5 ms·

It doesn't help that for the major consumer platform (Windows), Microsoft can't make their mind up about how to replace Win32 or WinForms. It seems like every

It doesn't help that for the major consumer platform (Windows), Microsoft can't make their mind up about how to replace Win32 or WinForms. It seems like every other week there is some new framework announced, so even if you have a need to make a native app, choosing how to do it has become near impossible. Is it .NET Maui? Should I try Electronize? or take a huge punt on Avalonia? It's easier just to wrap up a web app and hand it over. Sure, that is kicking the can down the road a bit, but until Microsoft can manage to provide something other than vague, half finished plans we're all in limbo.

jeswin 5y ago
That train left long back; nobody wants a Windows-only app when half the management are using Macs. Unless of course you're taking about pro apps like AutoCad or Photoshop; but they have never been electron and unlikely to ever be.
- creshal 5y ago
  We have plenty of Windows-only customers. We're still giving them wrapped web apps when they ask for desktop applications. Because even if the customer is all-Windows, developers sure aren't (unless you're a C#-exclusive sweatshop, maybe?), and stuff like Bootstrap+jQuery is more stable than Windows GUI toolkits these days. Lower development costs and lower ongoing maintenance costs, win-win.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    There are cross-platform toolkits that render using native controls. Bootstrap+jQuery and Win32 are not the only two possible options.
    - creshal 5y ago
      GTK, which we can't use easily due to licensing headaches and deprecates useful widgets faster than we can try to use them, or Qt, which we can't use due easily to licensing headaches and with QtQuick is just web apps in more complicated, or smaller frameworks, which already looked terrible when they were new? And outside a hard, but small core of Mac users, native controls also aren't a selling point to end users. They're harder to work with, more difficult to style, to no advantage to an end user who more often than not couldn't even tell you what the native controls of Windows are. (And I suspect most Microsoft employees can't either, if Windows 10/11 is any indication.)
- Paradigma11 5y ago
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) is a cross-platform framework for creating native mobile and desktop apps with C# and XAML. Using .NET MAUI, you can develop apps that can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows from a single shared code-base.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    No linux. Where 25% of .net developers are. Its not going to fly.
    - jiggawatts 5y ago
      25% of .NET developers are on Linux!? Got an actual statistic to back that up? I would estimate more like 0.25%...
      - smackeyacky 5y ago
        I thought I did but I misread one of the graphs on the Stack Overflow 2021 survey. So no. I use Debian as my daily driver for .NET core and was looking to see how many other developers had dropped Visual Studio for VSCode, but the graph was not how many had switched, but how many want to. My mistake. I still think ignoring linux for gui apps will hurt microsoft, we all see the success of VSCode and want to build universal apps like that for our clients too.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  The app that kills Photoshop will run on Electron. Figma has 100% convinced me of this, if you can make an app where the UI remains responsive and fluid like Figma and graphics heavy lifting is done in a way that doesn’t choke the UI I think you’ll pretty much eat their lunch like Figma did to Sketch, Illustrator and XD. You have to remember that Photoshop is pretty poorly optimized for modern hardware, a ton of it is single core constrained and they just haven’t cared about regressions, on Windows at least the whole app chokes for a second every time you drag the window around, it’s laughable.
  - lenkite 5y ago
    Figma is written in C++. I guess all web-devs should learn C++ ?
ehnto 5y ago
I have seen this indecision as a death knell on a few projects. You really just have to pick something, especially if you stop developing the soon to be deprecated tooling. If it takes you two years to pick a new method, then all your developer community has to sit on their laurels. They can't invest in the old platform, they can't invest in novel tooling of their own, and they can't build with the new thing because you haven't chosen it yet.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  I honestly feel like this is it for native Windows apps. It's over. GTK+ and Wayland will be more supportable in the future if WSLg gets pushed out far enough.
MattGaiser 5y ago
For some platforms the official way to do things now is to make it a web app. Consider Microsoft Word Add Ins. The official way to do them now is with JS, React or Angular.
jamil7 5y ago
Ha, and on the mac side we now have AppKit, SwiftUI and Catalyst and any combination of those you feel like.
- creshal 5y ago
  The big difference is that all three of them are still fully supported, and continue to receive updates. On Windows, 90% of UI toolkits are deprecated with no support, no bug fixes, nor migration guides.
  - jamil7 5y ago
    That's fair. The fact that updates and fixes are shipped with OS versions makes it less useful (for us at least). People just don't upgrade their desktops like they do their phones.

jeswin 5y ago

That train left long back; nobody wants a Windows-only app when half the management are using Macs. Unless of course you're taking about pro apps like AutoCad or Photoshop; but they have never been electron and unlikely to ever be.

creshal 5y ago
We have plenty of Windows-only customers. We're still giving them wrapped web apps when they ask for desktop applications. Because even if the customer is all-Windows, developers sure aren't (unless you're a C#-exclusive sweatshop, maybe?), and stuff like Bootstrap+jQuery is more stable than Windows GUI toolkits these days. Lower development costs and lower ongoing maintenance costs, win-win.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  There are cross-platform toolkits that render using native controls. Bootstrap+jQuery and Win32 are not the only two possible options.
  - creshal 5y ago
    GTK, which we can't use easily due to licensing headaches and deprecates useful widgets faster than we can try to use them, or Qt, which we can't use due easily to licensing headaches and with QtQuick is just web apps in more complicated, or smaller frameworks, which already looked terrible when they were new? And outside a hard, but small core of Mac users, native controls also aren't a selling point to end users. They're harder to work with, more difficult to style, to no advantage to an end user who more often than not couldn't even tell you what the native controls of Windows are. (And I suspect most Microsoft employees can't either, if Windows 10/11 is any indication.)
Paradigma11 5y ago
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) is a cross-platform framework for creating native mobile and desktop apps with C# and XAML. Using .NET MAUI, you can develop apps that can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows from a single shared code-base.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  No linux. Where 25% of .net developers are. Its not going to fly.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    25% of .NET developers are on Linux!? Got an actual statistic to back that up? I would estimate more like 0.25%...
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      I thought I did but I misread one of the graphs on the Stack Overflow 2021 survey. So no. I use Debian as my daily driver for .NET core and was looking to see how many other developers had dropped Visual Studio for VSCode, but the graph was not how many had switched, but how many want to. My mistake. I still think ignoring linux for gui apps will hurt microsoft, we all see the success of VSCode and want to build universal apps like that for our clients too.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
The app that kills Photoshop will run on Electron. Figma has 100% convinced me of this, if you can make an app where the UI remains responsive and fluid like Figma and graphics heavy lifting is done in a way that doesn’t choke the UI I think you’ll pretty much eat their lunch like Figma did to Sketch, Illustrator and XD. You have to remember that Photoshop is pretty poorly optimized for modern hardware, a ton of it is single core constrained and they just haven’t cared about regressions, on Windows at least the whole app chokes for a second every time you drag the window around, it’s laughable.
- lenkite 5y ago
  Figma is written in C++. I guess all web-devs should learn C++ ?

ehnto 5y ago

I have seen this indecision as a death knell on a few projects. You really just have to pick something, especially if you stop developing the soon to be deprecated tooling. If it takes you two years to pick a new method, then all your developer community has to sit on their laurels. They can't invest in the old platform, they can't invest in novel tooling of their own, and they can't build with the new thing because you haven't chosen it yet.

smackeyacky 5y ago
I honestly feel like this is it for native Windows apps. It's over. GTK+ and Wayland will be more supportable in the future if WSLg gets pushed out far enough.

MattGaiser 5y ago

For some platforms the official way to do things now is to make it a web app. Consider Microsoft Word Add Ins. The official way to do them now is with JS, React or Angular.

jamil7 5y ago

Ha, and on the mac side we now have AppKit, SwiftUI and Catalyst and any combination of those you feel like.

creshal 5y ago
The big difference is that all three of them are still fully supported, and continue to receive updates. On Windows, 90% of UI toolkits are deprecated with no support, no bug fixes, nor migration guides.
- jamil7 5y ago
  That's fair. The fact that updates and fixes are shipped with OS versions makes it less useful (for us at least). People just don't upgrade their desktops like they do their phones.