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Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

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

#281

Post by LarMachinarum »

Many here point out, and rightly so, what an abominable mess UI frameworks have been on Windows for quite a while.

That being said, I'd point out that the situation has been (and still is) unfortunately far from satisfying on the cross-platform and open-source side as well: GTK has also been a mess for quite long; Qt has - aside from the bloat - an increasingly repulsive licensing model for professional use (too bad the hopes from the early Nokia adoption days got smashed by MS mole Elop and the later owners of Qt), …

… and while there are some nice solutions for specific niches (e.g. Dear Imgui), the overall situation in general-purpose cross-platform native UI frameworks looks quite bleak and unsatisfying imho. There's a huge gaping opening for a permissive-licensed open-source cross-platform UI/Widgets framework that compiles to native, has a good set of widgets and gives access to Vulkan contexts for 3D rendering.

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

#282

Post by HumblyTossed »

Kerbiter wrote: post #260
solid_fuel wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I remember 4 or 5 different frameworks that were supposed to be the future of native UI on windows, but each one after WinForms was harder to use, slower, and less capable than what came before.

I disagree, WPF is quite good to use, and WinForms approach to keeping UI as code is quite moronic. I would say WPF is where it should've stopped.

WPF sucks. I rather like expressing the UI in code. Having to deal with so much XML (XaML) is annoying as fuck.

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

#283

Post by HumblyTossed »

pjmlp wrote: post #135
tough wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so microsoft gave up and the web won? swift ui apps have some webkit views like the app store, music app etc

What to expect when new interns have no clue about Windows, have been educated with macOS and ChromeOS, and the design team carries Apple devices? Windows 98 introduced Active Desktop, and still, not as many webviews all over the place. MSHTML was the first Electron.

Wasn't AD like one big security flaw after another?

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

#284

Post by whalesalad »

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…

Doesn't windows have like 10 different UI frameworks? Using windows 11 is like going to the natural history museum. Certain apps like MSC still look and feel like windows 2000, then you've got some of the metro influence stuff that is big and bold and blocky colors, and then you have the win11 stuff that is more modern but honestly just looks like lipstick on a pig (right click context menu is a perfect example, it looks modern but has limited functionality and so you do the show more button and yep you guessed it just shows the older style and more functional menu)

What a cluster.

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

#285

Post by LexiMax »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #269
LexiMax wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly? I was a web developer before I started delving into desktop development, so I don't really know a ton about XAML.

I used XAML a bit at an old job The coolest part was that it was baked into the .NET Framework installed on all newer Windows versions, so I could make a useful GUI app in like 30 KB. Those were the days... I hated that job though.

Everything I've ever heard about XAML from folks who have used it has been positive.

Seems to me like the kind of thing that was forgotten about due to being joined at the hip with Microsoft, not necessarily because it was a bad idea.

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

#286

Post by oniony »

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…

I do not think that has ever been true. Features in Office and other Microsoft products were always more advanced than what was possible in the SDKs. Third party UI toolkits would often fill the gaps until MS decided to allow everyone to use those features, often years later. I guess they did it to make Office feel fresh.

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

#287

Post by tracker1 »

LeFantome wrote: post #265
khmyznikov wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to develop Windows without Windows... All dev tools and the repository ecosystem designed to work under Windows.

Well, you can use Avalonia or UNO Platform on Linux or Mac and then deploy to Windows. UNO Platform is basically WinUI.

Mostly agreed... I'd love to see MS just ditch MAUI and/or otherwise buy out UNO or Avalonia and create a cross-platform XAML based UI library that works everywhere (including Linux). As far as Linux goes, they could just go with Gnome/GTK for underlying support... not sure if QT's license would be compatible at this point, MS mostly uses MIT for modern FLOSS.

Bonus points if it worked with C, C++ and Rust for those that want it in addition to .Net (C#).

I honestly think there's still too many old guard managers/exec at Microsoft to let that legitimately happen though. They're too busy trying to wrangle every last penny of value out of every Windows user along the way.

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

#288

Post by tracker1 »

mroche wrote: post #122
p_ing wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office is a completely separate team divorced from Windows proper. Unless Office deemed it wise to rewrite their UI, they're not going to do so (and it's a frankenstein of a Win32 UI). Office on Windows relies heavily on COM and other Win32-only libraries to function. I can't think of a valid reason to rewrite Office to that extent. They already have Office for the web and Mac Office; while not identical in features,…

> Outlook is the lone exception where that team decided to have Outlook for the web, Windows Outlook, and Mac Outlook be identical, so those are getting their rewrites with removal of Win32-specific features where applicable. I wish they didn't. Outlook on macOS is abysmal nowadays and I still find myself resorting to the legacy view just to change some settings that both iterations can read but only one exposes. I s…

I think that Outlook as an experience has become significantly worse as o254 has advanced... I understand some of the reasons, such as managing millions of inboxes vs a few dozen on a private server. That said, it's kind of a mess.

I used Thunderbird for years, mostly to keep my NNTP feeds going, at some point, my mailboxes corrupted between versions (the NNTP site I was using didn't work right anymore) and I just kind of gave up at that point. It was in the dark time, before the more recent resurgence of dev activity, but NNTP didn't seem to be even a tangential focus.

I'd love to see a relatively easy open-source server for mail+contacts+calender that allowed the level of visibility, management and sharing that Outlook+Exchange/o365 offers. Right now, I have some of that, but not nearly the same.

Edit: Also, really sick of getting meeting change notifications in Teams for a meeting that is months away... just leave any meeting notifications beyond today/tomorrow in outlook, I don't need them in my workgroup app.

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

#289

Post by tracker1 »

echelon wrote: post #91
nine_k wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apache Windows when? More seriously, a desktop UI toolkit is hardly a moat by now, especially a Windows toolkit, Windows having 3-4 very different look-and-feels mixed and shipped with the official distribution. OTOH security and stability are things that Windows critically depend on to stay on the laptops and desktops in medical, governmental, and financial institutions, and on devices of executives.

This feels like Windows itself is no longer producing enough growth for Microsoft relative to its other efforts. Even the enterprise sales lock-in isn't compelling enough for the cloud/AI-centric future Microsoft envisions. So Microsoft is slowly pulling resources that it can instead invest into Azure and AI and other high-growth business units. I don't watch Windows too closely. Have there been any other signals of…

Linux desktop share is up 20-35% in the past year, depending on sourcing. Still only 5-6% total for US at least, but definitely a shift. MS is almost definitely making more money for o365 and Azure than Windows (though I don't follow shareholder releases).

From google's ai result Windows ($25b) is 1/2 the size of Office (54.9b) and 1/3 the size of Azure ($75b) in terms of revenue.

Windows is definitely not the cash cow for Microsoft it once was.

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

#290

Post by CrimsonCape »

danzk wrote: post #276
bytefish wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's like saying "a UI toolkit for Rust" and then making all the Rust functions call into a java codebase haha.

I read through that github issue a few years ago and with a mix of surprise and disgust knew that I would not be learning WinUI.

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