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Windows native app development is a mess

domenic.me

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Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#421

Post by ladyanita22 »

steve1977 wrote: post #384
apatheticonion wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Win32 to write a UI in Windows is like pulling teeth. There are bindings for Rust but even still it's a nightmare. MacOS is slightly better but Apple's anti-competitive practices targeting developers makes it a tough sell. Linux is better still, technically, but due to the fragmented desktop environment landscape and distribution difficulties, it's also a hard sell. I think it's fair to say that the entire stor…

Linux as such has no UI - which framework specifically were you thinking of?

Qt or GTK

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#422

Post by paulddraper »

gzread wrote: post #215
paulddraper wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming with GUIs?

Why wouldn't you program a GUI with a GUI if one is available? Avoiding the use of WYSIWYG editors when making GUIs is like avoiding the use of musical instruments when writing songs.

> Avoiding the use of WYSIWYG editors when making GUIs is like avoiding the use of musical instruments when writing songs.

And yet, most songwriters write the song, they don't record themselves playing notes.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#423

Post by paulddraper »

dcrazy wrote: post #217
paulddraper wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming with GUIs?

Yes, generations of Mac and Windows programmers have used GUIs to create their GUIs. Visual Basic, MFC + App Studio, .NET + WinForms, Interface Builder…

Given that the initial comment was complaining about a status quo, citing a status quo is an odd defense.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#424

Post by SirMaster »

ack_complete wrote: post #181
pjc50 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winforms is great until you try to make windows dynamically sized, or deal with DPI nicely. In every other regard it's still fine, and for accessibility actually _better_ than many subsequent frameworks. And produces nice small fast executables.

Or, unless they've changed it, hardware accelerated rendering. Winforms was based on System.Drawing, which used GDI+, which was largely software rendering. This was confusing because GDI+ was not really related to GDI, which had and still does retain some hardware acceleration support. Even basic color fills start becoming an issue with a big window/monitor. Winforms is also .NET based, so it's inaccessible if you do…

DevExpress has many advanced Winforms controls that are all GPU accelerated and super fast. So Winforms can certainly do GPU acceleration.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#425

Post by SirMaster »

domenicd wrote: post #308
TheJoeMan wrote: post #150

I’m still confused which frameworks are tied to which “visuals”. Ignoring the web-frameworks, do Win32 apps inherently look like Windows XP buttons or can they look more modern? It might be nice if the article could add screenshots, a few of the Wikipedia links have a screenshot, but again I’m not sure if you’re limited to that UI or not. I also like the carousel in the article showing the tray menus, but again not s…

From what I understand, Win32/MFC/WinForms inherently are stuck around Vista visuals, with no dark mode support. Win32/MFC also have no high-DPI support, so you get gross upscaling. (WinForms supposedly has some support for high DPI, but with many open issues. [1]) Now, I'm not 100% sure, since there are so many commenters in this thread saying "just use Win32/MFC like a real man". (Most of them ignoring the memory s…

>with no dark mode support.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/wh...

"Dark mode Windows Forms has fully integrated dark mode support.

Windows Forms for .NET 9 introduced preliminary dark mode visual styling, but in an opt-in preview mode where you had to suppress Compiler Error WFO5001 to use the feature. This feature is no longer guarded behind this compiler error starting with .NET 10.

The Application.SetColorMode(SystemColorMode) API is no longer considered experimental."

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#426

Post by SirMaster »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #77

I write .NET Framework 4.8 apps. And I will until .NET has an actual support lifetime. 4.8 will still be supported and receiving security updates in ten years, .NET 10 will be gone in 2. Hobby projects should not be built on a platform that is constantly changing underneath.

>.NET 10 will be gone in 2.

To be fair it's been super simple to upgrade .NET versions the last few versions especially.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#427

Post by philistine »

leptons wrote: post #391
philistine wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sane alternative is macOS because there is one thing that Windows lacks; a community. Since 1984, there have been boutique developers who have spent their whole career working on macOS, making it better and living the dream of working on consumer software. When I look at the apps on Windows, all I see are abandoned projects and MVPs with a borderline malware financial structure.

"Developers, Developers, Developers!" - Steve Balmer Microsoft has always had vastly more developers and development of software for Windows. Apple still after all these years has a tiny market share of overall platforms, software, all of it really. Not sure how you can suggest Apple is somehow the bastion of software development. If you write mac software, you'll be targeting a platform with 15-20% market share at b…

Isn't software development about making money? On phones, if you want to make money you have to target iOS, since this is where you have the people with money to spend on software. Do you believe that the vastly larger installed base of Windows guarantees more money for everyone?

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#428

Post by HackerThemAll »

Unpopular opinion: FreePascal is perfectly capable of all that and produces tiny native executables. Their clone of Delphi's Visual Component Library - Free Component Library - is rich in features and don't change every year like those Microsoft toolkits.

I needed recently to make an exe that would work on anything from 32-bit Windows 95 up to and including Windows 11 (to accommodate some old machines on production lines), and the only language that made that easily achievable was FreePascal. I think it can also handle the older Windows NT if that is a requirement. There are lots of architectures supported with a single code base.

But for many the Pascal language is just to be laughed upon. Well, I make fast money using it and laugh from JavaScript.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#429

Post by ocdtrekkie »

SirMaster wrote: post #426
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #77

I write .NET Framework 4.8 apps. And I will until .NET has an actual support lifetime. 4.8 will still be supported and receiving security updates in ten years, .NET 10 will be gone in 2. Hobby projects should not be built on a platform that is constantly changing underneath.

>.NET 10 will be gone in 2. To be fair it's been super simple to upgrade .NET versions the last few versions especially.

Then why are they separate versions? I've got like five modernish .NET runtimes installed on my machine, half are unsupported, and there's no way to identify which ones are still needed.

Meanwhile 4.8.1 is built int Windows and supports apps written over like the past fifteen years. Why wouldn't anyone just use that?

I'm sure modern .NET has some nice things but the release model is not one of them.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#430

Post by TheJoeMan »

domenicd wrote: post #308
TheJoeMan wrote: post #150

I’m still confused which frameworks are tied to which “visuals”. Ignoring the web-frameworks, do Win32 apps inherently look like Windows XP buttons or can they look more modern? It might be nice if the article could add screenshots, a few of the Wikipedia links have a screenshot, but again I’m not sure if you’re limited to that UI or not. I also like the carousel in the article showing the tray menus, but again not s…

From what I understand, Win32/MFC/WinForms inherently are stuck around Vista visuals, with no dark mode support. Win32/MFC also have no high-DPI support, so you get gross upscaling. (WinForms supposedly has some support for high DPI, but with many open issues. [1]) Now, I'm not 100% sure, since there are so many commenters in this thread saying "just use Win32/MFC like a real man". (Most of them ignoring the memory s…

I think that would be a great article! For your specific app, I can see how the "super modern" sparse UI fits nicely, since the controls are nice and simple. However, for a more involved app knowing what possibilities there are to get the Windows 10 look would be nice.
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