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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

#301

Post by solarkraft »

LexiMax wrote: post #285
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dislike some superficial things about it (and some less superficial things about WPF), but a lot of the ideas around how properties are set are pretty cool to me!

Also how (IIRC) it’s compiled to pretty standard .NET view code (“partial”) you could extend in other parts of the app.

I’m still happy to have left it behind for the aforementioned, ecosystem & tooling reasons.

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

#302

Post by solarkraft »

LarMachinarum wrote: post #281

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…

People like to hate on Electron and React Native (because web bad!!!!) but tend to fail to realize there’s basically no alternative if you want to be platform flexible.

Microsoft could’ve made a real impact in this area with a great advantage to themselves, but both efforts I’m aware of were so half hearted they could never have worked out.

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

#303

Post by solarkraft »

sershe wrote: post #298

Cool, I always wanted to have a non-movable toolbar in all my software, I miss 1997.

It’s kind of wild how much less flexible and powerful software has become, while (it seems) not becoming much less buggy either.

I suppose this coincides with software development becoming much cheaper.

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

#304

Post by michaelcampbell »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #212
tough wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if that contribution benefits me personally in any way whatsoever?

That’s great for you, but don’t underestimate the asymmetric value here. You’re giving them free labour, and they get _way more_ out of that than you do - especially in aggregate.

And? If I get value, I get value. If someone else gets MORE value, that doesn't diminish the value _I_ get.

Viewing ones gains only through the lens of how it affects others seems like a hard way to live.

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

#305

Post by michaelcampbell »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #221
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.

>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…

People do what they want to do, and might get enjoyment out of it. It can be as simple as that. That MS gets benefit from it, sure, and that's probably even their goal, but to say "I'm not going to do a thing that I enjoy, just because someone else might get benefit from it" is just a spiteful, mercenary way to go through life. If that's what keeps you going though, more power to you.

> No it's not? It's accurate.

Ah, that settles it then I guess.

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

#306

Post by qwertfisch »

LexiMax wrote: post #259
pxoe wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's done when you're not visiting old control panel anymore. I wonder what people are even doing regularly enough in control panel for that to be such a problem.

I don't use them terribly often, but one thing that old control panel windows did was pack a lot of information into a small amount of space. Device Manager has that nice tree setup allowing me to see problematic devices a lot quicker. Drive management has that nice table of physical devices on the top and then partitions on the bottom. The old-school network adapter page shows me every network device in a single win…

Funny, I recently wanted to uninstall a bunch of fonts I tested for programming. Turns out, in the new font settings widget you cannot uninstall all fonts or even all styles of a font at once. I would have needed to select a font, then click "Uninstall" for the bold style, the semibold style, the medium style, the italic bold style etc.

Opening \Windows\Fonts instead gives you a nice view of all fonts, you Ctrl-select all you want, right click, uninstall, done.

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

#307

Post by zem »

LexiMax wrote: post #262
pjmlp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the WinUI community calls, I would assert all new employees have zero Windows experience and management doesn't care to give them proper skills. Too many questions that any Windows developer would know why the question was being asked, where they either couldn't answer or had puzzled looks on why the questions were being asked in first place. That is also a reason why now there are Webview2 instances all over th…

> That is also a reason why now there are Webview2 instances all over the place on Windows 11. I can't help but feel like there is a happy median between Native UI and WebUI that we haven't quite figured out yet. In the gaming space there is this library called RMLUI that I have used in anger quite a bit. It gives you something that is shaped a lot like HTML and CSS, but with a built-in data binding layer, and a scri…

RMLUI looks neat! closest I've seen to an open source sciter alternative.

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

#308

Post by whoknowsidont »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #305
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…

People do what they want to do, and might get enjoyment out of it. It can be as simple as that. That MS gets benefit from it, sure, and that's probably even their goal, but to say "I'm not going to do a thing that I enjoy, just because someone else might get benefit from it" is just a spiteful, mercenary way to go through life. If that's what keeps you going though, more power to you. > No it's not? It's accurate. Ah…

I think you're missing a few steps there buddy.
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