Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#231

Post by randomNumber7 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 7:57 AM UTC

gyulai wrote: post #147

pjmlp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt and VCL/FireMonkey are pretty much alive, as 3rd party .NET like Avalonia and Uno. Apple is also doing just fine. It is Microsoft that went south, as Satya apparently sees no value on Windows. Note the drama on XBox, the console not the Microsoft Games Studios brand, as suffering from the same lack of interest from Microsoft's management.

> Qt and VCL/FireMonkey are pretty much alive, as 3rd party .NET like Avalonia and Uno. Last time I looked into Uno, it seemed to me more like a mobile-first play (similar to Flutter), but maybe I missed something there. Qt is still joined at the hips with C++, and I'm finding it hard to imagine that the next generation of developers will go in for C++ over alternatives like Rust. There is a QML/JavaScript story. But…

> the next generation of developers will go in for C++ over alternatives like Rust.

The next generation will not choose a language that is even more cumbersome to use and ugly.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#232

Post by daemin » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

zigzag312 wrote: post #198

deaddodo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WinUI3 offers that, it's just not the recommended way of building+deploying. What you are looking for is "unpackaged, framework-dependent". This will build an application like an old-school WinAPI executable, one which expects the relevant DLLs to be installed on the host system (or distributed in the same directory).

Size of hello world app that includes relevant DLLs is over 150 MB. Which is almost like including a web engine. What I'm looking for is old-school AOT compiled executable where UI framework dependency is statically compiled and trimmed.

I know that these days a lot of game and application developers just render a custom UI to a 2d or 3d rendering device. I've been looking for a UI framework like that as I don't want to write my own, but so far most of them have been either web based or require their own mini-language and compilation step.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#233

Post by falcor84 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 8:56 AM UTC

For a second there I read it as "Windows 3.11's UI" and it got me really nostalgic. I wonder if it's been long enough that it's ready to be hip again now.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#234

Post by falcor84 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:00 AM UTC

sheepscreek wrote: post #106

michaelcampbell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> passionate losers This is unduly meanspirited. Your passion projects are not even considered to probably the vast majority of the world; that doesn't make you a loser. I have zero interest in the Win11 UI, and am even on board with the cynical view that this is purely a bean counter cost savings for MS rather than some benevolent outreach. But I respect the people that take this on and want to keep it going.

Thanks for calling it out. I get OPs passionate disdain for Microsoft but one must remember that the world is built on contributions from such people. Take the whole Linux and GNU ecosystem for example. We’d be lost without them. Maybe the biggest beneficiary will be AI/LLMs - which will become way better at creating Windows UX after this.

I don't know if that's quite what you meant, but I believe that this is the first time that I've heard of AIs being treated as a beneficiary and an "end" in themselves.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#235

Post by tonyhart7 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:03 AM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #95

paavohtl wrote: post #59

I am worried about the future of native UI technologies on Windows. Traditionally at least the developers of operating systems have eaten their own dogfood and have at least tried to implement well-performing & visually consistent native applications to serve as an example to others. Windows 11 has largely done the opposite. Windows has had minimal but perfectly functional native email and calendar apps at least sinc…

The issue I see with Windows 11's UI is they seem to focus too much on pushing new apps / features and not enough focus on catching up some of the older tools within Windows. Take for example the Control Panel which is a reskinned version of the same one that shipped with Windows 7. And I'm sure there are tools buried within the OS that probably date back to the 2000/XP days. Windows 11 looks great if you just look a…

I mean business or corpo world literally force microsoft to support backward compability

in fairness rewrite it from scratch is literally easier than supporting compability since dawn of times but they forced to do it

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#236

Post by steve1977 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #143

p_ing wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this question depends on the knowledge and quality of engineers working on the kernel and the overall Executive. These continue to evolve with more advanced technologies, like VBS or the future usermode endpoints for EDR and possibly anti-cheat, pushing those out of the kernel, which presumably requires kernel work. David Cutler is still there but working on other stuff, last I understood. That does lea…

Ironically, from his latest interview, he mentioned working on Linux on Azure racks that are actually repurposed XBoxes.

Cutler working on a UNIX-like system? Did hell just froze over and I missed it?

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#237

Post by steve1977 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:12 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #188

Ironic that they're opening up all the new crappy stuff, but not the good old stuff like Win32. Maybe they're scared of WINE?

Maybe there's no one there anymore who understands the source code? Guys like Russinovich are mostly focussing on Azure nowadays.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#238

Post by zigzag312 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:20 AM UTC

daemin wrote: post #232

zigzag312 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Size of hello world app that includes relevant DLLs is over 150 MB. Which is almost like including a web engine. What I'm looking for is old-school AOT compiled executable where UI framework dependency is statically compiled and trimmed.

I know that these days a lot of game and application developers just render a custom UI to a 2d or 3d rendering device. I've been looking for a UI framework like that as I don't want to write my own, but so far most of them have been either web based or require their own mini-language and compilation step.

You mean just self-drawn controls or also immediate mode GUI?

I haven't tried it, but there's ImGui.NET (or a bit easier ImGui.Forms) immediate mode GUI. Downside is no accessibility.

Avalonia uses Skia to draw controls, although it primarily uses XAML to define UI.

The issue with self-drawn controls is that creating such framework is a lot of work, so smaller projects often have issues with things like accessibility.

EDIT: Just did hello world test with ImGui.Forms. Self-contained AOT compiled result was 7 MB.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#239

Post by chiph » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 11:59 AM UTC

What I miss about UI development on Windows is the commitment to help me create applications that seamless blend in, and look like something that Microsoft themselves had created. The introduction of web technologies has allowed the visual language of the Windows experience to fragment. Not just because Microsoft hasn't kept older applications up to date (like the Control Panel), but also because the modern tooling isn't providing the libraries to match their style.

From memory, this first started during Vista, where 3rd party devs just weren't able to match the translucency of the new Aero UI. And the lack of articles being published by the MSDN group with titles like "Here's how you add this new feature to your app" with examples in C, C# and Visual Basic.

Re: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

#240

Post by FirmwareBurner » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 1:18 PM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #191

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the power struggles within Microsoft and the cut throat office politics That's most old large orgs who have been around for ~5 decades. Nothing special about Microsoft.

It’s as if it’s taught in business school or something, how to throw colleagues under the bus. I’ve seen it at every large corporation except for one. My take on why not ui? though is because they are so busy trying to justify saving their own skins. How could they possibly look outward into the future when they’re busy recreating lord of the flies?

>It’s as if it’s taught in business school or something, how to throw colleagues under the bus.

You're overreaching. Business school doesn't need to teach that, that's just human nature being driven by greed and survival of the fittest, the base blocks of capitalism.