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Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

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Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#391

Post by pjmlp »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #332
pjmlp wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple products are so compelling why are so many devs using Electron, React Native and Flutter on macOS, to the point it deserved being mentioned at WWDC 2025 State of the Nation Keynote? My point was don't throw stones when having a big glass roof as well. Apple isn't the perfection you make out to be, also has a rich history of failures, and only did not went bankrupt due to sheer luck of doing the right decisio…

> If Apple products are so compelling why are so many devs using Electron, React Native and Flutter on macOS That is not how the decision making for cross-platform works. You choose those alternatives knowing that they are crap in many respects, yet accept the trade offs because you want to save money on dev hours.

The whole point was the greatness of Apple platform.

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#392

Post by pjmlp »

tantalor wrote: post #375
pjmlp wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple products are so compelling why are so many devs using Electron, React Native and Flutter on macOS, to the point it deserved being mentioned at WWDC 2025 State of the Nation Keynote? My point was don't throw stones when having a big glass roof as well. Apple isn't the perfection you make out to be, also has a rich history of failures, and only did not went bankrupt due to sheer luck of doing the right decisio…

They use React Native and Flutter because they want to target more than just MacOS/iOS

Meaning they don't worship Apple UIs as the ultimate design?

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#393

Post by cogman10 »

ZuLuuuuuu wrote: post #342

2 things Microsoft failed to do in the last 15 years are: 1) They abandoned their mobile phone, tablet, and wearable strategy. So, today if you develop a native Windows application, it will only work on desktops and laptops. That is it. It is not attractive for a developer to learn a whole new UI framework just to target a single form factor. And I don't know if there is any solution for this at this point, they shou…

Yeah, a striking difference between windows and linux at this point is that the linux UI frameworks are hyper stable. If I want to make a linux desktop app, I'll choose QT or GTK. Heck, if I want to make a windows and macOS app, I'll probably choose QT or GTK.

What do I chose with Windows? Who knows. It literally changes every time I look into it.

That's just insane.

It's gotten so bad that probably the right way to do a modern windows desktop app is react native. At least you could predict that it will stay up to date with the ever shifting decisions at MS to create and abandon UI frameworks.

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#394

Post by Surac »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #76

I very much dislike WPF. If I have to do a windows UI (and usually when I do it's a simulator for some piece of hardware), I honestly just grab WinForms. It's stupid simple.

Same here. Also the benefit of a visual Editor in Visual Studio is just Premium. Windows.forms also allow all those „modern“. Takes on ui either with ownerdraw or some grids/hand layouting.

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#395

Post by moogly »

d--b wrote: post #157

> WPF shipped in late 2006. It was remarkable – XAML, hardware-accelerated rendering, real data binding. If Microsoft had made it the definitive answer and invested relentlessly, the story might have ended differently. Er… The author perhaps never used it? WPF was the worst framework I ever used. It was unbearably verbose, brutally unforgiving, used 2-way bindings that created updating nightmares, ans not the least i…

> XAML

This is the common thread of all their frameworks since, and in my mind the reason they are stuck in an absolute quagmire. For a while it was possible to use HTML/JS in UWP (I think), but it didn't stick due to everyone already needing to move over their LOB apps with crazy amounts of XAML so that's what the focus was on.

"Hey, let's make something that's vaguely HTML but not really at all."

Big mistake.

Avalonia and Uno are repeating that mistake, even though with Uno, at least, there's a blessed way to do unidirectional data flow/reactive stuff.

Two-way data binding is the devil.

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#397

Post by ptaffs »

MichaelRo wrote: post #387
shiandow wrote: post #277

What I find must puzzling is that everyone seems to just be violating basic rules that had been in place for ages. Things like: - If you can't respond to a UI event wait until you can - Menus should be tree structures - Pressing alt should underline the hotkeys you need to access anything clickable As well as just basic responsiveness or predictability. A 2000 era windows application may not have been pretty, and may…

Well, Alt+Tab in Windows is supposed to switch windows. That's unless you're in Microsoft Edge where obviously, it switches tabs. Inconsistent and annoying.

Browser tabs are the fault here and browsers are trying to be OS environment, so Alt+Tab is useful for major task switching. I agree it's inconsistent and annoying, but I like Alt+Tab as a way to try to find the window I'm writing that email to someone.

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#398

Post by hypercube33 »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #309

Desktop, especially Windows, is such a mess. It's 2026. We're running 8+ cores and 32gb ram as standard. We can run super realistic video games at high frame-rates. Yet on the same machine, resizing a window with rectangles in it is laggy on every platform except macOS (where there's a chance it's not laggy).

4-6 cores and 8GB standard* 8 Cores and 32GB+ is the higher end.

Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold

#399

Post by sirjaz »

The biggest issue in my opinion is that Microsoft is chasing web devs. XAML is pita, just like css and html markup. They need to pick a lane and just use it. Allow other frameworks access to the default low level api such as Win32, but document it to the same level as Google does on Android and Apple with SwiftUI
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