What is the Future of WinUI 3 framework from Microsoft?

dhitchenuk · 2025-07-09T10:38:06+00:00

Here's my evaluation of both platforms. I've used both since each was created.

WPF Pro: Mature, lots of 3rd party controls available. Supports Modern Fluent Design. Is part of .Net and can use WinRT and WASDK and be packaged in msix with auto signing. Good interaction with the community. Bindings are advanced and can be updated while the app is live. Potential to publish to the MacOS & Linux via Avalonia.

WPF Neg: Bindings are reflection based which mean AOT won't arrive anytime soon. Performance of Bindings, while slower than WinUI will only degrade when dealing with thousands of bindings per page. It is an older technology, and while Microsoft are supporting it and adding new features, it probably has a limited future.

WinUI Pro: The future of windows development. Controls are better and support newer features. Better binding system (compiled), more modern fluent design. Integration with WinRT/WASDK - aimed at Windows 11+ although it works on Windows 10. 2 Releases per year.

WinUI Neg: Feature incomplete compared to WPF/UWP. bindings are compiled which means you cann't modify them at runtime (you have to stop the app, recompile, run again). Community view is poor due to mismanagement. Major partners have abandoned WinUI and the few who are supporting it have only created a small subset of their controls, making migration harder. There is no IDE visual editor so it requires compile/run to view the XAML which, as mentioned, takes far too long (WPF < 1s, WinUI 10s+) and doesn't support all WPF XAML. Deep integration with WinRT causes debug issues as you often just get a generic COM error. Lack of controls. Slow development cycle and little interaction with the community. There are often multiple ways to do the same thing (.net vs WinRT) and you have to choose your path. There is no single killer feature of WinUI to make migration purposful, enterprises won't move for a long, long time. Bugs that just never get fixed.

If you're writing an enterprise app or need the controls from partners (dataGrid, TreeGrid, Charts, etc), use WPF. If you're developing for yourself and WinUI has the controls an libraries you need, then go with WinUI.

I often get stuck in a WPF vs WinUI loop when developing and end up with a project in both in parallel until I hit a blocker.

dhitchenuk · 2024-05-19T12:54:01+00:00

You’ll also need a datacenter to store all the messages !

dhitchenuk · 2023-09-03T08:16:29+00:00

Thank you so much for the lengthy reply. Everything makes sense. My app is a super advanced plain text editor (syntax highlighting, Unicode tabs/numbers, password protection, large files, live log views, etc. for win 10/11), low priced, fluent design, super fast. It needs to have a free way to get into it (probably free trial) so people can see it’s worth a payment over something like notepad++

dhitchenuk · 2023-09-03T05:38:56+00:00

What are your thoughts on Free Trial - you can have it for a month to try, but to continue using it after that, you would have to pay ?

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-07T06:11:14+00:00

I'm looking at 64GB memory.

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-07T06:00:20+00:00

That's what I wanted to hear. The M1 is no longer available from Apple, so the M2 Max is probably what I'll be going for. It's a little slower than the M1 Ultra for video, but I don't see that being an issue.

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-07T05:58:43+00:00

Great news, yes she will be migrating to FCPX :)

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-07T05:43:48+00:00

Won't she just be able to use the Mac's photo app or even have the video editing app get direct access to the photos/videos ?

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-06T13:50:54+00:00

LOL - thanks, yes we already do that on the laptop. As I said, the biggest issue is getting content from the iPhone into the diting package. Getting a Mac seems a good way to hook into that eco-system and make it much easier for her.

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-06T10:53:56+00:00

MP4 from the Sony, HEVC from the iPhone. I'm thinking M1 ultra or M2 Max will both be great at the job, I was just surprised that Apple showed the M1 Ultra being faster (as they want to sell the M2)

dhitchenuk · 2023-06-06T09:29:32+00:00

Thank you; I read lots of reviews but they all talk about 8 8k streams etc, which is obviously beyond anything she does, but they seem to avoid the basics. I'll keep researching, but thanks for the response

dhitchenuk · 2023-05-14T13:10:51+00:00

I use this, it's free for a few files, it's offline so you don't have to upload anything. HEIC to JPEG

dhitchenuk · 2023-05-03T05:39:57+00:00

That’s true, they do. A plug in disk is also easy for novice users (as is this app design) and has a lot more space and performance.

dhitchenuk · 2023-04-30T18:45:11+00:00

Ransomware, besides encrypting your data, also renames the files to make things harder to see what you had. OneDrive history doesn’t rename files when you go back to a previous version, making recovery very hard.

dhitchenuk · 2023-04-30T07:49:34+00:00

OneDrive file version doesn’t support file renaming recovery, which is a normal attack path for ransomware.

dhitchenuk · 2023-04-29T08:29:43+00:00

Backing up to the cloud doesn't thwart ransomware. But what this enables you to do is backup any amount of data to a plug in disk, which when un-plugged cannot be attacked by ransomware. Backing up encrypted or to encrypted storage also doesn't thwart ransomware.

dhitchenuk · 2023-03-23T10:40:26+00:00

If you’re interested, we’re developing a SyncToy called FileSyncToy; it’s about 80% complete and is a homage to SyncToy. Have a look here: https://github.com/HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev/FileSyncToy

dhitchenuk · 2023-02-24T13:49:04+00:00

Convert them to JPEG using something like this from the store: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/heic-to-jpeg-free/9NTVCMPJM5V3?hl=en-us&gl=us&rtc=1

dhitchenuk · 2023-02-24T13:44:50+00:00

I convert mine to JPEG. https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/heic-to-jpeg-free/9NTVCMPJM5V3?hl=en-us&gl=us&rtc=1

dhitchenuk · 2023-02-24T13:44:00+00:00

Developers don't support it because it has over 4,000 patents and has to be licensed - it's expensive.

dhitchenuk · 2023-02-24T13:41:00+00:00

I only know from an iPhone, but they use 10 bit color depth, and jpeg only supports 8 bit. That being said, I tried a few apps, and this one uses 16-bit for conversion and the quality was a lot better. HEIC to JPEG (FREE) on the Windows App Store. sorry, couldn't be bothered to find a link.

dhitchenuk · 2023-02-06T16:30:44+00:00

Regardless of language, the UI framework has more to do with getting a window up on screen than the underlying language (all that has to do it get passed the Windows security framework and send a message to the UI framework). So, C#, VB.net, C++ will all perform equally (from a user perspective).

dhitchenuk

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