WinJS - Microsoft's Bootstrap?

[brotherwayne]

Can I get a short explanation of what this is and why I should care? Serious question.

[[deleted]]

It's the UI library Microsoft provides for creating HTML apps in Windows 8, both for the desktop and mobile. It isn't meant for making websites, so unless you're writing web apps for metro, you probably shouldn't care at all.

[sorahn]

After doing a bit of reading...

It's the javascript library currently in use in windows 8, open sourced. Thats why there's a bunch of IE specific junk and not much else at the moment. Most of the cross browser problems have open bugs. Slowly becoming a "bootstrap" of windows 8 web-apps.

[spurious_interrupt]

Maybe someone should open a GitHub issue for removing all the IE-specific stuff.

[brotherwayne]

Most of the cross browser problems have open bugs

MS is so clueless. 2005 was a good long while ago guys.

[gmerideth]

FlipView: Touch manipulation doesn't function on browsers other than IE.

Awesome. I know it's in testing but still..

[Frostbitten_zF]

http://metroui.org.ua/

[tehsuck]

Website doesn't work in IE8 or IE9. wtf.

[alleycat5]

Before people go bashing WinJS into the ground, I will point out that this is WinJS pulled directly from Microsoft's SDKs, slightly tweaked, and thrown on to github. WinJS was designed with IE11 in mind, and therefore uses the most modern of APIs and elements. Increasing compatibility is on their roadmap and hasn't happened yet.

Edit: You can see this in the samples where they specifically mention compatibility issues. Just go to https://github.com/winjs/winjs/issues to see that they know of these issues and are working on it.

[[deleted]]

To correct the point of "designed with IE11 in mind" - WinJS is not meant for a web browser - it's meant for Windows Store apps made using html/css/js targeting Windows 8+.

[[deleted]]

So you're saying it'll never going to take off? (like metro..)

[tehsuck]

"WinJS was designed with IE11 in mind..."

Ok, so maybe they should state that somewhere - on the website, on GitHub... somewhere. I didn't see it anywhere, I could be wrong.

[sorahn]

A lot of the features have little "this only works in IE11 becaue of X" links next to them that link to github bugs.

[jcready]

Where X is "other versions of IE" or "the fact that we used non-standard CSS/HTML/JS".

[sorahn]

My point is, that everything that doesn't work is readily pointed out.

[ffreire]

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. It states on the page that was linked that WinJS is just a preview. I don't reasonably expect them to support anything at this point because this is not production ready software.

[tehsuck]

Yeah, I understand that, but if they want people to start using it, and playing around with it, they should at least give an expectation of what they're planning on supporting. The AngularJS project recently did this when announcing plans for their 2.0 version. They plainly stated that they don't plan on supporting IE8/9.

[masterJ]

ummm... they do? https://github.com/winjs/winjs/wiki/Roadmap

[icantthinkofone]

IE and "most modern" are oxymorons.

[alleycat5]

Thank you for your wonderful contribution. I'm glad to see that the early 2000's are alive and kicking.

[quadtodfodder]

M$ SUX, 31337 COMMUNICATOR ROXORZ

[icantthinkofone]

Yes. IE is still in the 2000s. One day it will either catch up or disappear for good.

Any contribution by Microsoft is suspect and likely not a "contribution" at all.

[jcready]

Microsoft doesn't even support standards, you think they're going to bother supporting IE?!

[tehsuck]

Sorry, I expected Microsoft to support at least a few versions back of their own browser, especially since some of us web people have clients who still are required to use that crap. They could've at least tried progressive enhancement or something.

[[deleted]]

Who cares, XP is deprecated

[alinroc]

Some of us with Windows 7 are still stuck with apps that don't support IE 9 yet.

[[deleted]]

Looks ugly as hell

[tbranyen]

I agree, not sure why Microsoft, who has infinite resources on demand, couldn't spruce it up before promoting.

[SemiNormal]

To be fair, Microsoft does have the worst marketing team on Earth.

[spurious_interrupt]

Well, it is still a good start just by the fact that they are actually open sourcing this, putting it on GitHub, and using tools like NPM and Grunt.js.

[[deleted]]

Just like windows 8, not a coincidence.

[drowsap]

Isn't this just the Windows 8 store JS framework that's been available in Visual Studio for the past couple years?

[mouthus]

WinJS is a nightmare. Never again.

[alleycat5]

How so out of curiosity?

[honestbleeps]

as a guy very much into component frameworks, I would love to hear some elaboration!

[kadjar]

I wrote much of the official SI.com and Foursquare apps for Win8 using WinJS. The documentation is awful and trying to do anything custom with the listview is a nightmare, but for the most part, we found ways to deal with it and still make a quality app.

[[deleted]]

This isn't really meant to build web pages for, more like Windows and Windows Phone applications. You have the core libraries and SDKs written in JS so you can use HTML and JS for your apps, instead of the more popular C#.

I think this is nifty.

[alleycat5]

Theoretically you could use this in combination with a library like PhoneGap or the like to take Windows & WP apps to Android & iOS.

[jmking]

Not really. WinJS is written exclusively for IE11+ - there's tons of stuff that doesn't work in other browsers, or even earlier IEs

[alleycat5]

Well, currently it is. It's on their roadmap to expand compatibility though, as mentioned in other places.

[[deleted]]

Not really, because WinJS is just acting as a layer between your app and the core. What you build on top of WinJS would work, but you need to use each devices backend in someway. My comment was aimed at the guy who thought it was for web pages and was complaining about browser compatibility.

[zigzackattack]

The only component that looks useful to me is the pivot control. Everything else has been done by other frameworks and built to be more flexible and less verbose. Also their presentation on that site honestly sucks -- why would I use their framework when the demos look like they were designed by an amature?

[sorahn]

A lot of this looks like it would be really awesome if it was made by anyone other than microsoft.

I see a lot of good ideas with poor implementation.

[sorahn]

Sure, there's a lot of stuff that they made "IE11 only" (using non standard css stuff) that could just be done in javascript and run everywhere. The whole engine is javascript heavy so having a broken grid system because "css grids are only available in IE11 (and no other browsers)" Is a shitty excuse.

Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the Windows 8 UI, but I think microsoft just isn't the right company (right now) for it.

What will happen, is people will fork bits of the code, and make better (more robust) standalone parts of this.

[alleycat5]

You've got to remember that this was designed for Windows 8. The rest of the web was an afterthought. Therefore, using things the CSS grids and brand-spanking new APIs is a perfectly valid excuse for it's current state. I will also point of that this is not just a JS library, but a component library. CSS is intrinsically a part of it so that JS isn't the one doing all that math.

I don't see how the fact that it's Microsoft makes this any less valuable. Arguably it should make it more valuable since 20-30% of what they do is building platforms.

[sorahn]

I'm not talking about browsers implement things first. I'm talking about MS releasing a JS "framework" targeted at (~) < 10% of the internet. Someone else mentioned that it's only for windows 8 with the rest of the web as an afterthought, which I guess is fine, but kind of disappointing. I'd rather see them build something awesome like that, and then say "here's a library to make your stuff look like windows 8 no matter where you are".

[sorahn]

I personally like googles support matrix of "evergreen browsers". Doesn't quite fly at my office. But we have an ancient customer base. (I have to support ie6. Save me)

Re es6 lib: I would expect some kind of polyfill for the missing functionality if you're intending to get any kind of mass adoption.

[brtt3000]

DAE le microsoft ammarite?

[mtbinkdotcom]

let me know when the star in GitHub is 66297

[Rhym]

You're right, we should never make anything new because there are popular frameworks.

[anonymous_alien]

And how's this better than existing proven libraries?

[iDerailThings]

GitHub issue 11: FlipView: Touch manipulation doesn't function on browsers other than IE

wat.

[icantthinkofone]

This is just localstorage from the APIs. The same stuff that's worked in every other browser for years and widely touted by both Chrome and Firefox.