7 ms·

Very nice but they should unify things a little on Windows. There are so many types of apps and it's not clear when you should use which. For example, Windows S

by GoToRO 7y ago

Very nice but they should unify things a little on Windows. There are so many types of apps and it's not clear when you should use which. For example, Windows Store apps can not snapshot the screen...

georgyo 7y ago
This sounds like a feature, at least as a user. Sandboxing that is fantastic. I wonder if they also block the app from reaching into the copy/paste buffer. If they successfully sandboxed to that level, that is basically mobile device level of app severity. Fantastic!
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  Unless you are a user who wants to snapshot the screen or copy/paste between different applications :-P. (though i guess you were sarcastic :-P)
  - BlueDingo 7y ago
    The app being able to snap the screen is different than the user.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      And yet, the way we try to control it for the former is by denying it to the latter.
    - badsectoracula 7y ago
      Sure, you can always pull out your camera and take a photo of your monitor, but usually what you want is to use a program to grab a screenshot - so that program is what needs to be able to take the screenshot in behalf of the user.
      - j0057 7y ago
        You don't need an app for taking a screenshot. Windows used to include the Snipping Tool I think since Windows 8, and nowadays in Windows 10 it's just functionality baked into the OS: press Shift+Win+S to access it.
        badsectoracula 7y ago
        You do not need an app for taking a screenshot, but apps can and often do provide additional functionality than the OS - the OS cannot provide by itself every single functionality you may need, its developers may not even think about all cases or consider them important to implement them. For example while the snipping tool (and printscreen and alt+printscreen, etc) exist, there are tools like Greenshot and Snagit that provide functionality like instant saves to files, better on-screen snipping, an embedded editor for annotations, etc that can be very useful when you want to create many screenshots fast. Another thing is that some tools may not exactly do what the OS would do (screenshots in this case) but use the mechanism for something similar but different. For example ScreenToGif uses pretty much the same mechanisms for taking screenshots to create short GIF animations from screen captures and then provides a simple timeline editor to for editing the frames, adding annotations, shapes, etc. The OS simply has nothing like these and it is impossible for it to provide every single functionality that could ever exist. Note that this applies to other stuff too, not just screenshots.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  Yes, let's continue the trend of dragging the desktop PC down to the level of functionality available on a cell phone. We'll be so "secure" that we can't get anything done.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    I get plenty of stuff done on my phone.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Yeah, well, I don't. And neither did the people who designed that phone.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  The problem is that it’s increasingly difficult to figure out how to start. Let’s say you have a Store app andafter a while you realize that screenshots would be a good feature. You should be able to add this without having to rewrite the whole thing. That’s why a lot of people stick to WPF because it’s predictable and you don’t have the risk that some Store rule will trip you up later.
dstaley 7y ago
This was an early limitation, which was fixed in Windows 1803 with the release of the Windows.Graphics.Capture API. [1] That being said, your general point that there's so many ways to develop an app for Windows, and that not all of them support the same features, is definitely true. I think the general advice these days is that if you _can_ build your app as a UWP, do that. Otherwise, use the Win32 APIs as sparingly as possible, defaulting to the UWP APIs. Legacy apps are a bit trickier, and that's where Microsoft is investing in things like the Desktop Bridge (run Win32 apps in a UWP container) and XAML Islands (host UWP controls in a Win32 app). [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-camera/screen-capture https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-cam...

by GoToRO 7y ago

georgyo 7y ago

This sounds like a feature, at least as a user. Sandboxing that is fantastic. I wonder if they also block the app from reaching into the copy/paste buffer. If they successfully sandboxed to that level, that is basically mobile device level of app severity. Fantastic!

badsectoracula 7y ago
Unless you are a user who wants to snapshot the screen or copy/paste between different applications :-P. (though i guess you were sarcastic :-P)
- BlueDingo 7y ago
  The app being able to snap the screen is different than the user.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    And yet, the way we try to control it for the former is by denying it to the latter.
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    Sure, you can always pull out your camera and take a photo of your monitor, but usually what you want is to use a program to grab a screenshot - so that program is what needs to be able to take the screenshot in behalf of the user.
    - j0057 7y ago
      You don't need an app for taking a screenshot. Windows used to include the Snipping Tool I think since Windows 8, and nowadays in Windows 10 it's just functionality baked into the OS: press Shift+Win+S to access it.
      - badsectoracula 7y ago
        You do not need an app for taking a screenshot, but apps can and often do provide additional functionality than the OS - the OS cannot provide by itself every single functionality you may need, its developers may not even think about all cases or consider them important to implement them. For example while the snipping tool (and printscreen and alt+printscreen, etc) exist, there are tools like Greenshot and Snagit that provide functionality like instant saves to files, better on-screen snipping, an embedded editor for annotations, etc that can be very useful when you want to create many screenshots fast. Another thing is that some tools may not exactly do what the OS would do (screenshots in this case) but use the mechanism for something similar but different. For example ScreenToGif uses pretty much the same mechanisms for taking screenshots to create short GIF animations from screen captures and then provides a simple timeline editor to for editing the frames, adding annotations, shapes, etc. The OS simply has nothing like these and it is impossible for it to provide every single functionality that could ever exist. Note that this applies to other stuff too, not just screenshots.
CamperBob2 7y ago
Yes, let's continue the trend of dragging the desktop PC down to the level of functionality available on a cell phone. We'll be so "secure" that we can't get anything done.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  I get plenty of stuff done on my phone.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    Yeah, well, I don't. And neither did the people who designed that phone.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
The problem is that it’s increasingly difficult to figure out how to start. Let’s say you have a Store app andafter a while you realize that screenshots would be a good feature. You should be able to add this without having to rewrite the whole thing. That’s why a lot of people stick to WPF because it’s predictable and you don’t have the risk that some Store rule will trip you up later.

dstaley 7y ago

This was an early limitation, which was fixed in Windows 1803 with the release of the Windows.Graphics.Capture API. [1] That being said, your general point that there's so many ways to develop an app for Windows, and that not all of them support the same features, is definitely true. I think the general advice these days is that if you _can_ build your app as a UWP, do that. Otherwise, use the Win32 APIs as sparingly as possible, defaulting to the UWP APIs. Legacy apps are a bit trickier, and that's where Microsoft is investing in things like the Desktop Bridge (run Win32 apps in a UWP container) and XAML Islands (host UWP controls in a Win32 app). [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-camera/screen-capture https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-cam...