Looking for Windows Look and Feel input for a new app

Not to forget Xojo for Desktop is written with VS2015, that forced non-support of Vista and WinXP. VS 2017 is the same. just like in the past (and we have to learn from the past), there will come a time in the future with a future version of VS that forced non-support of Win7.

Xojo Inc, please don’t be very late again.

I am afraid they simply are not interested.

Is there already a FR for UWP Support?

This one’s 11th in popularity and has been around since 2013:

<https://xojo.com/issue/28733>

No matter what you do to fudge it, it will be an uncomfortable compromise.
If you start with a blank canvas and draw all the controls by hand (good luck ), then as soon as you need a file browser or similar, you are back in the hands of Desktop look and feel, surely?

[quote=344198:@Tim Jones]This one’s 11th in popularity and has been around since 2013:

<https://xojo.com/issue/28733>[/quote]

Now on 10

Actually, this one is not even on the horizon. You may file the FR, but don’t hold your breath. Note that since it is based on .Net, the New API that powers UWP apps cannot happen before Xojo implements .Net.

Frankly, I doubt extremely much Xojo will ever implement .Net, and even less UWP.

That’s why i added <https://xojo.com/issue/28733> to my Top Cases :slight_smile:

The Modern Windows UI is not based on .NET. They are XAML controls. The use of C# or VB(.NET) and also C++ and JavaScript is only for the code behind the controls. The use of .NET controls will result in a WindowsForm app which is still Desktop app.

Xojo can implement XAML controls and use the Xojo language to code behind. Or they implement their own equivalent of XAML-based controls.

UWP apps are based on .Net. New API <> Modern UI.

At any rate, these subtleties are completely irrelevant in the current state of Xojo.

Personally I think boosting 28733 is a waste of your precious points. .Net is just another framework over Win32 just like Xojo. Everything it does is achievable in Win32. I’m sure Xojo would have picked .Net if they had seen that it provided something that they cannot do, but it does not which is probably why it hasn’t been used in over 4 years and is highly unlikely to be now.

I’ve just had a look at Mail, Calculator and Calendar on Windows 10, they are all fully “hand drawn” apps using WS_EX_NOREDIRECTIONBITMAP on the window with no “controls” at all in the Win32 sense. Visual Studio just spits out XAML which is parsed into the apps you see.

As Michel is saying, you can do the whole thing with one Canvas, or even just painting onto the form itself. Its a lot of work but it’s something that might benefit from a collective project if a common framework was put in place everyone could work on a control each. This would also have the benefit of being 100% cross platform as you would ultimately just be rendering on a canvas or directly onto the window.

How about some Xojo themes? Canvas designs like XP,WIN 7, WIN 10, Modern, dark, plain, IOS, OSX, etc. Do themes already exist? If so where are they?

Controls are currently native so their look is whatever system they are run on.

Except .Net is double buffered, and like Mac, is way less flicker prone.

To come back to the Modern UI design, the posted picture of Microsoft Mail is a perfect example of what could be done in a single canvas. Indeed it is a complete change of philosophy, doing away with controls to manage everything pretty much like a video game with virtual objects.

Unfortunately, I feel the issue here is that for some, doing away with regular controls is too drastic a conceptual jump.

There is another, intriguing possibility : design the interface as HTML, and display it in an HTMLViewer. In a way, it is not unlike what Microsoft does with XAML. Tim Parnell’s HTML Edit is just an example of how an app can be created in the HTMLViewer.

HTML + CSS + JavaScript enable creating the kind of interface displayed for Microsoft Mail fairly easily. Additional benefit would be that displaying HTML email messages would be immediate.

Yet again, such an approach would require some learning curve, since it is de facto another set of languages.

I understand the French attitude but don’t be snarky, Michel. I’ve been at this game since 1977 and I have no issues with tossing everything and going back to 6502 machine language if it gets the job done, but that’s not why we buy in to a development ecosystem like Xojo where they’ve made/wrapped the controls so that we don’t need to.

We are looking for a streamlined and easy to use “Kitchen”. Yes, I could dig a hole, gather twigs and branches for the fire, use a big rock to club the cow to death with, skin, gut, and butcher my meat, grow my herbs, potatoes, and carrots, hollow out a rock to use as a heating pot, and then use my fingers to eat, but I’d rather use my Wolfe and Sub Zero appliances and buy my meats. herbs, and veggies at a local market. That is what Xojo, and platforms like it, are supposed to bring to the development game.

I beg your pardon, but your description of what I suggested is grossly exaggerated. I never said you go back to stone age. You are the one insisting on it.

Now you blame me for suggesting ways of obtaining that in old fashion Xojo because I cannot offer a solution that keeps those very passé Win32 native controls that have been looking exactly the same since 1985. The kitchen is awfully old in Xojo.

What you are after can be created in VS with XAML. That is the tool to do Modern UI. Mind you, the learning curve is here, and it is not a simple matter.

You want a 1985 Cadillac that looks and feel like a Tesla. It simply does not exist without some efforts.

[quote=344302:@Michel Bujardet]@anon20074439 .Net is just another framework over Win32 just like Xojo. Everything it does is achievable in Win32.
Except .Net is double buffered, and like Mac, is way less flicker prone.[/quote]

.Net is not double buffered by default. Xojo could be double buffered in the same way that .Net is, I don’t see why people thinks .Net is some magic bullet. Turning on double buffering doesn’t just cure all evils either, much like Xojo not every control has double buffering and turning it on at the form level doesn’t solve issues that you might be having with child controls either.

The only difference between .Net and Xojo is that .Net has just had hundreds of thousands of man hours from probably hundreds of engineers who have lived and breathed this stuff their whole life to turn out a framework that is peeked and poked at by a countless number of developers.

I’m starting to sound like a broken record now :frowning: Someone turn the record over :wink:

At any rate, .Net controls are barely less old fashion than Win32. They could not do for the OP no matter what.

Michel -

I blame you because of the snarky comment that you made alluding to my unwillingness or inability to make “too drastic a conceptual jump” to implement a completely new API on top of Xojo. I don’t blame you for anything else. My statement was simply an indicator of the steps I’d take if there weren’t other alternatives - Xojo purportedly providing one such alternative.

You have taken this far further than my original question required. You’ve been so busy telling me that I should accept that I’ll need to draw everything, that you totally walked over the simple answer to my question from your perspective - “No, I’ve not been able to achieve a modern UI look and feel for Windows with Xojo without either using an external library or declares.”

And no, if I wanted a Tesla, I’d buy a Tesla. However, if Cadillac was claiming that if I bought that 1985 model and it would look like a Tesla in 2017, THAT is when I’d be frustrated.

I like Julian’s idea to work together to create a set of “modern UI controls”. I am totally not competent to take part in the design and building of such controls, but would gladly contribute to testing.

There is already a Windows Functionality Suite. Such controls would be a great addition to the suite.