Windows native app development is a mess • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#251

Post by gib444 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #144

Again, unless you have existing Windows 8/10 applications that were written against WinRT, UAP or UWP[0], that make use of WinUI 2.0, forget about touching anything related to WinUI 3.0 or WinAppSDK, stay away from the marketing. Exception being the few APIs that have been introduced in Win32 that instead of COM, actually depend on WinRT like the new MIDI 2.0 or Windows ML. Keep using Win32, MFC (yes it is in a bette…

For non-Windows devs (from ChatGPT):

- Win32: The original Windows API (since the 90s). Still widely used.

- MFC: Old C++ wrapper around Win32. Ancient, but still maintained.

- WPF: .NET desktop UI framework (XAML-based). Still very relevant.

- WinForms: Simpler .NET UI toolkit. Old but stable.

- WinRT: A newer API layer meant to replace parts of Win32.

- UWP: Microsoft’s attempt at unified apps (desktop + tablet + phone).

- UAP: Basically early branding/terminology around UWP (rarely used now).

- WinUI 2: UI layer for UWP apps.

- WinUI 3: Meant to bring that UI system to desktop apps outside UWP.

- Windows App SDK: The “new unified” toolkit tying modern Windows APIs together.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#252

Post by jitl » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #232

ack_complete wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark mode for apps is a setting in the OS and a general expectation now, it's suboptimal to ship a new UI that doesn't support it. And, again, Win32 message boxes in your program will switch to dark mode whether you want them to or not. Win32 controls ignoring system colors goes much farther back than dark mode being introduced in Windows 10. The theming engine that broke a lot of that functionality was introduced in…

Only a very small minority of users actually care about dark mode. It is not a general expectation for software, as loud as those users may be on forums like this one.

On Apple platforms is very uncommon to find apps that only support light mode. The only one on my phone is the app for my old Chinese robot vacuum.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#253

Post by hermitcrab » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #59

This is quite timely as we need to write a simple UI for Windows (a few buttons, status, maybe a file menu). The main constraint is it must compile to a single binary (.exe) with no dependencies such as runtimes, DLLs, languages etc. It also needs to run on some older unsupported Windows systems, probably Windows >= 7, 32 bit. My first thought was MFC. Basic, fast, well understood. But then maybe WxWindows so we can…

Qt is compiled to a native .exe. It doesn't have a runtime. To give you a rough idea of size, I have 3 GUI application written using Qt/C++. The installers are 72 MB, 69 MB and 32 MB. The first 2 include a significant amount of documentation. I could probably get them a bit smaller if I really needed to.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#254

Post by tehologist » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

TCC supports win32 and is less than a meg download and as an added bonus supports linux very well thanks to wine.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#255

Post by tehologist » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:26 PM UTC

TCC is less than a meg to download supports win32 very well and as an added bonus created executables run fine under linux wine.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#256

Post by hermitcrab » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #210

irishcoffee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use Qt. Native, cross-platform, works like a champ.

Cross-platform and native never works well.

Nothing is perfect, but it works well in my experience.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#257

Post by jitl » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC

Rohansi wrote: post #190

NetMageSCW wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one suggesting using Windows Update to install new apps, they are suggesting the current .Net framework should be elevated to a first class Windows citizen and included with Windows installs and updated with Windows Update, and that seems like and obvious idea that should have been implemented when .Net Core became .Net.

.NET versions are not fully backwards compatible. Would you like every Windows install to ship with over ten versions of the .NET runtime?

We would like it to be good. Whichever way to achieve goodness - either be backwards compat, or ship all the stable versions, I don't care but the current situation is silly. Apple gets flack for this and that, but their UI toolkit situation is lightyears ahead; you just pick the OS version you want to target in your app build settings and it will work that way for everyone.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#258

Post by localuser13 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #232

ack_complete wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark mode for apps is a setting in the OS and a general expectation now, it's suboptimal to ship a new UI that doesn't support it. And, again, Win32 message boxes in your program will switch to dark mode whether you want them to or not. Win32 controls ignoring system colors goes much farther back than dark mode being introduced in Windows 10. The theming engine that broke a lot of that functionality was introduced in…

Only a very small minority of users actually care about dark mode. It is not a general expectation for software, as loud as those users may be on forums like this one.

And how do you know this? I decided to check myself, looked for dark mode statistics on android, and:

>Dark mode is used by 81.9% of 2,500 Android users on their phones, in apps, and in other situations. 9.9% alternate between the light and dark

So it's the other way around. Only a very small minority of users actually care about light mode.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#259

Post by exceptione » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:37 PM UTC

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #82

dgxyz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After bouncing around GUI toolkits (from win32 to SwiftUI) and web for 30 years I have simply run out of fucks. They all suck. Each in their own unique way. Apple aren't worth singling out - they are just their own special isolated variant of it.

But, why? It's been 30 years. You'd think somebody would have figured out how to make a decent GUI toolkit or framework.

AvaloniaUI + MVVM toolkit.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#260

Post by pjc50 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #227

I agree with all the comments here saying "stick with Win32" --- this is "a mess" that you can easily avoid. Speaking as a long-time Win32 programmer, the requirements for your app are doable in a few KB (yes, kilobytes --- my vague estimate is less than 8KB) standalone executable. This is how I arrived at that: Enumerating the machine’s displays and their bounds A few API calls. Probably a few hundred bytes. Placing…

If you don't want to spend quite so much time byte shaving, and you don't want to deal with memory safety or _UNICODE, you can do it in .Net Framework in half the time.