WinUI 3 Controls Gallery…sigh

I’ve been following the WinUI 3 story for a while now and downloaded the demo app, WinUI 3 Controls Gallery, from the Windows App Store soon after WinUI 3 was released.

What a terrible disappointment. On a late model Dell Inspiron 15 i7, navigating between the screens causes constant flickering and controls seemingly ‘jumping’ around trying to settle into their happy place. Also, somewhat hopefully I was anticipating some color (it’s 2021 after all). We have light theme and dark theme…the end. The calendar and tree controls in particular are ugly and retro looking. Maybe it’s just bad coding in the demo app, but if you’re trying to entice the DEV community, wouldn’t you put in a bit of effort?

To further emphasize the gulf between Windows 10 and what’s possible, I came across the Windows 7 design expression shown at the site below.

Suppose, like the donkey with the carrot dangling on a stick forever out of reach, I now eagerly anticipate the arrival of ‘Sun Valley’.

Conversation 3 comments

  • Usman

    Premium Member
    20 April, 2021 - 2:31 am

    <p>It is based on Xaml Controls Gallery, which the UI design wasn't great in the first place.</p><p><br></p><p><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The calendar and tree controls in particular are ugly and retro looking. Maybe it’s just bad coding in the demo app, but if you’re trying to entice the DEV community, wouldn’t you put in a bit of effort?</em></p><p><br></p><p>Yeah, it's a shame they didn't update the calendar control, but then again they've got a 'date picker' and a 'time picker' which are updated with the modern fluent design, so at least there's an alternative. They have updated most of the controls that actually matter and get used, like buttons, radio, pills, dropdowns, progress bars. </p><p><br></p><p>My frontend work is mostly on the web and yeah fluent web is just miles ahead compared to the XAML controls. But as an app that shows the controls, as a developer it's fine to me, I see the controls I want to use and ignore the ones that look bad.</p><p><br></p><p>It still looks like a work in progress, even if it were complete, I don't know if I'd be enticed away from creating a web app either way.</p>

  • longhorn

    22 April, 2021 - 5:30 pm

    <p>The light/dark theme trend feels extreme and pretty boring at this point. At least a grey option should exist as some sort of middle path. Why not colors too? I remember when OSX was grey. Pretty boring, but also comfortable for the eyes I think.</p><p><br></p><p>Windows XP had three official color variations (Luna, Olive and Silver) and a few more semi-official: Royale (don't know if this is the same variation as Media Center Edition), Royale Noir, Zune and POSReady (embedded). The classic Windows 9.x style was still available in XP I think.</p><p><br></p><p>Those were good days for the Windows PC. The Windows XP GUI was fairly consistent. With WindowBlinds basically any GUI element could be skinned so it was a golden era for skinners/themers.</p><p><br></p>

  • martinusv2

    Premium Member
    23 April, 2021 - 10:56 am

    <p>Disappointed too. It's Microsoft failing to deliver again.</p>

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