How was it implemented? C#? C++?
Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
31–40 of 308 posts
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#32I hope this leads to having a native vertical taskbar, which has been absent in W11 despite being a taskbar feature dating back as early as Windows 98. Third-party tools have tried to reimplement it but it's either been by bastardizing the native W11 horizontal taskbar to be vertical (eg: Windhawk) or just restoring the old W10 taskbar code (eg: StartAllBack).
Is the Windows team even using WinUI for the native Win11 desktop UI? ;)
The Start Menu is apparently a React Native app, so I'm going to hazard a guess and just assume WinUI is built on top of React, and that the Start Menu at least is thus indeed built with WinUI. But it's also clear that some other parts aren't, so who knows what's what. I'm sure there are folks who spent time reverse engineering it all though who do.
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#33I already lost count how many UI frameworks are in windows. It looks like complete chaos and mess. I really wonder what they expect from open-sourcing it. Just to pretend how open they are? Or is there any real benefit to developers who target windows?
They probably started something new and shiny (Now with AI!) and want to get rid of the old baggage without causing too much of a user revolt (all dozens of them) ;)
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#34Even for Windows-only GUI software, it is much safer and sane to use cross-platform frameworks such as wxWidgets and Qt Widgets.
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#35I already lost count how many UI frameworks are in windows. It looks like complete chaos and mess. I really wonder what they expect from open-sourcing it. Just to pretend how open they are? Or is there any real benefit to developers who target windows?
WinUI is an evolution of UWP which is an evolution of WinRT. WinUI has been around for years. MAUI is not exactly a competing product and is more about enabling cross platform UI development. Different intent. WinUI is actually ok tech. It’s evolved over the years through a few iterations, now on WinUI 3. Im mostly with you though. Until they rebuild the entire OS in it, including all of the administrative controls a…
WinRT came out of UWP I think. UWP was their first attempt to move beyond .NET
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the Windows team even using WinUI for the native Win11 desktop UI? ;)
The Start Menu is apparently a React Native app, so I'm going to hazard a guess and just assume WinUI is built on top of React, and that the Start Menu at least is thus indeed built with WinUI. But it's also clear that some other parts aren't, so who knows what's what. I'm sure there are folks who spent time reverse engineering it all though who do.
WinUI is its own thing. The React Native stuff just shows that even Windows developers don't want to use WinUI.
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#37How was it implemented? C#? C++?
C++
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the Windows team even using WinUI for the native Win11 desktop UI? ;)
It's confusing what exactly 'WinUI' is, but does Explorer looks WinUI-ish. Parts of it at least.
Explorer uses XAML Islands. Parts of it are WinUI, while the rest is still Win32.
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
WinUI is an evolution of UWP which is an evolution of WinRT. WinUI has been around for years. MAUI is not exactly a competing product and is more about enabling cross platform UI development. Different intent. WinUI is actually ok tech. It’s evolved over the years through a few iterations, now on WinUI 3. Im mostly with you though. Until they rebuild the entire OS in it, including all of the administrative controls a…
WinRT came out of UWP I think. UWP was their first attempt to move beyond .NET
WinRT was windows 8. Remember the ARM-powered Surface RT had the same branding?
UWP came along in windows 10.
Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework
#40I already lost count how many UI frameworks are in windows. It looks like complete chaos and mess. I really wonder what they expect from open-sourcing it. Just to pretend how open they are? Or is there any real benefit to developers who target windows?
Just go for MFC FTW, it is in feature freeze but I will last probably for the next 20 years yet.