I've struggled with various restrictions and problems with UWP from day one, so in many ways, I will be glad when it's a standard desktop application. UWP did make a number of things simple though:
1) It integrated well with the Microsoft Store back when they didn't allow standard desktop apps, which gave me a convenient way to sell the app and handle licensing.
2) It had great support for touch gestures and events, as well as a fairly good API for handling stylus and mouse input as well.
3) Obfuscation is enforced with production builds to prevent reverse engineering and piracy.
4) It had built in support for things like using the camera on the device, printing, MIDI (including bluetooth and virtual MIDI ports)
5) It compiles for multiple processor types in a very simple manner so that I can support ARM devices like the Surface Pro X.
6) It works well on tablet devices (which is really only the Surface Pro at this point).
7) Whether you love or hate it, the UI themes do look more modern than older frameworks.
There are a number of things I wish were better though:
1) The app sandbox model used by UWP protects users from malicious apps (which can be a good or bad thing), but this is why file management is such a pain with MobileSheets as it's very restricted in terms of what it can directly access.
2) The MIDI library is hit or miss with some devices like some KORG keyboards, and it reports incorrect port names which Microsoft will apparently never fix
3) It limits certain things like the topic discussed in this thread
4) If MobileSheets is minimized, Windows can decide to just close it to recover resources if it feels the need to which is ridiculous. This was done to save battery life on phones back when Windows phones were a thing, but it makes very little sense to do this on a tablet, laptop or PC.
5) There is limited third party support, and many open source libraries either decided to never support UWP or are ending support with Microsoft's announcements.
6) The UWP framework has weird issues with memory leaks that I've had to work extremely hard to get around and prevent. This has been a constant source of frustration.
7) MobileSheets sometimes takes a long time to load due to the UWP framework
I'm hoping the switch to WinUI3 will allow me to keep most of the positive things and fix all the shortcomings. I just wanted to share that in case it would be interesting at all to anyone.
Mike
1) It integrated well with the Microsoft Store back when they didn't allow standard desktop apps, which gave me a convenient way to sell the app and handle licensing.
2) It had great support for touch gestures and events, as well as a fairly good API for handling stylus and mouse input as well.
3) Obfuscation is enforced with production builds to prevent reverse engineering and piracy.
4) It had built in support for things like using the camera on the device, printing, MIDI (including bluetooth and virtual MIDI ports)
5) It compiles for multiple processor types in a very simple manner so that I can support ARM devices like the Surface Pro X.
6) It works well on tablet devices (which is really only the Surface Pro at this point).
7) Whether you love or hate it, the UI themes do look more modern than older frameworks.
There are a number of things I wish were better though:
1) The app sandbox model used by UWP protects users from malicious apps (which can be a good or bad thing), but this is why file management is such a pain with MobileSheets as it's very restricted in terms of what it can directly access.
2) The MIDI library is hit or miss with some devices like some KORG keyboards, and it reports incorrect port names which Microsoft will apparently never fix
3) It limits certain things like the topic discussed in this thread
4) If MobileSheets is minimized, Windows can decide to just close it to recover resources if it feels the need to which is ridiculous. This was done to save battery life on phones back when Windows phones were a thing, but it makes very little sense to do this on a tablet, laptop or PC.
5) There is limited third party support, and many open source libraries either decided to never support UWP or are ending support with Microsoft's announcements.
6) The UWP framework has weird issues with memory leaks that I've had to work extremely hard to get around and prevent. This has been a constant source of frustration.
7) MobileSheets sometimes takes a long time to load due to the UWP framework
I'm hoping the switch to WinUI3 will allow me to keep most of the positive things and fix all the shortcomings. I just wanted to share that in case it would be interesting at all to anyone.
Mike