Best way to make a Windows app?

Cromulent · 4 May 2018 at 20:34

I want to make a Windows desktop app, but I'm somewhat confused about the options.

I could do the following:

.NET Forms app
.NET WPF app
C++ Win32 app
Universal Windows Platform app
Java and JavaFX app
Python and GTK+ app

I'm leaning towards making a UWP app since then I can have a free version in the Windows store and then have in-app purchases, and Windows 10 will only get more popular as time goes on so getting on the bandwagon now seems like a reasonable idea.

Having said that though the Java and Python options work on multiple platforms. I'm not sure how important that is seeing as the app I want to develop is for a game which so far is only coming out for Windows.

I also feel like learning to make UWP apps will let me do more in the future if I come up with any new ideas.

jsmoke · 5 May 2018 at 13:07

What are your current programming skills?

Cromulent · 5 May 2018 at 13:48

jsmoke said:
What are your current programming skills?

Python, C, JavaScript and a bit of C++.

FredFlint · 7 May 2018 at 18:56

I find .Net Forms using c# to be the easiest to work with but Forms might not be the best for a game though. If you have used c++, c# should be no problem.

Cromulent · 7 May 2018 at 19:09

FredFlint said:
I find .Net Forms using c# to be the easiest to work with but Forms might not be the best for a game though. If you have used c++, c# should be no problem.

Oh, it isn't a game. Just a tool to manage data gathered from a game. It'll be like a pretty frontend to a database.

planty · 7 May 2018 at 22:59

Out of that list I would choose WPF but I don't know much about UWP so that could be a better option. If you've done any web development you could also try Electron.

iKettles · 16 May 2018 at 19:15

https://electronjs.org/

Cromulent · 16 May 2018 at 21:09

iKettles said:
https://electronjs.org/

Damn it. JavaScript is taking over the world although I guess if I did it in Typescript it wouldn't be too bad. I'll have to see if Jetbrains Webstorm supports electron.

Thanks for the link.

iKettles · 16 May 2018 at 21:58

Cromulent said:
Damn it. JavaScript is taking over the world although I guess if I did it in Typescript it wouldn't be too bad. I'll have to see if Jetbrains Webstorm supports electron.

Thanks for the link.

It sure is, almost the entire stack at the company I work for is built on Typescript/NodeJS. You should take a look at Visual Studio Code (also built with electron), with a few plugins it plays very nice with Typescript projects.

Russinating · 20 May 2018 at 12:11

Electron looks really interesting. Shame I'll probably never have a need to make a desktop app over a web app!

howler · 23 May 2018 at 16:57

Russinating said:
Electron looks really interesting. Shame I'll probably never have a need to make a desktop app over a web app!

It seems that there is less and less of a need for desktop apps these days, everything is a web app / could based

as a desktop dev I need to get my skills up together on web applications

Willir · 2 Jun 2018 at 14:19

Visual Studio + C# using Windows forms tool set etc...

howler · 7 Jun 2018 at 10:05

Willir said:
Visual Studio + C# using Windows forms tool set etc...

Windows forms is old hat now, WPF is where it's at

chroniclard · 7 Jun 2018 at 10:11

WPF? Is that crud still alive.