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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

#81

Post by sirwhinesalot »

kstrauser wrote: post #78
Sammi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important thing the web standards get right is their insistence on never ever breaking backwards compatibility. HTML, CSS, and JS accumulate a lot of cruft, but they do move forward into the future without leaving anyone behind.

Flash was a web standard, albeit a closed one. Good luck opening a site with it today. The web has continually added and removed features. It is absolutely not perfectly backward compatible. It’s not even close.

Flash was never a web standard, what are you talking about? It was a commercial browser plugin developed by Macromedia and later Adobe.

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

#82

Post by tcfhgj »

cheschire wrote: post #71
tcfhgj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think only WinUI2 (deprecated) is an evolution of UWP (uses WinRT APIs). WinUI3 is something different.

WinUI 3 still supports WinRT. It ALSO supports more. It's an evolution of WinUI 2, not just a simple version bump, but also not a completely new tech. It's probably a closer evolution to go from WinUI 2 to 3 than it was to go from Angular 1 to 2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/winui3/... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/develop/platf...

> WinUI 3 still supports WinRT.

I think this is completely independent. You can simply use WinRT APIs, because Win32 Apps can use them now. WinUI3 apps are win32 apps.

> but also not a completely new tech.

Not sure about this. UWP APIs work out of the box. For WinUI3 you need the Windows App SDK, and it is much slower and heavy than UWP (out of curiosity I created a very simple app and it was fast just a few dozen kbs big)

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

#83

Post by pjmlp »

No one in Windows development community cares about WinUI, other than those with sunken costs that bought into the WinRT/UWP dream and now are stuck with a dead technology.

Too many burned bridges since Windows 8 came out.

If anything, this is Microsoft confirmation that they are unwilling to fix all the broken issues, and hoping the community will somehow still care.

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

#84

Post by DougN7 »

crinkly wrote: post #41
cheschire wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WinUI is an evolution of UWP which is an evolution of WinRT. WinUI has been around for years. MAUI is not exactly a competing product and is more about enabling cross platform UI development. Different intent. WinUI is actually ok tech. It’s evolved over the years through a few iterations, now on WinUI 3. Im mostly with you though. Until they rebuild the entire OS in it, including all of the administrative controls a…

Still writing win32 stuff like it’s 1995 here. We have bits of ATL/MFC hanging out which are throughly abandoned. I don’t trust WinUI at all. I was surprised, when I spoke to a former colleague, to find that an internal tool I wrote 25 years ago is still being maintained. Win32 as well.

MFC support is still in the latest Visual Studio, and it looks like ATL as well.

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

#85

Post by nine_k »

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 won't be surprised if there is an effort to rewrite MSO in something like Dart and WASM, and make it independent from any native toolkits altogether. Yes, to reproduce all of the Excel power, and make it available everywhere as a premium plan of O365.

Then Windows could pull a ChromeOS. The only place where a native UI is really needed is the lock / login screen; a tiny subset of any current UI toolkit would suffice.

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

#86

Post by pjmlp »

arunc wrote: post #55

> Alignment with Microsoft Goals > We are being thoughtful about resourcing. This effort is happening alongside other critical responsibilities like security, platform stability, and support for existing products. Our current focus is on foundational work that unlocks value for contributors and increase transparency. We are aligning this work with Microsoft’s broader business priorities to ensure long-term support an…

Yeah, WinUI has been a disaster.

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

#87

Post by pjmlp »

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…

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 the place on Windows 11.

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

#88

Post by pjmlp »

cheschire wrote: post #30
muhehe wrote: post #20

I already lost count how many UI frameworks are in windows. It looks like complete chaos and mess. I really wonder what they expect from open-sourcing it. Just to pretend how open they are? Or is there any real benefit to developers who target windows?

WinUI is an evolution of UWP which is an evolution of WinRT. WinUI has been around for years. MAUI is not exactly a competing product and is more about enabling cross platform UI development. Different intent. WinUI is actually ok tech. It’s evolved over the years through a few iterations, now on WinUI 3. Im mostly with you though. Until they rebuild the entire OS in it, including all of the administrative controls a…

Hardly an evolution, that is how it is sold, reality is something else, trailing behind UWP with half the tooling.

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

#89

Post by kstrauser »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #81
kstrauser wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash was a web standard, albeit a closed one. Good luck opening a site with it today. The web has continually added and removed features. It is absolutely not perfectly backward compatible. It’s not even close.

Flash was never a web standard, what are you talking about? It was a commercial browser plugin developed by Macromedia and later Adobe.

True, and at one point it had an installed base of like 90% of all browsers, and was incredibly common on all kinds of websites.

I said it was a closed standard, and I stand by that.

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

#90

Post by dh2022 »

DougN7 wrote: post #84
crinkly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still writing win32 stuff like it’s 1995 here. We have bits of ATL/MFC hanging out which are throughly abandoned. I don’t trust WinUI at all. I was surprised, when I spoke to a former colleague, to find that an internal tool I wrote 25 years ago is still being maintained. Win32 as well.

MFC support is still in the latest Visual Studio, and it looks like ATL as well.

I was surprised to see ATL/MFC received security updates such as Spectre mitigation. So there is still some support for these 30 year old components.
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