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I hope this leads to having a native vertical taskbar, which has been absent in W11 despite being a taskbar feature dating back as early as Windows 98. Third-p

I hope this leads to having a native vertical taskbar, which has been absent in W11 despite being a taskbar feature dating back as early as Windows 98. Third-party tools have tried to reimplement it but it's either been by bastardizing the native W11 horizontal taskbar to be vertical (eg: Windhawk) or just restoring the old W10 taskbar code (eg: StartAllBack).

wild_pointer 1y ago
How will making the UI framework open source lead to taskbar changes? For third party contributions in this area, they need to open source the taskbar, not the UI framework.
Timwi 1y ago
Nit-pick: Windows 95, actually. The vertical taskbar was an option in its very first version.
- hulitu 1y ago
  > Nit-pick: Windows 95, actually. The vertical taskbar was an option in its very first version. Yes, but this was when computer were less capable. Now, you are not able to choose colors or fonts, the taskbar is fixed and the programs need at least 2 seconds to start. Terrific evolution.
0points 1y ago
The taskbar is a feature of explorer.exe. The news being discussed is not about explorer being open sourced.
flohofwoe 1y ago
Is the Windows team even using WinUI for the native Win11 desktop UI? ;)
- madeofpalk 1y ago
  It's confusing what exactly 'WinUI' is, but does Explorer looks WinUI-ish. Parts of it at least.
  - e4m2 1y ago
    Explorer uses XAML Islands. Parts of it are WinUI, while the rest is still Win32.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  The Start Menu is apparently a React Native app, so I'm going to hazard a guess and just assume WinUI is built on top of React, and that the Start Menu at least is thus indeed built with WinUI. But it's also clear that some other parts aren't, so who knows what's what. I'm sure there are folks who spent time reverse engineering it all though who do.
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    WinUI is its own thing. The React Native stuff just shows that even Windows developers don't want to use WinUI.
  - paavohtl 1y ago
    The start menu is not a React Native app, but it's actually even worse. Only the recommended section (which is basically recently used files - plus probably advertisements in some scenarios) is. The rest of the start menu is WinUI, to my knowledge.
    - ok_computer 1y ago
      I cannot stand the latency using a local app. Same with rendering views of local file systems. Frontend reactivity as the expense of responsive performance is the problem with modern user interfaces in my opinion. Like I’m searching for an installed app. I don’t need news articles about that and never expected a file system ui to be a web portal.
  - 9029 1y ago
    > The Start Menu is apparently a React Native app What's the source for this?
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44124688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44124688
      - 1y ago

wild_pointer 1y ago

How will making the UI framework open source lead to taskbar changes? For third party contributions in this area, they need to open source the taskbar, not the UI framework.

Timwi 1y ago

Nit-pick: Windows 95, actually. The vertical taskbar was an option in its very first version.

hulitu 1y ago
> Nit-pick: Windows 95, actually. The vertical taskbar was an option in its very first version. Yes, but this was when computer were less capable. Now, you are not able to choose colors or fonts, the taskbar is fixed and the programs need at least 2 seconds to start. Terrific evolution.

0points 1y ago

The taskbar is a feature of explorer.exe. The news being discussed is not about explorer being open sourced.

flohofwoe 1y ago

Is the Windows team even using WinUI for the native Win11 desktop UI? ;)

madeofpalk 1y ago
It's confusing what exactly 'WinUI' is, but does Explorer looks WinUI-ish. Parts of it at least.
- e4m2 1y ago
  Explorer uses XAML Islands. Parts of it are WinUI, while the rest is still Win32.
perching_aix 1y ago
The Start Menu is apparently a React Native app, so I'm going to hazard a guess and just assume WinUI is built on top of React, and that the Start Menu at least is thus indeed built with WinUI. But it's also clear that some other parts aren't, so who knows what's what. I'm sure there are folks who spent time reverse engineering it all though who do.
- qcnguy 1y ago
  WinUI is its own thing. The React Native stuff just shows that even Windows developers don't want to use WinUI.
- paavohtl 1y ago
  The start menu is not a React Native app, but it's actually even worse. Only the recommended section (which is basically recently used files - plus probably advertisements in some scenarios) is. The rest of the start menu is WinUI, to my knowledge.
  - ok_computer 1y ago
    I cannot stand the latency using a local app. Same with rendering views of local file systems. Frontend reactivity as the expense of responsive performance is the problem with modern user interfaces in my opinion. Like I’m searching for an installed app. I don’t need news articles about that and never expected a file system ui to be a web portal.
- 9029 1y ago
  > The Start Menu is apparently a React Native app What's the source for this?
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44124688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44124688
    - 1y ago