Running real Windows 8 apps... in Electron?
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2023 4:33 pm
Windows 8 was a... controversial release for many. As we well know, end users didn't really like the touch oriented interface, but for developers there was a much more interesting conundrum. How were those touch oriented apps going to get made?
In previous years, Microsoft had been touting Silverlight, the ill-fated browser plugin at their developer events like MIX, showing it as the foundation for apps on the similarly ill-fated Windows Phone 7. Silverlight was based on .NET, so .NET developers (the C# and VB.NET folk of the world) were living their best lives.
Then came BUILD 2012. The unveiling of Windows 8, and by extension its whole new app platform... and the focus wasn't .NET, or Silverlight, but HTML5 and JavaScript. Microsoft expected that as part of the next generation of Windows apps, web technologies were going to be a first class way to write apps for the platform, and they MEANT it. Of all the pre-loaded metro apps included in Windows 8's developer preview, 22/30 were written this way, and fast forward 2 years to the final versions of Windows 8.1, every app marked here is too.
Developer reactions were mixed. Existing .NET developers felt they were being put on the back burner(even though they really weren't, as we'll explore later), and JS developers were mixed too as Microsoft has had... let's say a rocky relationship with the web.
Obviously, now Windows 8.1 is no longer supported, slowly falling out of service and its online servers are slowly being taken offline, we aren't going to be able to run these apps forever, especially not in their original state and form... which lead me to wonder. If these apps are effectively just webapps... could they not run in a web *browser*?
In previous years, Microsoft had been touting Silverlight, the ill-fated browser plugin at their developer events like MIX, showing it as the foundation for apps on the similarly ill-fated Windows Phone 7. Silverlight was based on .NET, so .NET developers (the C# and VB.NET folk of the world) were living their best lives.
Then came BUILD 2012. The unveiling of Windows 8, and by extension its whole new app platform... and the focus wasn't .NET, or Silverlight, but HTML5 and JavaScript. Microsoft expected that as part of the next generation of Windows apps, web technologies were going to be a first class way to write apps for the platform, and they MEANT it. Of all the pre-loaded metro apps included in Windows 8's developer preview, 22/30 were written this way, and fast forward 2 years to the final versions of Windows 8.1, every app marked here is too.
Developer reactions were mixed. Existing .NET developers felt they were being put on the back burner(even though they really weren't, as we'll explore later), and JS developers were mixed too as Microsoft has had... let's say a rocky relationship with the web.
Obviously, now Windows 8.1 is no longer supported, slowly falling out of service and its online servers are slowly being taken offline, we aren't going to be able to run these apps forever, especially not in their original state and form... which lead me to wonder. If these apps are effectively just webapps... could they not run in a web *browser*?