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The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

windowscentral.com

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Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#91

Post by wvenable »

LorenDB wrote: post #2

The main problem is that Microsoft is trying to use a WebView. If they really want a single cross-platform app, they should develop a native framework that will work everywhere instead of shoving everything into a web engine.

The web browser is a native cross-platform GUI framework that works everywhere -- including on the web. It's the best and most used cross-platform GUI framework that has ever existed. Why should Microsoft roll their own solution? Nobody has ever been able to make this work outside of the web browser.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#92

Post by recursive »

pc86 wrote: post #53
rektide wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vscode feels blitz fast. Which apps have you tried that feel slow?

Not compared to literally any non-Electron text editor. It's barely faster than native full IDEs.

Any? No.

It's pretty comparable to Sublime on this machine. There are some operations where VSC is even clearly faster.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#93

Post by wvenable »

gochi wrote: post #34
francisl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if its cumbersome, it's still a win-win for them to use it. The outlook app will be native desktop and mobile (except linux for now). Plus it will give the maui project more credibility, help grow its userbase. Make the framework better by providing a real world project for the maui team to benchmark, highlighting pain point, provide in-house feedback, feature request.

I would be interested to know from anyone at the Office/Outlook team why they went with what they did, and if they had any awareness of MAUI happening at all. Fully agree with the noted benefits, so any non-MAUI team insight would be really interesting

My guess would be that they're looking for parity with web apps. I have teams installed on my corporate desktop but I just use the web application any other time and it's... identical.

If you want an identical experience with identical code across the Web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux then there is only one solution.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#94

Post by wvenable »

timeon wrote: post #69
bitwize wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a native UI framework that enables seamless cross-platform deployment without extensive testing on each platform. Go ahead, I'll wait.

One would expect Microsoft puts Windows before cross-platform.

Microsoft no longer seems to be in the business of putting Windows first. Since they're completely out of the mobile market, they're always going to have be a cross-platform software company now. They want to sell software subscriptions and that requires going to where the users are.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#95

Post by LorenDB »

wvenable wrote: post #91
LorenDB wrote: post #2

The main problem is that Microsoft is trying to use a WebView. If they really want a single cross-platform app, they should develop a native framework that will work everywhere instead of shoving everything into a web engine.

The web browser is a native cross-platform GUI framework that works everywhere -- including on the web. It's the best and most used cross-platform GUI framework that has ever existed. Why should Microsoft roll their own solution? Nobody has ever been able to make this work outside of the web browser.

Wrong - I can use Qt and QML to make an app that compiles and runs, unmodified, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and others. It can even run on web with WASM. And I wouldn't call web apps "native" or "the best".

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#96

Post by wvenable »

ulfw wrote: post #72
bitwize wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a native UI framework that enables seamless cross-platform deployment without extensive testing on each platform. Go ahead, I'll wait.

There's two platforms. Two. Windows and MacOS. Let's not pretend there's dozens. Why does one have to jump through hoops for two simple platforms? Just write the UI code twice. It's not rocket science really. Same goes for Android/iOS.

There are 5 platforms Microsoft wants to support: Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, and Web.

These new Microsoft applications run on all these platforms identically across all these platforms and mostly with the same code.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#97

Post by skydhash »

jupp0r wrote: post #65
skydhash wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VS Code is primarily an editor, while JetBrains's products are IDEs. You can add extensions to make VS Code more an IDE. And I'd like to see benchmarks proving your point. If you're using VS Code as an editor, others like Sublime Text, Notepad++, Kate and TextMate make it seem very slow.

If your definition of IDE is that everything has to be done using menus and that it needs to be super slow, you are right. If you look at actual functionality then VSCode is as much of an IDE as Eclipse.

The actual slow part is the source code analysis (that is quite robust). Apart from that, I've never noticed any real slowness. I have an M1 MBA and WebStorm is quite responsive. I've not touched Eclipse since 2015, but I remember it was fast even then.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#98

Post by wvenable »

LorenDB wrote: post #95
wvenable wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web browser is a native cross-platform GUI framework that works everywhere -- including on the web. It's the best and most used cross-platform GUI framework that has ever existed. Why should Microsoft roll their own solution? Nobody has ever been able to make this work outside of the web browser.

Wrong - I can use Qt and QML to make an app that compiles and runs, unmodified, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and others. It can even run on web with WASM. And I wouldn't call web apps "native" or "the best".

Developers want to take their web applications and turn them into desktop applications, not the other way around. The web is the master platform.

Qt has had decades to win over this space and failed. Github slapped Chromium together with Nodejs and took over the entire market of cross platform GUI development overnight.

I might not like it but I understand it completely.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#99

Post by codethief »

tmikaeld wrote: post #30
mrcsharp wrote: post #25

I've switched to Thunderbird after hearing about this a couple of weeks ago. I simply do not want yet another WebView/Electron-based application on my machine. They feel slow and out of place compared to native applications. Microsoft, in the past 10 years, have failed to provide a good UI option for developers. WinForms is legacy. WPF is legacy. WinRT is dead. UWP is dead. MAUI is a mess. WinUI looks to be either ab…

The native views of thunderbird are wonderfully performant, especially when browsing thousands of e-mails in lists and sorting through them. I'd never be able to go back to scrolling with "skeleton rows" that's the web default because it can't render fast enough..

> The native views of thunderbird are wonderfully performant

Are we using the same Thunderbird? For me it feels rather sluggish.

Re: The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea

#100

Post by tanseydavid »

I seriously thought they were silently abandoning the desktop version of Outlook.

I have not been able to get it working again for more than a year, after setting up O365 account.

The attempts to get it working again involve MS-developed special utility program(s) -- but this has never fixed the problem for me.

I gave the problem to our IT support people. They tried but ultimately gave up and asked if I would just use the web-based Outlook instead. What was I going to do? Say, no?

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