7 ms·

> installed desktop web apps are really starting to look and feel like native apps I think we are having the opposite problem: native apps are really starting

• n8cpdx 4y ago
  > Traditional Windows apps all use system provided common controls, because they are good, and therefore they have a consistent look and feel, even through OS updates. This hasn’t been consistent since at least Vista and the release of WPF, which does totally custom control rendering. Circa 2006. I think web is taking over on Windows because any of 10 or 15 different design systems can get you to a better app than the native (whatever that means) toolkits in much less time. It is easier to get a decent color picker in a web app than a WPF, WinForms, UWP, WinUI, or Win32 app (assuming you have a reasonably high expectation for UI/UX, as I do). Even Office and Visual Studio (not Code) are using web technologies to render substantial parts of the UI.
  • tablespoon 4y ago
    > I think web is taking over on Windows because any of 10 or 15 different design systems can get you to a better app than the native (whatever that means) toolkits in much less time. It is easier to get a decent color picker in a web app than a WPF, WinForms, UWP, WinUI, or Win32 app (assuming you have a reasonably high expectation for UI/UX, as I do). I'll grant you that it's probably easier and cheaper to get a workable "color picker in a web app," but I don't grant that going that route will get you a "better app than the native." The reason why the web stuff is taking over is because it's cheaper while providing minimally-viable functionality, full stop. It's not actually good in any other way. IMHO, the trend here is similar to the one consumer printers took.
    • bigyikes 4y ago
      The word “cheaper” here is doing a lot of work. Yes, it’s cheaper, meaning that it allows you to ship more stuff faster. You could make the argument that this results in lower quality, but this isn’t always the case. (For example, VS Code feels great!) Still, I’d often rather have twice the features at 80% the quality, instead of an extremely high quality product that doesn’t have the features I need. Cheapness leads to abundance leads to innovation.
      • anthk 4y ago
        Innovation? More like W95 (or even ME) compared to NT, and don't even start to compare ME against BSD/Solaris/Linux or Mac OS X.
      • 5d8767c68926 4y ago
        We're taking about a trillion dollar company who can afford all of the talent and has very limited time pressure. I would prefer they do it correctly.
        • bigyikes 4y ago
          This misses the point. A trillion dollars goes a lot further when the software is cheaper.
          • dmitriid 4y ago
            But VSCode isn't cheaper. They had to pour millions of dollars and countless man hours into it. And none of those translated into any meaningful improvements of the platform.
            • anilakar 4y ago
              It isn't cheap wrt hardware requirements either. My 2.5 year old work laptop becomes unbelievably sluggish if I have to keep multiple Electron apps open.
      • 4y ago
  • RedShift1 4y ago
    > It is easier to get a decent color picker in a web app than a WPF, WinForms, UWP, WinUI, or Win32 app (assuming you have a reasonably high expectation for UI/UX, as I do). What is a decent color picker? Everybody's idea about that is different so basically no 2 websites use the same color picker. In fact, this paper [1] found that the kind of picker (RGB vs HSV, etc...) doesn't really matter, but that better feedback made the difference. So will we get instant feedback from our color pickers now (for example text immediately turning into the color selected)? No, because designers design how they think it should look and feel, not based on how people actually interact with applications. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220183526_Model_and_representation_The_effect_of_visual_feedback_on_human_performance_in_a_color_picker_interface https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220183526_Model_and...
    • n8cpdx 4y ago
      This one looks pretty solid. There are loads of them. The demos I’ve seen all showcase live feedback. https://superguigui.github.io/simple-color-picker/ https://superguigui.github.io/simple-color-picker/ Compare to the best I can find for WPF: https://github.com/dsafa/wpf-color-picker https://github.com/dsafa/wpf-color-picker - no live feedback, dialog only, no documented support for modern .NET. There are some commercial controls available from syncfusion and the like if you want to pay for such things. Compare to color dialog in WinForms: https://github.com/Kinnara/ModernWpf/issues/72 https://github.com/Kinnara/ModernWpf/issues/72 WinUI has a decent color picker, but there are other trade offs going with WinUI that make it inferior to the web environment (e.g. broken rendering of SVG/paths).
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    This is evidenced by the layers of settings UIs in modern windows from old school systems properties dialog to newfangled display settings, and in between. It is horrible. They just bundle these UIs atop one another there is no overall usability oversight.
  • mdmglr 4y ago
    > Even Office and Visual Studio (not Code) are using web technologies to render substantial parts of the UI. Any more details on what web technologies are being used in Visual Studio and what parts of the UI are done with web?
    • pjmlp 4y ago
      You just have to peek into what is running as child process from VS, as node.exe instances. Mostly related to Web stuff, Blazor or VSCode plugins that they are "porting" into VS.
    • fuzzy2 4y ago
      The Diagnostic Tools window is implemented as a web view, probably since its introduction in… VS2017?. I’m not aware of any other GUI parts implemented using web technologies. Node.js processes are invisible backend stuff.
      • n8cpdx 4y ago
        This is what I was thinking of. Kind of a telling statement of Microsoft’s perception of WPF when they turn to WebView2 to render newer parts of the UI in their WPF app (which was never ported to WinRT, UWP, or WinUI). They didn’t even use XAML islands for the newer parts, they just jumped straight to web.
  • redbell 4y ago
    > This hasn’t been consistent since at least Vista Yes, I believe the Windows UI (at least until 10 since I haven't tested 11 deeply) is becoming increasingly inconsistent because of the many UI frameworks out there. And, while I understand that each app's developer is free to choose whatever framework UI they feel is right for them, I find it hard to understand why Microsoft is not sticking with a consistent framework for all of its apps, it went even far by using Electron for its Teams app! However, the thing that I might never get is: Why is Windows itself (and its system apps, i.e Calculator, Notepad) isn't sticking to a single framework? Yesterday, at night, I turned "Dark Mode" on and was surprised to see that "Task Manager" keeps its Light theme. It's weird how Notepad++ has a "Dark" theme while Task Manager has not! To "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", check https://youtu.be/hn5QjtpjW_U https://youtu.be/hn5QjtpjW_U
    • lozenge 4y ago
      I didn't think it's a good video. If Microsoft s latest apps don't have a consistent design, they have spent more money on designing each of them separately. Each of those hover effects and custom title bars needed to be coded separately. That undermines the idea that MS "hasn't prioritised spending on design because it won't help their enterprise customers" and shows it's just an organisational problem.
    • juki 4y ago
      The latest Windows 11 update just switched the task manager to the new UI style with support for dark theme.
  • pjmlp 4y ago
    Office is using web technologies because they don't want to rewrite their code for Office 365, so native users get the Web stuff on a Web widget instead of a proper native UI. Which is kind of tragic, given how Office was the testing ground for many Windows UI components.
    • desindol 4y ago
      What are you even talking about the only non native app in the office package is teams…
      • pjmlp 4y ago
        https://www.office.com/ https://www.office.com/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/javascript/api/office-ui-fabric-react https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/javascript/api/office-ui-f...
        • desindol 4y ago
          ????? Nobody is saying that there aren’t webviews in office I am saying that your statement that most of the desktop office ui is now non native is false and misleading. After reading your other comments in the thread it seems like more of a personal vendetta than factual statements. lmao
          • pjmlp 4y ago
            Nope, you're the one interpreting that way, I only mentioned that they are adopting Web stuff as means to reduce code duplication between Web and desktop, via Webviews exactly. So unless you're on the Office team and want to tell us anything, please do lmao.
            • desindol 4y ago
              • 4y ago
  • ama5322 4y ago
    > This hasn’t been consistent since at least Vista and the release of WPF, which does totally custom control rendering. Circa 2006. Ignoring 3rd party apps, to me the windows UI died with XP where the consistency stopped being somewhat pushed on the base OS/UX itself. Strictly speaking nobody cares what APIs are being used or if there are multiple of them as long as they convey a consistent UX. If a consistent UX is pushed on a system level, even custom apps will try to stick to it (see macos). But the sad truth is that on windows there is no longer one. W10 can show you dialogs from the windows 3.1 style up to a WPA, and you'll likely encounter a mixture all the time because there's no consistency. I sometimes watch retro hw channels and looking at windows from 3 to 2k reminds me the stark difference.
• c0mptonFP 4y ago
  > The problem: the web has a terrible UI toolkit for desktop apps. It has clickable links and basic forms, that's all I think you're not giving credit to the best part about the web: CSS. I've been programming GUIs with Java AWT, Swing, and Qt for years. Nothing comes close to CSS when it comes to defining layouts.
  • shrx 4y ago
    You can use CSS with JavaFX.
  • anonyme-honteux 4y ago
    I don't know I tried to understand CSS many times but never managed to get it: I'm a backend developer nowadays.
    • Sateeshm 4y ago
      Deep understanding of css can take years. But understanding boxmodel, flexbox and grid won't take long and is enough for must use cases.
  • szastamasta 4y ago
    I also spent quite some time building desktop and mobile apps (5, maybe 6 years) and also more than 10 years of building web apps and don’t really share this sentiment. My feeling is exactly opposite. CSS is messy and hacky way to build layouts (the famous “how to center a div”, etc.) while with UI toolkits it tends to be much more straightforward and standardized. (Edit: fixed a typo)
    • muspimerol 4y ago
      When is the last time you used CSS? "How to center a div" has not been an issue with CSS for many, many years. Flexbox and now CSS Grid have overwhelming adoption and most layouts can be achieved with a few lines of CSS.
      • 4y ago
• pronlover723 4y ago
  What are these common controls? Looking at this list: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/individual-control-info https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/ind... Animation -> video tag Button -> button tag Combobox -> select tag Date picker -> input type=date Time picker -> input type=time Edit -> input type=text or textarea Scroll bar -> Not needed, automatic Hot Key -> WAT? IP Address Control -> Is this really so common it needs a custom box? does it handle IPV6? List Box -> Not sure but making a list you can scroll through is trivial in HTML. you set a height of the container and mark it as overflow: auto. Done. Pager -> seems irrelevant on a browser Progress Bar -> progress tag Property Sheet -> N/A Rich Edit -> This was never good on Windows and it's also not good in HTML. In both cases if you want something that actually has a good UX you have to roll your own or find a library Rebar -> Flexbox/Grid Static Control -> most of HTML and far more easier to style SysLink -> anchor tag Tab -> trivial to implement in HTML but ok, maybe should be standardized? Task Dialog -> dialog tag Track Bar -> input type=range Tree View -> You can do this with nested detail tags. Not sure it's any more work (in fact I suspect less) than a tree view in C++ Up/Down Control -> input type="number" It seems all there are far more flexible. I don't really know which apps you're referring to but I feel like most of the windows apps I use are not using those default controls or if they are they've added heavy customization I'd see the one control missing most is menus
  • ohgodplsno 4y ago
    >List Box -> Not sure but making a list you can scroll through is trivial in HTML. you set a height of the container and mark it as overflow: auto. Done. As long as your list doesn't contain elements that are too complex, or has too many elements. Otherwise, you enter the world of lists with recycled items, and while Win32 and pretty much every other toolkit has it by default, and oh boy does the web suck at that.
  • dmitriid 4y ago
    It means that you've never really developed an actual app. And that you haven't ever thought about all the controls and layouts (with their complex interactions) even in the apps you use daily. No. Menu isn't "the one control". Menu is one of multitude of controls. Go ahead and try and implement a treeview correctly with nested details (including all the necessary keyboard interactions). Meanwhile treeviews have been a part of native UI kits since... the 80s perhaps? Oh, and since listviews are so "easy" in HTML, can I finally properly animate adding elements to one or removing elements? With height:auto? And without needing to redraw and re-layout the entire page? Right... Dialog tag? Does it keep keyboard focus inside the dialog, or do you have to write non-trivial amounts of JS to have this required accessibility feature? And so on and so forth. And those are just the most trivial things native UIs solved half a century ago.
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  I think you're not being very fair when it comes to web apps; I think they're a much lower barrier to entry in these days than native applications, especially if you want to target developers who will demand Windows, MacOS and Linux apps from day 0. There are no good cross-platform alternatives out there, with as big a pool of developers or as big an ecosystem. I mean webapps suck, cross-platform mobile apps suck, and native apps on both desktop and mobile are vastly superior and I will die on that hill. But I understand the tradeoff.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • pjerem 4y ago
    > I think they're a much lower barrier to entry in these days than native applications, especially if you want to target developers who will demand Windows, MacOS and Linux apps from day 0. Let's be honest, we had multiplatform apps well before desktop-web apps. We are in this situation because GAFAMs pushed very hard the paradigm of always connected web applications (because they had no control over applications running solely on your computer). And since they won this ideological battle, there is not any more investment on multiplatform toolkits. I really think that all of this is due to political reasons and it have never been about the superiority of the web technologies.
• _0w8t 4y ago
  Recently I needed to work with low-level Windows API and default controls. The experience was horrible. Windows GUI API after 30 years still does not provide any kind of a layout manager forcing to position everything manually on size changes. A trivial-sounding task like background image beneath controls required days of tries and many lines of code that looked like Voodoo practice than any rational programming. Then the code uses a custom title-bar that was necessary to update to support Windows 11 snap layout menu. It turned out in the initial release of Windows 11 it was impossible to get that and rounded corners around the application window. Windows relied on undocumented heuristics to infer the desired behavior and if their guess was wrong, one is out of luck. At least Microsoft added API to fix that in a later Windows 11 update. So it is not surprising that many applications just gave up on that and use WebUI. At least that works much more reliably and in the worst case one can look at the source code.
• acjohnson55 4y ago
  HTML+CSS started as basically a desktop publishing technology, but that's not the case anymore. There's fantastic support nowadays for building app experiences, from the perspective of layout and interactivity. Fair point on system-wide customization, although I really don't miss it. Maybe it's the experience of the web, but it no longer seems weird to me that apps have different design paradigms. But realistically, desktop hasn't had unified design since Java applications started becoming popular 20 years ago.
  • dmitriid 4y ago
    > There's fantastic support nowadays for building app experiences, from the perspective of layout and interactivity. As long as you, you know, do no complex layouts or interactivity. It's still a system for displaying static text documents, and no amount of lipstick can change that without re-doing the entire thing. If you think it's not the case, animate adding a height:auto element to a list without the browser needing to re-layout and redraw the entire page