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Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

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Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#41

Post by tester756 »

wolfi1 wrote: post #35
Panzerschrek wrote: post #11

Why it was necessary to rewrite start menu in React at all? Why rewriting what works fine?

my guess is many junior developers without guidance and perhaps a little vibe coding. could be that these new developers are not comfortable anymore with C++ and MFC so they use what they learned in their courses directed at web standards

Sounds like bullshit, I'd rather bet that Microsoft wanted to make some Cloud OS, web friendly thing and expected it to be as successful as Visual Studio Code

Also, I don't think that integrating react app into Windows is trivial

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#42

Post by stevetron »

I don't know anything about React. I used to do everything in C++, and I was really happy when I could do embedded projects in C instead of assembler.

With that said, I really like C#, even if I can't stand some of the directions it's grown into, and I think that the start menu could have been written in C#, WinForms, and have been far less troublesome.

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#43

Post by sureglymop »

chrisldgk wrote: post #31

People tend to forget that React != React-DOM (i.e. HTML). React is just a framework for declaratively defining components and reactivity, the end result can be whatever you want. That’s what react-native is for mobile apps, and as another commenter pointed out, in this case it was using React Native for Windows[1], which apparently calls native Windows APIs in the background. I like to jump on the MS hate train as m…

Agreed and it's an important distinction to bring up. There are some pretty cool projects that use react like that, e.g., vicinae [0]. And one can implement a different renderer for react, here is a tui renderer [1].

0: https://www.vicinae.com/ 1: https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#44

Post by replooda »

SR2Z wrote: post #20
replooda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. Are you an employed developer? If so, even if you have that much power over the flagship product of the company, that you can use it to pad your résumé, do you think the same happens at Microsoft? By all means, the bugs may speak of skill issues (or may not: there's also crunching, mandated AI... Who knows), but the Cloud-first, push-ads, force-account etc. enshittification is the implementation of a vision…

The ads pushing would be just as possible with a fully native start menu. Using React for it was probably done since it's just objectively easier and faster to tweak a React app than native components (see various folks complaining about WinUI).

I was addressing the concept of developers taking it upon themselves to rewrite the menu (in whatever; React is beside the point) in order not to seem redundant and to pad their résumés.

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#45

Post by throwaway270925 »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #6

Coca Cola famously improved its position when New Coke flopped and it reintroduced the original flavor as "Coca Cola Classic." If you can't make it better, make it worse, it seems.

I'd love a "Windows Classic" Release!

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#46

Post by sunaookami »

steviey19 wrote: post #2

Buried in this announcement about Windows 11 improvements is a fascinating admission: the Windows 11 Start menu has been built using React this entire time. Microsoft is now migrating it to their native WinUI3 framework to improve performance and reduce interaction latency. This explains a lot about why the Start menu has felt sluggish compared to Windows 10. The React → WinUI migration is the most technically intere…

It has not been built with React, the article is false and it's a typical statement meant to make you outraged. The "recommended" section in the start menu was built using React Native and renders into XAML, so as natve as it can get. WinUI changes nothing about this. It's very tiresome having to constantly debunk this because "journalists" are chasing cheap clicks instead of doing their job.

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#47

Post by ksec »

This is interesting timing.

Macbook Neo announced. It has been known a low cost MacBook will come, but I dont think anyone realistically think it was really going to be $599. And even $499 for Education. Now that it is real, how many new macOS user will Apple gain? Cooperate, Education and Business Sector have longed wanted an "affordable" Mac. There are plenty of organisations that are currently paying $499 or $599 for PC and would happily paid $699 for an Apple solution. Unforuntaly that product just didn't exist. Now it is here it will hit the M$ user most.

Unless Apple did something really stupid I could see Neo easily attract an additional 100M PC user across to the Mac.

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#49

Post by zuhsetaqi »

sunaookami wrote: post #46
steviey19 wrote: post #2

Buried in this announcement about Windows 11 improvements is a fascinating admission: the Windows 11 Start menu has been built using React this entire time. Microsoft is now migrating it to their native WinUI3 framework to improve performance and reduce interaction latency. This explains a lot about why the Start menu has felt sluggish compared to Windows 10. The React → WinUI migration is the most technically intere…

It has not been built with React, the article is false and it's a typical statement meant to make you outraged. The "recommended" section in the start menu was built using React Native and renders into XAML, so as natve as it can get. WinUI changes nothing about this. It's very tiresome having to constantly debunk this because "journalists" are chasing cheap clicks instead of doing their job.

Do you have a source for that?

Re: Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

#50

Post by userbinator »

sunaookami wrote: post #46
steviey19 wrote: post #2

Buried in this announcement about Windows 11 improvements is a fascinating admission: the Windows 11 Start menu has been built using React this entire time. Microsoft is now migrating it to their native WinUI3 framework to improve performance and reduce interaction latency. This explains a lot about why the Start menu has felt sluggish compared to Windows 10. The React → WinUI migration is the most technically intere…

It has not been built with React, the article is false and it's a typical statement meant to make you outraged. The "recommended" section in the start menu was built using React Native and renders into XAML, so as natve as it can get. WinUI changes nothing about this. It's very tiresome having to constantly debunk this because "journalists" are chasing cheap clicks instead of doing their job.

XAML I would not consider native; it's an XML-infested .NET-originated monstrosity. Win32 is native.
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