What does Microsoft use?
If Teams, Office, and VS Code are any indicators it is web-based technologies:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/4-...
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office-is-now-mic...
Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
21–30 of 107 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#22Qt: Not only do you also get builds for Mac and linux, but everytime MS updates .NET the Qt framework supports these changes so you don't have to.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#23Qt: Not only do you also get builds for Mac and linux, but everytime MS updates .NET the Qt framework supports these changes so you don't have to.
Qt Widgets, unless you need a really quick turnaround time. Just beware the commercial license, apparently it can't be used with FOSS.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#24Microsoft is using React Native for Windows [0] for their Office applications [1]. As a fan of RN this would be the first avenue I’d explore if I had to develop something for Windows.
[0] https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/ [1] https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/resources-s...
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#25WinUI 3
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#26Without more details, this is the way to get the most native Windows 11 look and feel: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/winui3/ Disclosure: I work at Microsoft on a team that works on visual look and feel for Windows.
It's a shame that, unlike with Win32, using WinUI places pretty harsh restrictions on which programming languages and environments you can use. Only C# and C++ are supported, the latter only with Microsoft compilers. For everything else, including Rust[1], Python and MinGW C/C++, there is no answer for OP's question, and the effect of this on the visual consistency of the Windows desktop is obvious - there is none. Every third-party app uses a different toolkit with a different look and feel, because the library providing the standard look and feel simply isn't available to the majority of developers.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#27I will say it without fear: nothing beats electron in beauty and eye candy. You have the entire HTML5/CSS3 at your disposal.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#28Ignoring your question about most native look and feel, I'm curious why Electron is still being suggested when Tauri exists
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#29MFC never went away. And you can target winNT all the way to win11
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?
#30Microsoft is using React Native for Windows [0] for their Office applications [1]. As a fan of RN this would be the first avenue I’d explore if I had to develop something for Windows. [0] https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/ [1] https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/resources-s...
This is a bit misleading. Only minor parts of Office are built with React Native, not the whole thing.