Ask HN: What is the best way to build a desktop app in Windows in 2023?

• react-native-windows

  71 15,949 9.6 C++

  A framework for building native Windows apps with React.

  

Microsoft is using React Native for Windows [0] for their Office applications [1]. As a fan of RN this would be the first avenue I’d explore if I had to develop something for Windows.

[0] https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/

• windows-rs

  98 9,839 7.7 Rust

  Rust for Windows

  

It's a shame that, unlike with Win32, using WinUI places pretty harsh restrictions on which programming languages and environments you can use. Only C# and C++ are supported, the latter only with Microsoft compilers. For everything else, including Rust[1], Python and MinGW C/C++, there is no answer for OP's question, and the effect of this on the visual consistency of the Windows desktop is obvious - there is none. Every third-party app uses a different toolkit with a different look and feel, because the library providing the standard look and feel simply isn't available to the majority of developers.

[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/windows-rs/pull/1836

• WorkOS

  workos.com sponsored

  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

• tauri

  469 77,154 9.8 Rust

  Build smaller, faster, and more secure desktop applications with a web frontend.

  

DotNet core using webview 2 and something like react for the frontend.

Or you can look into https://tauri.app/

• Takuzu

  1 1 7.7 Smalltalk

If you're feeling adventurous. I'd try Pharo. I was at the ESUG conference (the European Smalltalk conference) and it seems that when you combine:

* Bloc (UI framework)

* The stuff in their new presentation (will be online in a few months)

* Pharo

You could get pretty far.

For example, this game [1] has been packaged as a Win/Mac app [2].

[1] github.com/Enzo-Demeulenaere/Takuzu

[2] https://github.com/tesonep/takuzu

• ProjectReunion

  52 3,637 9.1 C++

  The Windows App SDK empowers all Windows desktop apps with modern Windows UI, APIs, and platform features, including back-compat support, shipped via NuGet.

  

.. and how many of the Microsoft applications actually use WinUI3? As far as I can tell they're doing their own thing (Office) or are Electron (Teams) or, at least in Windows 10, haven't actually been updated from WinForms.

The overhead of WinUI3 is pretty huge. The visual designer, a winning feature of Visual Studio for decades, is AWOL. Why? It's XAML, the same as the previous XAML designer! It's just .. broken?

The backward compatibility story is a disaster: you can get stuck in the UWP sandbox https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsAppSDK/issues/1780

What's the big Microsoft WinUI3 flagship app, then? Something people are actually using? Rather than just a few system dialogues. (How many Win11 settings pop up a Win32 dialogue box, still?)

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com sponsored

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

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