DEV Community

Discussion on: The future of WPF?

Collapse
 
kspeakman profile image
Kasey Speakman • Edited

For RDP performance, have you seen this link?

I do not think Silverlight compares directly to WPF. Silverlight was meant to be a competitor to Flash with shims to run on the desktop, not really a desktop tech. At some point they were trying to send the message that your XAML skills from Silverlight will transfer to WPF, so they weren't a wasted effort to learn.

I think MS has made it pretty clear that WPF and WinForms are both on life support. There have been no major updates or improvements in many years. Most advancements (like simpler alternatives to INPC) have come from community or 3rd parties. But they have to keep WinForms and WPF around because the current tech they are investing in -- UWP -- only works on Windows 10.

I couldn't begin to speculate as to what the future holds. I thought WinForms would be long dead by now. So I'm no good at guessing their support decisions.

Collapse
 
memphizzz profile image
MemphiZ

Hi Kasey,

I haven't seen that link yet but its also not exactly the problems we we're facing when running WPF over RDP. Startup times would have been something we could have lived with as our app will be started once the user logs in and keeps running. But the real issue was a lag/delay when the window was resized/moved/animated.

As for "I think MS has made it pretty clear that WPF and WinForms are both on life support.", what makes you think that? I haven't read or heard anything from microsoft where they suggest that these technologies are on life support. But just like you I thought that WinForms would be dead by now.

Collapse
 
kspeakman profile image
Kasey Speakman • Edited

That post also links to a Stack Overflow answer, which has some helpful information and other links regarding rendering performance. But in the end, you may be right that it just isn't predisposed to work well over RDP (without hardware acceleration).

They've made it pretty clear through their silence and lack of updates * that no one is actively working to improve WPF. I believe there was a maintenance update a year or two back. But there has been no work to fix known quality of life issues for many years now. Hence, life support.

* See this post. And keep in mind it was written 6 years ago and nothing has really changed since then.