4 ms·

it seems like for years MS was looking for the WPF killer that would unify web and desktop programming (silverlight for example and later JS+Html based apps). T

it seems like for years MS was looking for the WPF killer that would unify web and desktop programming (silverlight for example and later JS+Html based apps). That didn't work well, and WPF was left rudderless. Many devs (including myself) have resorted to WPF because it's still the best solution. The stagnation of WPF is a real issue that I hope gets addressed soon. Of course, maybe MS is working on .net core replacement :)

NicoJuicy 10y ago
Chances are low, the graphics library has problems to be cross platform. The work on wpf was 'finished'. It's not abandoned, but there is no innovation in it anymore. They will keep supporting it, but are looking for a way to do it crossplatform, which isn't an option yet
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Think of how much credit MS would get for making a cross-platform GUI toolkit. End the era of Electron apps without people having to use Qt.
  - vintagedave 10y ago
    This is why people use Delphi and C++Builder.
    - zeroc8 10y ago
      There is a need for GUIs on Linux IOT devices running on ARM. I would love to be able to use Delphi/Firemonkey for that.
      - TimJYoung 10y ago
        There's this, that I just found today: http://www.fmxlinux.com/ http://www.fmxlinux.com/ It certainly looks interesting.
- c-smile 10y ago
  Just in case, "WPF vs Sciter": https://sciter.com/sciter/sciter-vs-wpf/ https://sciter.com/sciter/sciter-vs-wpf/ Essentially Sciter is a crossplatform WPF but using HTML/CSS instead of XAML. As for me (I am an author of Sciter) the biggest disappointment was the way how styles were implemented in WPF/XAML. Even in 2006 it was clear that style cascading (contextual inheritance) is the way to go. It appears as XAML was not designed from the very beginning to be human readable - just trendy ("XML everywhere" in 2006) replacement of VB's .FRM files. .FRM files were even more human readable/editable ( notation was quite close to YAML).
WorldMaker 10y ago
Microsoft built the .NET Core replacement. It's a key part of the Universal Windows Platform: the powerful combination of .NET Native (built on top of .NET Core) and the UWP (nee WinRT) XAML stack. The UWP XAML stack has been the successor to WPF for a while now.
- semafour 10y ago
  UWP XAML is fine for targeting Windows 10, but if you consider cross platform to at least include Windows 7 and 8 also, it is a non-starter.
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    "WinRT" XAML runs great on Windows 8+ and is mostly forward compatible with UWP XAML (especially 8.1+ universal XAML). (Though statistically "everybody" that was on 8 is now on 10. It's 7 that will be the next XP.) Windows 7 is the outlier, but this isn't that much of a different argument from the complaints that Windows XP had terrible out-of-the-box support for WPF. The same arguments stopping people from using UWP today seem very deja vu to the arguments against WPF even back when in Windows 7. UWP XAML isn't even that different from WPF XAML. I've got a feeling for some LOB applications maintaining a UWP and WPF build side-by-side is relatively straightforward (and definitely more straightforward than those of us that for various reasons worked on side-by-side XAML builds for WPF and Silverlight).

NicoJuicy 10y ago

Chances are low, the graphics library has problems to be cross platform. The work on wpf was 'finished'. It's not abandoned, but there is no innovation in it anymore. They will keep supporting it, but are looking for a way to do it crossplatform, which isn't an option yet

MichaelGG 10y ago
Think of how much credit MS would get for making a cross-platform GUI toolkit. End the era of Electron apps without people having to use Qt.
- vintagedave 10y ago
  This is why people use Delphi and C++Builder.
  - zeroc8 10y ago
    There is a need for GUIs on Linux IOT devices running on ARM. I would love to be able to use Delphi/Firemonkey for that.
    - TimJYoung 10y ago
      There's this, that I just found today: http://www.fmxlinux.com/ http://www.fmxlinux.com/ It certainly looks interesting.
c-smile 10y ago
Just in case, "WPF vs Sciter": https://sciter.com/sciter/sciter-vs-wpf/ https://sciter.com/sciter/sciter-vs-wpf/ Essentially Sciter is a crossplatform WPF but using HTML/CSS instead of XAML. As for me (I am an author of Sciter) the biggest disappointment was the way how styles were implemented in WPF/XAML. Even in 2006 it was clear that style cascading (contextual inheritance) is the way to go. It appears as XAML was not designed from the very beginning to be human readable - just trendy ("XML everywhere" in 2006) replacement of VB's .FRM files. .FRM files were even more human readable/editable ( notation was quite close to YAML).

WorldMaker 10y ago

Microsoft built the .NET Core replacement. It's a key part of the Universal Windows Platform: the powerful combination of .NET Native (built on top of .NET Core) and the UWP (nee WinRT) XAML stack. The UWP XAML stack has been the successor to WPF for a while now.

semafour 10y ago
UWP XAML is fine for targeting Windows 10, but if you consider cross platform to at least include Windows 7 and 8 also, it is a non-starter.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  "WinRT" XAML runs great on Windows 8+ and is mostly forward compatible with UWP XAML (especially 8.1+ universal XAML). (Though statistically "everybody" that was on 8 is now on 10. It's 7 that will be the next XP.) Windows 7 is the outlier, but this isn't that much of a different argument from the complaints that Windows XP had terrible out-of-the-box support for WPF. The same arguments stopping people from using UWP today seem very deja vu to the arguments against WPF even back when in Windows 7. UWP XAML isn't even that different from WPF XAML. I've got a feeling for some LOB applications maintaining a UWP and WPF build side-by-side is relatively straightforward (and definitely more straightforward than those of us that for various reasons worked on side-by-side XAML builds for WPF and Silverlight).