9 ms·

Ask HN: What is the recommended way to create Windows desktop apps right now?

39 points by spapas82 10y ago

boduh 10y ago
What kind of apps do you have in mind? Care to share more details?
- spapas82 10y ago
  General purpose apps -- actually, what I had in mind was rather simple, just one dialog window that would act as a GUI to a command line application (that already exists in the user's system). This would be mainly for people that can't use the command line. However, to elaborate more, I'd like to add a couple of nice -to-haves (these are specific for me but I think that most of the following could generally be nice-to-haves for any application targeted to non-experienced users): - The size of the resulting application shouldn't be proportionaly big. For that simple app I described I would expect a couple of MB (I think that's a problem with electron/nw.js apps) - The user ideally shouldn't need to install anything else - everything should be contained in the application, so python based apps are probably not very good. Also, for the same reason I had some really bad experiences with applications that required a very specific version of .NET that would take half an hour to install on my system :( - There shouldn't be any installation - ideally, just give the user a zip containing a .exe and maybe a couple of libraries (even better if these libs could be statically linked to the exe) - The app should be able to access the full windows API - I want to be able to display file open dialog, write some configuration options to AppData etc Before 15 years I know the answer to my needs was to just use VB (or C++ with MFC for those that knew it), before 10 years I guess Java with Swing (or AWT)... Probably even now these could also be used, however I was thinking if there are some other methods of developing desktop windows application I wasn't aware of.
  - zgniatacz 10y ago
    how about TCL? freewrap should so the trick http://freewrap.sourceforge.net/ http://freewrap.sourceforge.net/
  - Quppa 10y ago
    Do you need to target versions earlier than Windows 10? If so, you'll have to rule out a Universal Windows Platform app (which might otherwise suit your needs, though you wouldn't be able to use it to write to AppData). A Windows Presentation Foundation or Windows Forms app targeting .NET 4.0 will get you pretty good compatibility - Windows 8 and above come with it pre-installed* and it's an optional Windows Update for Windows XP/Vista/7. I don't think the XAML learning curve is as steep as some people claim, but it'll still be quicker to hack something together in WinForms over WPF if you haven't used the latter before. Also check out the Desktop App Converter for Windows 10 - you can now package up a WPF/WinForms/Win32/etc. app into a UWP app for Windows 10 users and pick up some of the benefits that those apps have†. * But also heed Raymond Chen: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=11043 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=... † https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/desktop https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/deskto...
  - majewsky 10y ago
    > everything should be contained in the application, so python based apps are probably not very good. http://www.py2exe.org/ http://www.py2exe.org/ -- but I don't know how large the resulting EXEs are, so that might break your size requirement.
    - vram22 10y ago
      There's also PyInstaller. I've tried it out a bit, to create standalone Windows EXEs from small Python apps - under 1K LOC, both command-line and GUI (the GUI ones were wxPython). Worked okay for me. ~10 MB EXE size. This is anecdotal though. Can't speak to how stable it is in general, or for bigger apps.
  - emjoes1 10y ago
    Prob C++... At least that is the only thing that I believe will meet your requirements exactly. I ended up (a few years back) going with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) in C# targeting .NET client profile. Of course you still need .NET, however, the client profile is a much smaller install than the full version and I have no problems going from .NET 4 to 4.5. No specific version is needed unless you want to use new features. In regards to your needs here is a couple of reasons I like WPF: -The entire GUI can be written in markup XAML (an XML based markup language) so its kind of web like. You can use the GUI if you like but doing it in XAML forces good design patterns and IMO is easier. -"Click Once Deployment" allows you to publish the app build to a network share which can be run directly over the network (no local install). There are various options so if you choose to run locally you can. If you update your app, you simply publish again, and when the end users launches the app again it will be updated. You can bundle dependencies so the first install would include the large (41MB) .NET client profile but after that it would just be the size of your app. This has worked well for me to allow users to install/update the apps over slow VPN connections.
  - realharo 10y ago
    Regarding Java, Swing has sort of fallen out of favor and JavaFX is not the "standard" UI library.
    - realharo 10y ago
      Typo, I meant to say "is now the standard...". (can't edit anymore)
  - aaronhoffman 10y ago
    For this situation I would recommend a "Windows Forms" app. You can include the framework/base class library bits you need in the distribution package if you think they won't already be available on the machine
  - Asooka 10y ago
    The only thing that fits the bill is C++ with the basic Win32 API that you're guaranteed ships with every version of Windows. But you'll still need to bundle the Microsoft VisualC++ runtime installer. To save yourself from writing raw Win32, I would suggest WxWidgets. You can link statically to the library and compile in only what you need, keeping size manageable.
  - WayneBro 10y ago
    You want WinForms then. UWP is right out the door with you last requirement. WPF is out with the 2nd and 3rd ones if you're targeting Win7.
TeeWEE 10y ago
If Cross Platform is important, i would recommend Chrome-Apps: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps https://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps
- tlammens 10y ago
  Not really future-proof... http://www.cnet.com/news/google-saying-buh-bye-to-chrome-apps-for-windows-mac-linux/ http://www.cnet.com/news/google-saying-buh-bye-to-chrome-app...
  - Just_A_NBR 10y ago
    You might be interested in https://github.com/koush/electron-chrome https://github.com/koush/electron-chrome - as the developer stated he was polyfilling all the chrome.* APIs and replicating the Chrome App environment in Electron and was open sourcing it in case anyone else wants to keep running Chrome apps.
TimJYoung 10y ago
We use Delphi from Embarcadero Technologies: https://www.embarcadero.com https://www.embarcadero.com Pros: 1) Solid, super-fast, single-pass compiler that produces native 32-bit/64-bit executables that can be deployed by copying them to the target machine (single, monolithic .exe with no external dependencies). 2) The language, Object Pascal, is statically-typed, easy to learn, supports procedural/OO/functional coding, and includes modern features like generics, RTTI, and class/record helpers. IOW, you aren't forced to code everything in a class, if you don't want to. The string support, especially the Unicode string support, is also very good. 3) The Visual Component Library (VCL) is still pretty good for creating Windows desktop applications (native, not universal "apps"), and you can skin your application for a different look and feel. Database access is also top-notch, and you have access to a pretty large set of 3rd party components that can be installed into the IDE as first-class residents of the IDE. 4) Development productivity is very high in the IDE, with a WYSIWYG form designer and two-way tools for coding the UI (what you do in the designer is reflected in the code-behind, and vice-versa). Cons: 1) The price is high, but they're starting to fix that with more special offers and will, hopefully, continue to move the price down. 2) Partly the cause of 1), the product has been mismanaged over the years and its developer base has dwindled accordingly. This was also partly due to the fact that C# grabbed a lot of their market share (as well as the original developers of the product, including Anders Hejlsberg, the architect). 3) The RTL and component library (VCL) need pruning a bit. They've got a lot of legacy code in there due to an almost-maniacal focus on backwards-compatibility. 4) The IDE is a bit schizophrenic and needs to be updated, but it does include just about everything you would need in terms of real-time coding with error highlighting, code-completion, formatting, Git/SubVersion integration, etc. 5) Memory management is deterministic, which makes it very fast, but does require a Create/Free cycle for class instances. An ownership model helps to alleviate this for GUI applications (forms "own" the component class instances that are placed on them). Also, strings and dynamic arrays are reference-counted and managed for you, and you can wrap class instances in interfaces that will allow you to use class instances in a reference-counted manner, also. In summary, if you simply need something to create desktop applications for Windows now, especially for vertical market software that will be deployed on a lot of machines, then Delphi is a good solution and can be a technical advantage for your company if you know how to use it well. If you're looking for something that you can use to further your job prospects, then it might not be the best solution for you, and you might be better going with .NET/C#. But, be forewarned that application deployment can still be problematic with .NET - the developer edition of SQL Server 2014 refused to install on my development machine this week because the SQL Server .NET-based installer could not cope with something in the .NET installation on my machine.
makosdv 10y ago
If you just want to make a simple Windows Forms application, I'd just use .NET (VB or C#). If you don't have Visual Studio, you can download the Express version for free.
- bettynormal 10y ago
  or if you want cross platform apps - Use .NET too... Microsoft bought Xamarin and added iOS, Android, and Linux and Mac support to .Net and Visual Studio. It's all included free in VS 2015.
- spapas82 10y ago
  The problem with .NET is that I don't really trust it. In the past I had experienced various bad behaviors when trying to install .NET applications with strange messages requiring me to install specific .NET framework versions. The more strange thing is that after I installed the .NET framework and the application it still didn't start but complained about windows sxs or something like that. I never understood what the problem was. Also, how well would .NET apps developed with Visual Studio support older windows versions (i.e windows XP or vista) ?
  - CompelTechnic 10y ago
    I believe (and I hope that someone double checks me on this) that you can set which version of the .NET libraries you want to use during development in visual studio. If you use version 3.5, your application will be compatible with all versions of windows back to XP.
    - Quppa 10y ago
      These days .NET 4.0 is probably a better target for maximising compatibility - Windows 8 and above don't come with .NET 3.5 installed by default, and a lot of Windows XP/Vista/7 machines will already have .NET 4.0 or newer installed thanks to Windows Update.
- bobmno 10y ago
  Or use SharpDevelop!
pawadu 10y ago
Most people should write universal apps: modern language, modern tools, modern UI. If you don't like that there is always Qt.
- akerro 10y ago
  Qt is a modern language (framework actually), has modern tools and UI. Does it not?
  - pawadu 10y ago
    Qt is currently a mix of old C++ and new js, you could argue whether it is modern or not. I put it as second option since UWP is the native framework for windows 10 and should be considered first.
- IpV8 10y ago
  +1 for C++ with Qt. We use this, as we have other requirements that make C++ work better than a Java or C# option.
pavlov 10y ago
Can you limit support to Windows 10 only? If so, you should go with the Universal Windows Platform. UWP has got the latest and greatest tools from Microsoft, and it's more coherent and pleasurable to use than any of the older options. You'll get a modern-feeling UI with much less effort.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  To add to this, if you are a web developer primarily you can also use JavaScript to create UWP apps that act like native. The documentation is very good and the toolset/libraries modern.
- DougN7 10y ago
  If you need to target anything older though, getting the UCRT installed is the biggest pain! It can involve hot fixes and service packs for older OS's!! I spent money on a Microsoft support call to figure out why their installer couldn't get the UCRT installed on Win 2008 R2 and we never did figure it out. No thank you!
pentium10 10y ago
We use Xojo (former RealBasic), it's quite good it compiles native apps on all major platforms. Language is quite easy to understand and pick up, the resources are big, articles, conferences, libraries, and video material: http://www.xojo.com/resources/ http://www.xojo.com/resources/ If you want to check out some apps made with Xojo, you need to go to this FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/127238180792805/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/127238180792805/
youdontknowtho 10y ago
Microsoft would say that if you were writing an app from scratch to use UWP because of it's security model. There's lots of info about that. That and serviceability. It's pretty awesome. UWP would let you do UI in XAML but also get access to the Windows compositor and DirectX if you need it. It's only Windows 10, though. If you need to support Windows 7 and up it's WPF/.Net with some assemblies written in C++. That's how an awful lot of applications are being written. There's some strange advice in this thread. HN isn't really a place that I would ask about Windows development. I'm surprised that there aren't more..."You could do that in Erlang" comments or other weird shit like that.
irascible 10y ago
nw.js
irascible 10y ago
nw.js
skilesare 10y ago
We are using electron with nice results. It is great if you already have a stable of js devs and you need to do something with the file system and or network access. We basically have electron load in our basic tool and then have shims that can go to local dbs instead of making web calls so that users can patch in to their own data without having to open a bunch of ports on their internal networks.
- nailer 10y ago
  Is it possible to have an Electron app in the Windows app store?
  - Revell 10y ago
    Yes, it is! http://electron.atom.io/docs/tutorial/windows-store-guide/ http://electron.atom.io/docs/tutorial/windows-store-guide/
mike_hearn 10y ago
You could use Java with Avian, which is a small embeddable, statically linkable JVM. It uses LZMA and aggressive dead code elimination to make tiny binaries. If you use it with SWT you get native widgets too, and they have an example which does exactly that weighing in at only one megabyte: https://readytalk.github.io/avian-web/swt-examples/windows-x86_64/example.exe https://readytalk.github.io/avian-web/swt-examples/windows-x... Creating such a tight binary isn't entirely point and click, but if you want a tiny self contained executable and don't want to assume a pre-existing runtime like .NET then your options are really only VB6 (classic), Delphi or VC++ and all of them will involve a lot of arcane wizardry too.
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  > don't want to assume a pre-existing runtime like .NET Don't all distributions of Windows include .NET by default?
  - omnibrain 10y ago
    "Windows is not a .NET Framework delivery channel either" https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=11043 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=... .NET could be disabled or some older version.
  - TheLML 10y ago
    I've had to install .NET many times. Maybe it's due to people using older windows versions when the software uses a newer .NET version that isn't pre-installed
  - kohanz 10y ago
    No, but you can bundle the installer for the version you need into your own installer.
  - vram22 10y ago
    Not "all" if you mean it literally. .NET came much later than Windows - maybe post-Win NT as well as post-Win 2K - others who know better can probably correct me or give a more precise date. I remember meeting and talking with (or rather he did more of the talking) a senior Microsoft software engineer who was involved in the first .NET version, and he was telling me stuff about it. He may not have used the term .NET (can't remember), but I remember him saying that it used XML throughout (and also a lot of other stuff about its advantages). Very enthusiastic about it, he was. It was only some time later that I realized that what was now called .NET, was the same as what he had been referring to in his talk with me. Also, Turbo Delphi Explorer (which was a stripped-down version of Delphi 6), came in two versions - the plain Win 32 version (non-.NET) and the .NET version. I remember, because I installed and used it some. Here's a blog post about a small utility I wrote with it (screenshot of the clock not there now, sorry): http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/08/digital-clock-v10-in-3-lines-of-delphi.html http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/08/digital-clock-v10-in-3-lin...
Raed667 10y ago
VisualStudio with a basic Windows Forms application in C# should be one of the simplest ways. The default look is not that bad for a business oriented application, and the drag-and-drop features are really simple to learn. Java Swing with Netbeans graphical editor would be my second choice if you like Java better than C#. EDIT: From personal experience, I found that styling the application beyond the default look, was simpler in Java Swing, using look-and-feel packages. For Windows Forms (maybe because my lack of experience) I had to do most elements as images in order to get the style I wanted.
- insoluble 10y ago
  WPF is superior to Windows Forms in many ways, particularly layout responsiveness. I would not recommend anyone entering the Windows Desktop scene to use this old paradigm of UI design springing from Win32 (or older). Moreover, since WPF uses XAML, learning it (as opposed to Windows Forms) better prepares one for other popular UI frameworks these days, including for Web and Mobile. Also, if only newer OS versions are of concern, consider using Universal Apps (UWP) instead of WPF. They are both very similar, but UWP is newer.
  - facorreia 10y ago
    Wasn't WPF discontinued?
    - insoluble 10y ago
      So they say, but that doesn't mean its support is about to end. If you look at how long MS supports technologies, you can be pretty sure it has plenty of usable life. Plus, UWP is practically the exact same thing from a design and coding perspective, so the knowledge is by no means lost.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    There is a much steeper learning curve for WPF, if all you are doing is a simple front end to a command line WinForms is a very easy way to get started.
kohanz 10y ago
Not sure about recommended, but I develop a few Windows desktop apps that run on special systems (think a PC that is connected to custom hardware). We use WPF, which is an improvement over WinForms, especially in terms of UI look and feel.
djinn_and_tonic 10y ago
I think it really depends on your skillset. If you're a node/JS person, you can easily make a desktop app with electron. If you're purely targeting windows, and want this to be a 'traditional' desktop, then go with WPF. If you want this to be a 'store' app, you can use WPF or Javascript. You can do all of this w/ VS Community edition, or if you're going the JS route, try VS Code!
- UK-AL 10y ago
  You don't build store apps with wpf. You use uwp, which is quite different apart from xaml.
pux0r3 10y ago
I'm going to throw my vote in for the C#/UWP pairing. I am part of the prototype team where I work, and when I need to target Windows it's my weapon of choice. Sometimes I can't get access to something I need due to the sandboxing, so I'll drop back to WPF. I am familiar with forms, but I find that UWP/WPF's XAML is much easier once you get used to it. I would recommend against MVVM stuff if you're just prototyping or making small one-off apps, that is a time trap in those cases. That being said, if you don't want to hit the more "Universal" part of the UWP and you just want to tie into shell commands/utilities, it's hard to beat Python with TKinter. I'll also use Unity a lot (I was previously in games, and we do a lot of entertainment work). It's probably not what you like, but you'll be able to hit every non-embedded platform under the sun (including Windows and UWP, but also including Chrome, various TV's, &c). The UI system has improved a lot, and their (older) IMGUI implementation makes it super easy to wrap a UI around logic. Finally, I'll add that (especially if I know that I'm building for a specific platform), it's hard to beat the native rendering APIs these days. They're all super easy (all being UWP/WPF, Android, iOS's UIKit, and macOS's AppKit), and will generally get out of your way. I've gone down the Xamarin route in the past, and it turned out to be overly difficult to build some simple apps (plus, I've had trouble deploying to Android in some instances).
- WayneBro 10y ago
  UWP or WPF is absolute overkill for a simple front-end to a command line app. WinForms is the only right choice here.
  - kohanz 10y ago
    Disagree. As someone who has worked extensively with both WPF and WinForms, they're just different programming paradigms (XAML vs Forms Designer), but once you get up to speed on WPF, you can develop interfaces, even "quick and dirty" ones, just as fast if not faster than WinForms. What exactly about WPF is overkill?
    - pawadu 10y ago
      Also, isn't winforms & co. more or less deprecated by Microsoft?
umen 10y ago
Qt c++ best for Gui Easy , but needs dynamically linked , the license problematic sometimes
obihill 10y ago
I would just like to echo my support for Electron. I think it's one of the most important development platforms out there. Of course, the great thing about it is that you can use HTML5 to build native apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux. As unique selling propositions go, you can't get much better than that. As a Web developer, I am going to be using it soon to build a few apps and I'm really looking forward to it.
Khelavaster 10y ago
Visual Studio and WPF, with NuGet as a package manager. Use WiX to build your installer.

39 points by spapas82 10y ago

boduh 10y ago

What kind of apps do you have in mind? Care to share more details?

spapas82 10y ago
General purpose apps -- actually, what I had in mind was rather simple, just one dialog window that would act as a GUI to a command line application (that already exists in the user's system). This would be mainly for people that can't use the command line. However, to elaborate more, I'd like to add a couple of nice -to-haves (these are specific for me but I think that most of the following could generally be nice-to-haves for any application targeted to non-experienced users): - The size of the resulting application shouldn't be proportionaly big. For that simple app I described I would expect a couple of MB (I think that's a problem with electron/nw.js apps) - The user ideally shouldn't need to install anything else - everything should be contained in the application, so python based apps are probably not very good. Also, for the same reason I had some really bad experiences with applications that required a very specific version of .NET that would take half an hour to install on my system :( - There shouldn't be any installation - ideally, just give the user a zip containing a .exe and maybe a couple of libraries (even better if these libs could be statically linked to the exe) - The app should be able to access the full windows API - I want to be able to display file open dialog, write some configuration options to AppData etc Before 15 years I know the answer to my needs was to just use VB (or C++ with MFC for those that knew it), before 10 years I guess Java with Swing (or AWT)... Probably even now these could also be used, however I was thinking if there are some other methods of developing desktop windows application I wasn't aware of.
- zgniatacz 10y ago
  how about TCL? freewrap should so the trick http://freewrap.sourceforge.net/ http://freewrap.sourceforge.net/
- Quppa 10y ago
  Do you need to target versions earlier than Windows 10? If so, you'll have to rule out a Universal Windows Platform app (which might otherwise suit your needs, though you wouldn't be able to use it to write to AppData). A Windows Presentation Foundation or Windows Forms app targeting .NET 4.0 will get you pretty good compatibility - Windows 8 and above come with it pre-installed* and it's an optional Windows Update for Windows XP/Vista/7. I don't think the XAML learning curve is as steep as some people claim, but it'll still be quicker to hack something together in WinForms over WPF if you haven't used the latter before. Also check out the Desktop App Converter for Windows 10 - you can now package up a WPF/WinForms/Win32/etc. app into a UWP app for Windows 10 users and pick up some of the benefits that those apps have†. * But also heed Raymond Chen: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=11043 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=... † https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/desktop https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/deskto...
- majewsky 10y ago
  > everything should be contained in the application, so python based apps are probably not very good. http://www.py2exe.org/ http://www.py2exe.org/ -- but I don't know how large the resulting EXEs are, so that might break your size requirement.
  - vram22 10y ago
    There's also PyInstaller. I've tried it out a bit, to create standalone Windows EXEs from small Python apps - under 1K LOC, both command-line and GUI (the GUI ones were wxPython). Worked okay for me. ~10 MB EXE size. This is anecdotal though. Can't speak to how stable it is in general, or for bigger apps.
- emjoes1 10y ago
  Prob C++... At least that is the only thing that I believe will meet your requirements exactly. I ended up (a few years back) going with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) in C# targeting .NET client profile. Of course you still need .NET, however, the client profile is a much smaller install than the full version and I have no problems going from .NET 4 to 4.5. No specific version is needed unless you want to use new features. In regards to your needs here is a couple of reasons I like WPF: -The entire GUI can be written in markup XAML (an XML based markup language) so its kind of web like. You can use the GUI if you like but doing it in XAML forces good design patterns and IMO is easier. -"Click Once Deployment" allows you to publish the app build to a network share which can be run directly over the network (no local install). There are various options so if you choose to run locally you can. If you update your app, you simply publish again, and when the end users launches the app again it will be updated. You can bundle dependencies so the first install would include the large (41MB) .NET client profile but after that it would just be the size of your app. This has worked well for me to allow users to install/update the apps over slow VPN connections.
- realharo 10y ago
  Regarding Java, Swing has sort of fallen out of favor and JavaFX is not the "standard" UI library.
  - realharo 10y ago
    Typo, I meant to say "is now the standard...". (can't edit anymore)
- aaronhoffman 10y ago
  For this situation I would recommend a "Windows Forms" app. You can include the framework/base class library bits you need in the distribution package if you think they won't already be available on the machine
- Asooka 10y ago
  The only thing that fits the bill is C++ with the basic Win32 API that you're guaranteed ships with every version of Windows. But you'll still need to bundle the Microsoft VisualC++ runtime installer. To save yourself from writing raw Win32, I would suggest WxWidgets. You can link statically to the library and compile in only what you need, keeping size manageable.
- WayneBro 10y ago
  You want WinForms then. UWP is right out the door with you last requirement. WPF is out with the 2nd and 3rd ones if you're targeting Win7.

TeeWEE 10y ago

If Cross Platform is important, i would recommend Chrome-Apps: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps https://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps

tlammens 10y ago
Not really future-proof... http://www.cnet.com/news/google-saying-buh-bye-to-chrome-apps-for-windows-mac-linux/ http://www.cnet.com/news/google-saying-buh-bye-to-chrome-app...
- Just_A_NBR 10y ago
  You might be interested in https://github.com/koush/electron-chrome https://github.com/koush/electron-chrome - as the developer stated he was polyfilling all the chrome.* APIs and replicating the Chrome App environment in Electron and was open sourcing it in case anyone else wants to keep running Chrome apps.

TimJYoung 10y ago

We use Delphi from Embarcadero Technologies: https://www.embarcadero.com https://www.embarcadero.com Pros: 1) Solid, super-fast, single-pass compiler that produces native 32-bit/64-bit executables that can be deployed by copying them to the target machine (single, monolithic .exe with no external dependencies). 2) The language, Object Pascal, is statically-typed, easy to learn, supports procedural/OO/functional coding, and includes modern features like generics, RTTI, and class/record helpers. IOW, you aren't forced to code everything in a class, if you don't want to. The string support, especially the Unicode string support, is also very good. 3) The Visual Component Library (VCL) is still pretty good for creating Windows desktop applications (native, not universal "apps"), and you can skin your application for a different look and feel. Database access is also top-notch, and you have access to a pretty large set of 3rd party components that can be installed into the IDE as first-class residents of the IDE. 4) Development productivity is very high in the IDE, with a WYSIWYG form designer and two-way tools for coding the UI (what you do in the designer is reflected in the code-behind, and vice-versa). Cons: 1) The price is high, but they're starting to fix that with more special offers and will, hopefully, continue to move the price down. 2) Partly the cause of 1), the product has been mismanaged over the years and its developer base has dwindled accordingly. This was also partly due to the fact that C# grabbed a lot of their market share (as well as the original developers of the product, including Anders Hejlsberg, the architect). 3) The RTL and component library (VCL) need pruning a bit. They've got a lot of legacy code in there due to an almost-maniacal focus on backwards-compatibility. 4) The IDE is a bit schizophrenic and needs to be updated, but it does include just about everything you would need in terms of real-time coding with error highlighting, code-completion, formatting, Git/SubVersion integration, etc. 5) Memory management is deterministic, which makes it very fast, but does require a Create/Free cycle for class instances. An ownership model helps to alleviate this for GUI applications (forms "own" the component class instances that are placed on them). Also, strings and dynamic arrays are reference-counted and managed for you, and you can wrap class instances in interfaces that will allow you to use class instances in a reference-counted manner, also. In summary, if you simply need something to create desktop applications for Windows now, especially for vertical market software that will be deployed on a lot of machines, then Delphi is a good solution and can be a technical advantage for your company if you know how to use it well. If you're looking for something that you can use to further your job prospects, then it might not be the best solution for you, and you might be better going with .NET/C#. But, be forewarned that application deployment can still be problematic with .NET - the developer edition of SQL Server 2014 refused to install on my development machine this week because the SQL Server .NET-based installer could not cope with something in the .NET installation on my machine.

makosdv 10y ago

If you just want to make a simple Windows Forms application, I'd just use .NET (VB or C#). If you don't have Visual Studio, you can download the Express version for free.

bettynormal 10y ago
or if you want cross platform apps - Use .NET too... Microsoft bought Xamarin and added iOS, Android, and Linux and Mac support to .Net and Visual Studio. It's all included free in VS 2015.
spapas82 10y ago
The problem with .NET is that I don't really trust it. In the past I had experienced various bad behaviors when trying to install .NET applications with strange messages requiring me to install specific .NET framework versions. The more strange thing is that after I installed the .NET framework and the application it still didn't start but complained about windows sxs or something like that. I never understood what the problem was. Also, how well would .NET apps developed with Visual Studio support older windows versions (i.e windows XP or vista) ?
- CompelTechnic 10y ago
  I believe (and I hope that someone double checks me on this) that you can set which version of the .NET libraries you want to use during development in visual studio. If you use version 3.5, your application will be compatible with all versions of windows back to XP.
  - Quppa 10y ago
    These days .NET 4.0 is probably a better target for maximising compatibility - Windows 8 and above don't come with .NET 3.5 installed by default, and a lot of Windows XP/Vista/7 machines will already have .NET 4.0 or newer installed thanks to Windows Update.
bobmno 10y ago
Or use SharpDevelop!

pawadu 10y ago

Most people should write universal apps: modern language, modern tools, modern UI. If you don't like that there is always Qt.

akerro 10y ago
Qt is a modern language (framework actually), has modern tools and UI. Does it not?
- pawadu 10y ago
  Qt is currently a mix of old C++ and new js, you could argue whether it is modern or not. I put it as second option since UWP is the native framework for windows 10 and should be considered first.
IpV8 10y ago
+1 for C++ with Qt. We use this, as we have other requirements that make C++ work better than a Java or C# option.

pavlov 10y ago

Can you limit support to Windows 10 only? If so, you should go with the Universal Windows Platform. UWP has got the latest and greatest tools from Microsoft, and it's more coherent and pleasurable to use than any of the older options. You'll get a modern-feeling UI with much less effort.

kyriakos 10y ago
To add to this, if you are a web developer primarily you can also use JavaScript to create UWP apps that act like native. The documentation is very good and the toolset/libraries modern.
DougN7 10y ago
If you need to target anything older though, getting the UCRT installed is the biggest pain! It can involve hot fixes and service packs for older OS's!! I spent money on a Microsoft support call to figure out why their installer couldn't get the UCRT installed on Win 2008 R2 and we never did figure it out. No thank you!

pentium10 10y ago

We use Xojo (former RealBasic), it's quite good it compiles native apps on all major platforms. Language is quite easy to understand and pick up, the resources are big, articles, conferences, libraries, and video material: http://www.xojo.com/resources/ http://www.xojo.com/resources/ If you want to check out some apps made with Xojo, you need to go to this FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/127238180792805/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/127238180792805/

youdontknowtho 10y ago

Microsoft would say that if you were writing an app from scratch to use UWP because of it's security model. There's lots of info about that. That and serviceability. It's pretty awesome. UWP would let you do UI in XAML but also get access to the Windows compositor and DirectX if you need it. It's only Windows 10, though. If you need to support Windows 7 and up it's WPF/.Net with some assemblies written in C++. That's how an awful lot of applications are being written. There's some strange advice in this thread. HN isn't really a place that I would ask about Windows development. I'm surprised that there aren't more..."You could do that in Erlang" comments or other weird shit like that.

irascible 10y ago

nw.js

irascible 10y ago

nw.js

skilesare 10y ago

We are using electron with nice results. It is great if you already have a stable of js devs and you need to do something with the file system and or network access. We basically have electron load in our basic tool and then have shims that can go to local dbs instead of making web calls so that users can patch in to their own data without having to open a bunch of ports on their internal networks.

nailer 10y ago
Is it possible to have an Electron app in the Windows app store?
- Revell 10y ago
  Yes, it is! http://electron.atom.io/docs/tutorial/windows-store-guide/ http://electron.atom.io/docs/tutorial/windows-store-guide/

mike_hearn 10y ago

You could use Java with Avian, which is a small embeddable, statically linkable JVM. It uses LZMA and aggressive dead code elimination to make tiny binaries. If you use it with SWT you get native widgets too, and they have an example which does exactly that weighing in at only one megabyte: https://readytalk.github.io/avian-web/swt-examples/windows-x86_64/example.exe https://readytalk.github.io/avian-web/swt-examples/windows-x... Creating such a tight binary isn't entirely point and click, but if you want a tiny self contained executable and don't want to assume a pre-existing runtime like .NET then your options are really only VB6 (classic), Delphi or VC++ and all of them will involve a lot of arcane wizardry too.

chrisseaton 10y ago
> don't want to assume a pre-existing runtime like .NET Don't all distributions of Windows include .NET by default?
- omnibrain 10y ago
  "Windows is not a .NET Framework delivery channel either" https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=11043 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110404-00/?p=... .NET could be disabled or some older version.
- TheLML 10y ago
  I've had to install .NET many times. Maybe it's due to people using older windows versions when the software uses a newer .NET version that isn't pre-installed
- kohanz 10y ago
  No, but you can bundle the installer for the version you need into your own installer.
- vram22 10y ago
  Not "all" if you mean it literally. .NET came much later than Windows - maybe post-Win NT as well as post-Win 2K - others who know better can probably correct me or give a more precise date. I remember meeting and talking with (or rather he did more of the talking) a senior Microsoft software engineer who was involved in the first .NET version, and he was telling me stuff about it. He may not have used the term .NET (can't remember), but I remember him saying that it used XML throughout (and also a lot of other stuff about its advantages). Very enthusiastic about it, he was. It was only some time later that I realized that what was now called .NET, was the same as what he had been referring to in his talk with me. Also, Turbo Delphi Explorer (which was a stripped-down version of Delphi 6), came in two versions - the plain Win 32 version (non-.NET) and the .NET version. I remember, because I installed and used it some. Here's a blog post about a small utility I wrote with it (screenshot of the clock not there now, sorry): http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/08/digital-clock-v10-in-3-lines-of-delphi.html http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2010/08/digital-clock-v10-in-3-lin...

Raed667 10y ago

VisualStudio with a basic Windows Forms application in C# should be one of the simplest ways. The default look is not that bad for a business oriented application, and the drag-and-drop features are really simple to learn. Java Swing with Netbeans graphical editor would be my second choice if you like Java better than C#. EDIT: From personal experience, I found that styling the application beyond the default look, was simpler in Java Swing, using look-and-feel packages. For Windows Forms (maybe because my lack of experience) I had to do most elements as images in order to get the style I wanted.

insoluble 10y ago
WPF is superior to Windows Forms in many ways, particularly layout responsiveness. I would not recommend anyone entering the Windows Desktop scene to use this old paradigm of UI design springing from Win32 (or older). Moreover, since WPF uses XAML, learning it (as opposed to Windows Forms) better prepares one for other popular UI frameworks these days, including for Web and Mobile. Also, if only newer OS versions are of concern, consider using Universal Apps (UWP) instead of WPF. They are both very similar, but UWP is newer.
- facorreia 10y ago
  Wasn't WPF discontinued?
  - insoluble 10y ago
    So they say, but that doesn't mean its support is about to end. If you look at how long MS supports technologies, you can be pretty sure it has plenty of usable life. Plus, UWP is practically the exact same thing from a design and coding perspective, so the knowledge is by no means lost.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  There is a much steeper learning curve for WPF, if all you are doing is a simple front end to a command line WinForms is a very easy way to get started.

kohanz 10y ago

Not sure about recommended, but I develop a few Windows desktop apps that run on special systems (think a PC that is connected to custom hardware). We use WPF, which is an improvement over WinForms, especially in terms of UI look and feel.

djinn_and_tonic 10y ago

I think it really depends on your skillset. If you're a node/JS person, you can easily make a desktop app with electron. If you're purely targeting windows, and want this to be a 'traditional' desktop, then go with WPF. If you want this to be a 'store' app, you can use WPF or Javascript. You can do all of this w/ VS Community edition, or if you're going the JS route, try VS Code!

UK-AL 10y ago
You don't build store apps with wpf. You use uwp, which is quite different apart from xaml.

pux0r3 10y ago

I'm going to throw my vote in for the C#/UWP pairing. I am part of the prototype team where I work, and when I need to target Windows it's my weapon of choice. Sometimes I can't get access to something I need due to the sandboxing, so I'll drop back to WPF. I am familiar with forms, but I find that UWP/WPF's XAML is much easier once you get used to it. I would recommend against MVVM stuff if you're just prototyping or making small one-off apps, that is a time trap in those cases. That being said, if you don't want to hit the more "Universal" part of the UWP and you just want to tie into shell commands/utilities, it's hard to beat Python with TKinter. I'll also use Unity a lot (I was previously in games, and we do a lot of entertainment work). It's probably not what you like, but you'll be able to hit every non-embedded platform under the sun (including Windows and UWP, but also including Chrome, various TV's, &c). The UI system has improved a lot, and their (older) IMGUI implementation makes it super easy to wrap a UI around logic. Finally, I'll add that (especially if I know that I'm building for a specific platform), it's hard to beat the native rendering APIs these days. They're all super easy (all being UWP/WPF, Android, iOS's UIKit, and macOS's AppKit), and will generally get out of your way. I've gone down the Xamarin route in the past, and it turned out to be overly difficult to build some simple apps (plus, I've had trouble deploying to Android in some instances).

WayneBro 10y ago
UWP or WPF is absolute overkill for a simple front-end to a command line app. WinForms is the only right choice here.
- kohanz 10y ago
  Disagree. As someone who has worked extensively with both WPF and WinForms, they're just different programming paradigms (XAML vs Forms Designer), but once you get up to speed on WPF, you can develop interfaces, even "quick and dirty" ones, just as fast if not faster than WinForms. What exactly about WPF is overkill?
  - pawadu 10y ago
    Also, isn't winforms & co. more or less deprecated by Microsoft?

umen 10y ago

Qt c++ best for Gui Easy , but needs dynamically linked , the license problematic sometimes

obihill 10y ago

I would just like to echo my support for Electron. I think it's one of the most important development platforms out there. Of course, the great thing about it is that you can use HTML5 to build native apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux. As unique selling propositions go, you can't get much better than that. As a Web developer, I am going to be using it soon to build a few apps and I'm really looking forward to it.

Khelavaster 10y ago

Visual Studio and WPF, with NuGet as a package manager. Use WiX to build your installer.