Is WPF getting outdated with arrival of WinUI-3? [closed]

Question

Is WPF getting outdated with arrival of WinUI-3?

When it comes to Desktop Application development, Is it about time to migrate to WinUI-3 completely leaving behind WinForm/WPF legacy ??

Pantin

@Peregrine this question is a poor fit over there for the same reasons as here. Please abstain of recommending sites you're not familiar with. See What goes on Software Engineering (previously known as Programmers)? A guide for Stack Overflow – Denotation

@jrk There have been people saying that WPF is outdated for at least 10 years, and yet it's still here. Hence, any answer is nothing but opinion. – Trishtrisha

To add to UI confusion more, there MAUI now.... phew ! ... why can't there be some universal standard for UIs? – Pantin

@Pantin I have to admit my previous comment was premature. Upon getting deeper into WinUI 3, we are finding too many quirky issues and bugs. Manipulating/deriving XAML controls in code-behind produces unexpected behavior, Style.Triggers is not supported with only alternative to override ControlTemplates for simplest of things, ThemeResources not working as expected, etc etc etc. The learning resources are scarce and the GitHub boards are also not responsive. I think it will take at least 1-2 years for it to be "really" production-ready. We're sticking with WPF. – Visceral

@Pantin Also - there is no XAML designer, and the hotreload does not work consistently. Hit testing is extremely limited/buggy and DrawingVisuals are not supported having to rely on the heavy and isolated Composition libraries or seemingly abandoned Win2D, and since we have a diagramming app, this is a deal-breaker. Microsoft has focused too much on the touch-friendliness, multi-device, visual beautification aspects at the cost of basic robust functionality it seems. Hopefully, they will realize the mistakes and fix them. – Visceral

Another point to make is that, WinUI3 does not support 'run as Administrator' even though the templates says "Desktop". This feature is coming in WinUI 1.1 apparently but that just shows that this framework may not be mature enough to switch especially for desktop apps. I have no idea why it does not support elevation from day 1 if it's meant to for Desktop apps but that's a different story. At my company we may need to switch back to WPF just for that single reason which is a shame but what can you do. – Hidalgo

Answer 1

This WinUI 3.0 will not obsolete WinForms and WPF at all. Yes, .NET Framework 4.8 will be the last version of .NET Framework, but since we now have WinForms and WPF continuously developed on top of .NET Core, we should not worry.

These are the reasons: (and I think it's proven that WPF and WinForms aren't obsoleted)

1. WinForms and WPF are actively developed and supported on top of .NET Core since .NET Core 3.0. In .NET 5.0, we have full WinForms designer support in Visual Studio 2019 since 16.8.x, not just WPF on .NET Core since 16.7.x
2. Microsoft is in the development of evolving Windows desktop application development under one ambitious initiative as technology called Project Reunion. Project Reunion is open source on GitHub. The evolving Windows desktop app also means including WinForms and WPF as well.

See also the Project Reunion README: https://github.com/microsoft/ProjectReunion/blob/main/README.md

NOTE: The Project Reunion is also the umbrella of other Windows desktop UI initiatives/technologies such as WinUI 3.0, XamlIslands, UWP, and many more.

Jura

It will not get removed but it is said time after time that all others technologies (except WinUI 2.6 aka UWP) are going into maintenance mode and you will have to switch to this unified technology. Of course base technologies like compositor who are required to coordinate the current WHND world with the CoreWindow world will be improved for the next 20 years. The WinForms and WPF will not get any feature update just like my MFC i had to use for so long time. At least finally there is a valid replacement technology. Halleluja. – Chilton

PlayStations+ ,Hololens, 3DPrinting, MobilePhones( shopping ), desktop applications then is the administrator mode while these platform devices is the UserAccountControl ; so the framework is the inverse desktop of these software machines handled by the framework; then wpf\winforms capabilities could being just set like in javascript StrictMode for fitting these technologies; – Beet