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

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

#271

Post by daemin » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

zigzag312 wrote: post #238

daemin wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Within game development it is predominantly immediate mode as it more closely resembles the main game loop. With other applications I'm not sure, some I know just use ImGui and run an immediate mode UI, others would be retained mode.

In my case I'm looking for a C++ UI library, not .Net. Also not a fan of immediate mode GUIs either, so would want something more traditional.

I don't want to write my own, so will probably try Qt again, but might switch to a custom library in time.

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

#272

Post by r_lee » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

pjjpo wrote: post #225

whoknowsidont wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is unduly meanspirited. No it's not? It's accurate. >Your passion projects are not even considered to probably the vast majority of the world; that doesn't make you a loser. A Windows UI project is not a "passion project" and the only """person""" that really benefits here is Microsoft. >But I respect the people that take this on and want to keep it going. Contribute to something else that doesn't only help the…

It's sad how OSS enables predatory practices by the mega corps. It's definitely not just Microsoft, Google, Amazon at least also behave the same way, and the worst part is how the audience is captive - if they're stuck on any platform (since all the platform owners behave the same way), despite paying for it, the only way to fix broken parts of the platform is to fix it yourself. For any time a legitimate bug gets a…

My favorite one was when the docs and helm template of Grafana was broken and I sent an email about it, I was told that they only have a single person working on the docs and that they were out of office, and that I would be free to do a PR

Then I learnt that this company is valued at >$6 Billion

I don't get it.

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

#273

Post by Austizzle » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:01 PM UTC

specproc wrote: post #195

I get there are old people and stuff, but why should anyone consider Windows these days?

Lots of games don't run on Mac or Linux

Others, like adobe software, only run on Mac or windows

Windows computers are generally cheaper than macs for the same hardware

Plenty of stuff annoys me about windows, but for now it's still what I end up going with every time I need a new computer

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

#274

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC

LeFantome wrote: post #216

dehrmann wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but for how long? At some point, IT realizes everything's in the browser, and general-purpose computing is a security risk.

It will be a long time before Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, and Excel are not important enough to enterprises to justify the Microsoft subscription. And Visual Studio is still a huge part of the Microsoft capture strategy. Microsoft is working on separating all of the above from Windows without losing too much control but it is going to take a while.

> Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, and Excel

Exchange should be SaaS for 99% of businesses. There's a web version of Excel that's probably OK-ish. I'm not sure what Active Directory looks like in a world without Windows.

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

#275

Post by octo888 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:26 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #228

octo888 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely thought a lot of these sibling comments were satire at first! The acronyms, the lengthy and confused explanations of versions, frameworks etc: > WinUI is an evolution of UWP which is an evolution of WinRT > WinUI 3 > WinUI 3 still supports WinRT > XAML > Shell UI > Avalon > WPF > WPF = WinUI 1.0 > Project Reunion > UWP > Win2D > ATL/MFC > Just go for MFC FTW > wxWidgets as it is kinda MFC-y > Or go with Q…

I can produce similar lists on other domains in the industry, it is a matter of being part of the ecosystem.

OK but stick to the UI framework domain for a fairer comparison. (We all know tech has acronyms)

So what you got?

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

#276

Post by danzk » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 12:13 AM UTC

bytefish wrote: post #98

pjmlp wrote: post #83

No one in Windows development community cares about WinUI, other than those with sunken costs that bought into the WinRT/UWP dream and now are stuck with a dead technology. Too many burned bridges since Windows 8 came out. If anything, this is Microsoft confirmation that they are unwilling to fix all the broken issues, and hoping the community will somehow still care.

This. Also DevExpress and Progress Telerik do not invest into their WinUI Controls at all, and that’s a sign they don’t buy into WinUI neither. WinForms and WPF are currently the only viable frameworks for Line of Business application. I have yet to see a WinUI3 application in the wild.

DevExpress supported WinUI for a little while but decided to abandon support.

One of the biggest problems with WinUI compared to WPF is that DependencyProroperty is implemented as native code, so for .NET developers, there is a huge performance penalty getting or setting any property on control.

https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/1633#i...

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

#277

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 2:51 AM UTC

esseph wrote: post #268

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Azure have to do with windows these days?

Windows is still enforced and mandated on most corporate Fortune 100/500 companies computers. Their "cloud lift" consists of putting vms into the cloud to run at 10x the cost. (Nothing else changed from The Old Ways) And that's still where we are today for most enterprises. That ecosystem has had them for 30+ years and shows no signs of going away anytime soon. If it doesn't have Active Directory and Office 365 or wh…

Still not seeing the connection to Azure.

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

#278

Post by deaddodo » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 3:04 AM UTC

badsectoracula wrote: post #210

deaddodo wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QT uses native controls/widgets, it just polyfills when there is no good native option or if you use custom styling.

No, it implements its own functionality. As an example consider one of the most basic controls which is available pretty much everywhere (i.e. no need for polyfill), the push button: the source code[0] for QPushButton clearly implements the behavior itself, it does not rely on any native button. Compare with wxWidgets' equivalent to QPushButton, wxButton, where there is a backend-specific header[1] and implementation…

I don't even need to dig through the paint loop. I've written QT software, and you can do it yourself.

Add a QButton with no styling, you will have a standard button widget in macOS and Windows (or a KDE styled one in Linux). Now have an event that modifies the button in some way (adding a CSS style to it is common, but also changing the sizing manually will usually do it) and the style of the button will immediately change to a QT-style one. The difference is so obvious in Windows and macOS, that it would be laughable to claim otherwise; but you can also just ask the QT Group devs or the community, they've reiterated/experienced this behavior plenty of times.

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

#279

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 6:16 AM UTC

octo888 wrote: post #275

pjmlp wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can produce similar lists on other domains in the industry, it is a matter of being part of the ecosystem.

OK but stick to the UI framework domain for a fairer comparison. (We all know tech has acronyms) So what you got?

Replace the Microsoft specific terms of those examples with,

- kexts

- Cocoa

- UIKit

- Carbon

- SwiftUI

- MSL

- XPC

- ARC

- plist

- CoreData

- CloudKit

- SpriteKit

- SceneKit

- RealityKit

Do you think anyone that never bothered with Apple's developer ecosystem has any clue of those names are for?

And that is a very small overview.

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

#280

Post by AraceliHarker » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 8:44 AM UTC

Microsoft probably has no interest in WinUI anymore and intends to replace it with WebView, which is why they're making it 'open source.' Microsoft's open source is literally a graveyard.