Microsoft porting Windows Presentation Foundation to Mac OS ...

[MacBytes]

http://www.macbytes.com/images/bytessig.gif (http://www.macbytes.com)

Category: Microsoft
Link: Microsoft porting Windows Presentation Foundation to Mac OS X (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20060323235517)
Description:: Explaining what it means for a Mac user/developer.

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[socamx]

It also means all of these WPF based applications will have a Windows Vista look even if they will be running on Mac OS X’ Aqua user interface.

Sounded good up until that point.

[winmacguy]

Overall I would have to say that this sounds good. It may help to bring more PC orientated developers to the Mac platform and allow for more Windows specific stuff to be more easily developed for OSX in the long run.

[iMeowbot]

Sounded good up until that point.
It also seems that MacOSXRumors made up that part. It's not in the articles they reference. So, we'll just have to wait and see what MS have to offer in real life when they release the tools.

[Kingsly]

It also means all of these WPF based applications will have a Windows Vista look even if they will be running on Mac OS X’ Aqua user interface.
Areo instead of Aqua. Great. </sarcasm>

[Tacitus]

Areo instead of Aqua. Great. </sarcasm>

I think you guys are missing something. If MS come up with the Vista look on OSX why shouldn't Apple port yellow box (or was it Red box?) or openstep to Vista. My understanding is that mac apps running on Vista would then look like OSX.

In the long run with processor level virtualization, the underlying OSs will merge. You will run an app and it will call whatever is necessary for it to run, be it Vista or X. The look and feel will tend to merge. Could this be one of the reasons for Jobs moving to Intel?

[whooleytoo]

I think you guys are missing something. If MS come up with the Vista look on OSX why shouldn't Apple port yellow box (or was it Red box?) or openstep to Vista. My understanding is that mac apps running on Vista would then look like OSX.

Yellow Box, and I don't know what look the windows would take (I'd guess the Windows look, but I could be wrong).

And chances are Yellow Box for Windows has been going on for some time, "just in case".

[Tacitus]

........And chances are Yellow Box for Windows has been going on for some time, "just in case".

I sure hop so. What this is about is Gates taking over the Mac. If cross platform developers use these tools you will have Vista's crap interface running on top of the mac. Jobs needs to make sure XCode and Yellow box do their thing otherwise we may as well give up and move to Windows.

Developers will code for the most used platform which like it or not is Windows.

[socamx]

It also seems that MacOSXRumors made up that part. It's not in the articles they reference. So, we'll just have to wait and see what MS have to offer in real life when they release the tools.

Oh that's good to hear. As long as they don't break the look of OS X for their applications and such, should be a good deal in my mind.

[peharri]

Not sure why Mac OS X Rumors is linked, as it's not the source article. The source article, which actually reports the official announcement is here (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6052021.html).

Sounds interesting. The only .NET implementation for OS X right now is Mono, and it sucks. I'll be interested to see if Microsoft implements a large portion of .NET, or just limits their implementation to the XAML stuff. It'd be interesting to see if Apple would support Microsoft in porting .NET anyway, given it could at least ensure the code integrates well with the Aqua UI, just as it did with Java.

[AlmostThere]

Complaining that WPFE doesn't have an OS X look-and-feel is like complaining that Gmail doesn't have an OS X look-and-feel.

Last I heard, YellowBox was about compiling Cocoa apps to run natively on Windows, not a web services plug-in so that server-side functionality can effectively be run on multiple platforms.

[bousozoku]

I saw another article this week saying that Microsoft is definite on bringing C# programming to Mac OS X.

I suppose they may want to test the waters with new application functionality prior to implementing them on Windows, just as they do with MS Office.

[Tacitus]

Complaining that WPFE doesn't have an OS X look-and-feel is like complaining that Gmail doesn't have an OS X look-and-feel.

Last I heard, YellowBox was about compiling Cocoa apps to run natively on Windows, ..........

What you are saying is that the Mac look and feel does not really matter. If it looks like you are running Vista then so what. The whole point is that the Mac look and 'experience' is what people buy Macs for - if they wanted something that looked like Windows they could buy a Dell or one of thousands of other boxen. And probably save money.

This is all about 'embrace and extend'. Vista is a kludge piled on kludges - Ideally MS would start again with a complete rewrite. Now suppose instead Gates built an (Vista style) interface on top of the Darwin kernel. What is Jobs going to do? The Darwin kernel is trumpeted as open source so is he suddenly going to withdraw it. Seems unlikely to put it mildly - the political fall out would be too great. So Gates gets to take over MacOSX and there will be nothing anyone can do.

[iMeowbot]

Oh that's good to hear. As long as they don't break the look of OS X for their applications and such, should be a good deal in my mind.
I really would expect a native look mainly because it wouldn't make sense to build in a Windows look even on the Windows version. The Windows GUI uses themes, so the most natural thing to do is hand those decisions to the OS.

[roach]

Why not? Quicktime and iTune for Windows have that out dated early 90s metal polish look.

[peharri]

I saw another article this week saying that Microsoft is definite on bringing C# programming to Mac OS X.

I suppose they may want to test the waters with new application functionality prior to implementing them on Windows, just as they do with MS Office.

I suspect Microsoft would really like a whole .NET implementation on OS X that integrates will with the entire environment. Long term, it could reduce the number of seperate Windows and Mac apps - ie have one version of Office that runs on both, rather than two entirely different applications.

[AlmostThere]

What you are saying is that the Mac look and feel does not really matter. If it looks like you are running Vista then so what. The whole point is that the Mac look and 'experience' is what people buy Macs for - if they wanted something that looked like Windows they could buy a Dell or one of thousands of other boxen. And probably save money.

This is all about 'embrace and extend'. Vista is a kludge piled on kludges - Ideally MS would start again with a complete rewrite. Now suppose instead Gates built an (Vista style) interface on top of the Darwin kernel. What is Jobs going to do? The Darwin kernel is trumpeted as open source so is he suddenly going to withdraw it. Seems unlikely to put it mildly - the political fall out would be too great. So Gates gets to take over MacOSX and there will be nothing anyone can do.

I don't see your point. If the Mac look and feel matters so much, then people should be complaining about Gmail or Google Pages not blending seamlessly into OS X, so why are they with WPF/E? Just seems like pointless MS bashing to me. Is it really that reasonable to demand MS to build something that seamlessly blends in with OS X look-and-feel when no other comparable technology is doing so?

[Timepass]

What you are saying is that the Mac look and feel does not really matter. If it looks like you are running Vista then so what. The whole point is that the Mac look and 'experience' is what people buy Macs for - if they wanted something that looked like Windows they could buy a Dell or one of thousands of other boxen. And probably save money.

This is all about 'embrace and extend'. Vista is a kludge piled on kludges - Ideally MS would start again with a complete rewrite. Now suppose instead Gates built an (Vista style) interface on top of the Darwin kernel. What is Jobs going to do? The Darwin kernel is trumpeted as open source so is he suddenly going to withdraw it. Seems unlikely to put it mildly - the political fall out would be too great. So Gates gets to take over MacOSX and there will be nothing anyone can do.


I think it comes down to now you have a choice. You either could choose to have the Vista look and feel on the software or choose not to use it at all or have it. Compared to before had you didnt have that choice on a lot of apps. Heck the apps where never ported over. This makes it easier for software to be port over to OSX because it gives OSX a lot of the unlining basic requirement needed for a lot of software than runs on windows.

[bousozoku]

I suspect Microsoft would really like a whole .NET implementation on OS X that integrates will with the entire environment. Long term, it could reduce the number of seperate Windows and Mac apps - ie have one version of Office that runs on both, rather than two entirely different applications.

They already tried that with whatever version of Office contained Word version 6.0. MFC was ported and ran poorly and the applications worked far too much like Windows applications and the buying public complained. I believe that's when they bought a small Mac developer to become their Macintosh Business Unit.

Of course, if the code in the background does the exact same functionality and the front end works like any other application on whatever operating system/GUI is being used, no one will notice or care.

[peharri]

They already tried that with whatever version of Office contained Word version 6.0. MFC was ported and ran poorly and the applications worked far too much like Windows applications and the buying public complained. I believe that's when they bought a small Mac developer to become their Macintosh Business Unit.


In fairness, porting .NET, which is a written-from-the-ground-up platform independence layer, and porting MFC, which assumes a Windows-like UI, will result in different levels of "nativity" for the end application.

There are quite a few Java apps that feel like native OS X apps under OS X, and Windows apps under Windows, and GNOME apps under GNOME. These apps are using the relevent Java libraries (SWING and AWT mostly) properly and do not appear the same way as, say, Office 8 did. My understanding is that .NET's WPF/Avalon is meant to work in much the same way as SWING/AWT/SWT, providing an end-user interface independent API. Whether Microsoft's got it right, of course, is another matter, we'll find out once systems other than Windows are running WPF/E et al.