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Yes, Windows UI is a mess. The Office team has implemented their own UI library in the past... I don't know what they're doing now, but I think the very latest
by jug 4y ago
Yes, Windows UI is a mess. The Office team has implemented their own UI library in the past... I don't know what they're doing now, but I think the very latest just gave up and it's an app wrapping web pages (Fluent UI + React?).
The greatest and latest in Windows land is WinUI 3 but none of your mentioned applications will probably ever use it because it's completely incompatible with their current user interface API.
OK, but as for "what is native" on Windows, I'd say it is still the Win32 controls because Win32 still underpins everything. Microsoft's problem is they painted themselves into a corner because Win32/GDI has inherently poor support for HiDPI and scaling.
So you shouldn't use the native controls.
It's illogical but partially explains why it's a mess.
- pjmlp 4y agoThere are APIs to enable HiDPI on Win32 and GDI+, and application manifests as well. As for everything else, somehow the mess started with WinRT project, and nowadays it seems they got themselves into a mess via the business units that would gladly keep UWP running, those porting UWP features on top of Win32, and the remaning ones like Office and .NET that couldn't care less as now Azure runs the bank, alongside XBox which was never a fan of anything besides Win32 (as seen on the GDK release announcement towards the current state of WinRT support). To make things even better now we have the Blazor team trying to put it everywhere, including web widgets. It feels like there is a UI civil war going on, most likely caused by management KPIs.