3 ms·
Sorry for the pedantry, but you're thinking of the Windows API, specifically the user interface bit (user32.dll as of Windows 95 and NT but it existed before) w
by quietbritishjim 7y ago
Sorry for the pedantry, but you're thinking of the Windows API, specifically the user interface bit (user32.dll as of Windows 95 and NT but it existed before) which is based on GDI which is hardware accelerated. It still exists but it rarely used for new applications today, but it was certainly in use for a very long time.
WinForms was briefly promoted as a successor, based on GDI+. It was quickly abandoned, as was GDI+ which never got hardware acceleration, in favour of WPF which is based on DirectX which is obviously hardware accelerated. But in that small time it caught on and continues to be used for new projects because it's a simpler programming model than WPF and it's not obvious in Visual Studio that it's been abandoned (it's not quite deprecated).
- pjmlp 7y agoOne can use WPF just like WinForms, with code behind and plain drag-and-drop of components. The problem is that when beginners start searching for tutorials they usually land on MVVM, data binding and how WinForms style is a bad practice and they end up feeling overwhelmed. Ironically MVVM is also possible to do in WinForms, but the capabilities aren't as rich as in WPF, so very few end up going that route.