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Do you have thoughts and opinions on the various options for Windows desktop development? I would be curious to know, I am starting to work on a Windows desktop

Do you have thoughts and opinions on the various options for Windows desktop development? I would be curious to know, I am starting to work on a Windows desktop app. I am assuming that the first, MVP-style, attempt will be using Electron. But I am also wondering if Maui will end up being a better option, or if I will be able to have an excuse to use the Avalonia framework for F#

superchroma 3y ago
I think avalonia is much more promising than Maui as the latter seems to be kind of mythical in nature.
- catlover76 3y ago
  What do you mean? That you've never seen anything actually built in Maui even though people mention it?
  - superchroma 3y ago
    It seems not ready for commercial use, and perpetually not ready, which is unfortunate.
grumblingdev 3y ago
> the first, MVP-style, attempt will be using Electron. Good choice. If you want to stick to HTML...WebView2 is suppose to replace it, but it assumes your backend code is .NET or C++, instead of JS/Node.js. Microsoft Teams is using it. If you want to use native Windows UI components from JS code, then React Native for Windows is recommended. Facebook Messenger is using it. All approaches require C# or C++ modules to be used to interact with the Windows Platform. Or there is: https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge. The recommended approach is WinUI 3 which would involve C#/C++ and XAML. To SwiftUI/React/JetPack are called module-view-update (MVU). There is an MVU for C# called Comet. https://github.com/dotnet/Comet#key-concepts https://github.com/dotnet/Comet#key-concepts
- catlover76 3y ago
  Cool, thanks for this info. Seems like there are kind of many, many options, but none of them are particularly great.
  - grumblingdev 3y ago
    Just no obvious choice like every other platform.
asfarley 3y ago
I’ve been working on a complex desktop WPF application and I’m happy with the results.

superchroma 3y ago

I think avalonia is much more promising than Maui as the latter seems to be kind of mythical in nature.

catlover76 3y ago
What do you mean? That you've never seen anything actually built in Maui even though people mention it?
- superchroma 3y ago
  It seems not ready for commercial use, and perpetually not ready, which is unfortunate.

grumblingdev 3y ago

> the first, MVP-style, attempt will be using Electron. Good choice. If you want to stick to HTML...WebView2 is suppose to replace it, but it assumes your backend code is .NET or C++, instead of JS/Node.js. Microsoft Teams is using it. If you want to use native Windows UI components from JS code, then React Native for Windows is recommended. Facebook Messenger is using it. All approaches require C# or C++ modules to be used to interact with the Windows Platform. Or there is: https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge. The recommended approach is WinUI 3 which would involve C#/C++ and XAML. To SwiftUI/React/JetPack are called module-view-update (MVU). There is an MVU for C# called Comet. https://github.com/dotnet/Comet#key-concepts https://github.com/dotnet/Comet#key-concepts

catlover76 3y ago
Cool, thanks for this info. Seems like there are kind of many, many options, but none of them are particularly great.
- grumblingdev 3y ago
  Just no obvious choice like every other platform.

asfarley 3y ago

I’ve been working on a complex desktop WPF application and I’m happy with the results.