]

Oh, if you want to update the symbol enum I doubt you can. It would be a breaking change and should have been done for WinUI 3 initial release. It's too late now.

[Jay-o-Way]

@robloo I don't know... Afaik there are two core things wrong with the SymbolIcons: icon codes (which is exactly the same as this issue and my pr - ergo doable) and the hardcoded use of MDL2 font. Which, I'm guessing, might be easily solved: for FontIcon, it is common knowledge that it uses StaticResource SymbolThemeFontFamily by default.

Your response still doesn't tell me if that code is A) publicly accessible and B) available for changes.
Is it?

I've asked for this a few times here & there, but nobody seems to be able or willing to answer the question in the first place ☹️

[robloo]

This is what drives the SymbolIcon https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.ui.xaml.controls.symbol?view=winrt-22621

It is not publicly released. It will come when WinUI3 open sources, if ever.

SymbolIcon, if it was available, would be in this repo. It is hard-coded intentionally though because of that enum above. It's how it translates names in XAML to unicode points. You can't change it.

If you want to change the font you need to use a FontIcon.

[Jay-o-Way]

That's the first comment I call an answer. Thank you for that. This means SymbolIcon by itself is deprecated and nobody should actually be using it anymore.

[robloo]

It's not deprecated. Microsoft doesn't make breaking changes in code like that though. Switching from MDL2 to Segoe Fluent would also change the design of the glyphs which is a design breaking change so again likely non starter. They had to do it for WinUI 3 and didn't.

If you want to push to update the symbols enum unicode points when it open sources by all means do so. Just don't hold your breath.