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I watched the videos for every session from the current Build conference I could find on this topic, but still don’t understand the strategy. Like at all. Listi

I watched the videos for every session from the current Build conference I could find on this topic, but still don’t understand the strategy. Like at all. Listing the GUI toolkits that Microsoft is currently investing in, there’s UWP, WPF, React Native and also a new thing called WinUI. Not all of them will survive (by which I mean will continue to get significant new feature releases say three years from now). So it’s not clear to me at all why I should bet on any of them and not just use Electron, which is in a lot of ways worse, but at least guaranteed to stick around.

contextfree 7y ago
WinUI is just a new name for the UWP UI stack now that it is open source and decoupled from the OS, React Native is a wrapper on top of UWP/WinUI, and WPF isn't really getting significant new features other than being taken open source and ported to .net core. So really already there's just one forward-looking native UI stack, which is WinUI.
- codeflo 7y ago
  Maybe, but how does that square with the widespread assumption that UWP and the store are basically dead? Do you expect WinUI to be available in desktop apps eventually? There’s something called “XAML Islands” to integrate UWP components into desktop apps, but that’s technically ugly, incomplete, and very explicitly targeted at legacy applications. Beyond that, they didn’t announce anything as far as I can tell.
  - vitorgrs 7y ago
    Windows Terminal will be distributed on Store, and so do new Edge. I don't know why people are calling it dead... And they announced that WinUI 3.0 will open source all built-in XAML controls (they are even rewritten some to be on top of Composition because of that), will also open the XAML Stack and Composition. This is a big deal.
    - MikusR 7y ago
      Neither old or new Edge is being distributed on Store. Old one gets bugfixes from Windows update and new features come with the big biannual Windows updates. New one uses it's own updater. They also removed ability to install Office from store.
      - vitorgrs 7y ago
        It's coming once it hits final release. :) Microsoft.MicrosoftEdgeWin32_8wekyb3d8bbwe
  - contextfree 7y ago
    Maybe, but apps are already using XAML Islands - the new Windows terminal does its entire UI in one big XAML Island. There's talk of a new XAML Desktop project/app type that would basically formalize this pattern: https://twitter.com/pag3rd/status/1126940080294154241 https://twitter.com/pag3rd/status/1126940080294154241
teddyuk 7y ago
Electron gets a lot of stick but you can write good looking cross platform applications easily. Until someone does something better that isn’t single platform it has to be here to stay
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  As a long time Windows desktop dev I am horrified to say that Electron looks really attractive as dev platform on Windows :-)
- userbinator 7y ago
  A lot of people, including me, do not think that "good looking" and "native looking" should be any different, and for that, Electron is a failure --- native applications use the UI of the platform and are consistent with other applications on the platform, while Electron applications obviously look different from them, and have the same look regardless of platform, completely ignoring the standard native UI it provides. They don't conform to the customisations I do to the native UI of the platform, which is very frustrating. There's also the unmistakable RAM usage and general sluggishness. From that perspective, it's not really "cross platform", since you're just developing for one platform that happens to run inside many others: a web app.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    I honestly think the days of the cohesive desktop platform are done. It arguably reached its peak with OS X (perhaps circa Snow Leopard), but the idea has been falling into disrepair even on the mac. It's hard to see any strong force moving us back to it, but given the current situation, if I were a desktop app developer I don't think it's something I would consider it worth investing too much effort in.
    - lozenge 7y ago
      Maybe my memory is bad but I don't think OS X ever really had it. The flag-carrying apps (Adobe, Final Cut, Garageband) had custom UIs. Built ins like Calendar had skeumorphic UIs.
la_barba 7y ago
It might be "fun" to dump on MS, but the thing with MS tech is that, like it or not, it definitely 'sticks around'. They are probably the best in business at ensuring backwards compatibility. At work we're using windows apps that were sold in 2006, on W10. And these are fairly complicated analytical equipment control softwares that work over COM (well.. usb emulated now). I don't know if you can install and run applications from 13 years ago on any other modern platform.

contextfree 7y ago

WinUI is just a new name for the UWP UI stack now that it is open source and decoupled from the OS, React Native is a wrapper on top of UWP/WinUI, and WPF isn't really getting significant new features other than being taken open source and ported to .net core. So really already there's just one forward-looking native UI stack, which is WinUI.

codeflo 7y ago
Maybe, but how does that square with the widespread assumption that UWP and the store are basically dead? Do you expect WinUI to be available in desktop apps eventually? There’s something called “XAML Islands” to integrate UWP components into desktop apps, but that’s technically ugly, incomplete, and very explicitly targeted at legacy applications. Beyond that, they didn’t announce anything as far as I can tell.
- vitorgrs 7y ago
  Windows Terminal will be distributed on Store, and so do new Edge. I don't know why people are calling it dead... And they announced that WinUI 3.0 will open source all built-in XAML controls (they are even rewritten some to be on top of Composition because of that), will also open the XAML Stack and Composition. This is a big deal.
  - MikusR 7y ago
    Neither old or new Edge is being distributed on Store. Old one gets bugfixes from Windows update and new features come with the big biannual Windows updates. New one uses it's own updater. They also removed ability to install Office from store.
    - vitorgrs 7y ago
      It's coming once it hits final release. :) Microsoft.MicrosoftEdgeWin32_8wekyb3d8bbwe
- contextfree 7y ago
  Maybe, but apps are already using XAML Islands - the new Windows terminal does its entire UI in one big XAML Island. There's talk of a new XAML Desktop project/app type that would basically formalize this pattern: https://twitter.com/pag3rd/status/1126940080294154241 https://twitter.com/pag3rd/status/1126940080294154241

teddyuk 7y ago

Electron gets a lot of stick but you can write good looking cross platform applications easily. Until someone does something better that isn’t single platform it has to be here to stay

maxxxxx 7y ago
As a long time Windows desktop dev I am horrified to say that Electron looks really attractive as dev platform on Windows :-)
userbinator 7y ago
A lot of people, including me, do not think that "good looking" and "native looking" should be any different, and for that, Electron is a failure --- native applications use the UI of the platform and are consistent with other applications on the platform, while Electron applications obviously look different from them, and have the same look regardless of platform, completely ignoring the standard native UI it provides. They don't conform to the customisations I do to the native UI of the platform, which is very frustrating. There's also the unmistakable RAM usage and general sluggishness. From that perspective, it's not really "cross platform", since you're just developing for one platform that happens to run inside many others: a web app.
- crispinb 7y ago
  I honestly think the days of the cohesive desktop platform are done. It arguably reached its peak with OS X (perhaps circa Snow Leopard), but the idea has been falling into disrepair even on the mac. It's hard to see any strong force moving us back to it, but given the current situation, if I were a desktop app developer I don't think it's something I would consider it worth investing too much effort in.
  - lozenge 7y ago
    Maybe my memory is bad but I don't think OS X ever really had it. The flag-carrying apps (Adobe, Final Cut, Garageband) had custom UIs. Built ins like Calendar had skeumorphic UIs.

la_barba 7y ago

It might be "fun" to dump on MS, but the thing with MS tech is that, like it or not, it definitely 'sticks around'. They are probably the best in business at ensuring backwards compatibility. At work we're using windows apps that were sold in 2006, on W10. And these are fairly complicated analytical equipment control softwares that work over COM (well.. usb emulated now). I don't know if you can install and run applications from 13 years ago on any other modern platform.