> WinUI 3 is the latest and greatest, and the way to go.
It's also brand new, hit 1.0 a couple of weeks ago, and therefore probably buggy (I hit a bug in -preview3). And it's about 100MB per app + 100MB of dependencies.
> but there is an overwhelming choice of frameworks when starting. Rather than evolve a single framework, they seem to create a new one every 3/4 years and deprecate the predecessor
They _don't_ deprecate the predecessor! That's the Apple approach, forcing everyone along. The predecessors are all kinda still supported with no "this will stop working" date, and you can still see WinForms controls in Win10 system tools.
Sorry, I mistyped, yes, they move to maintenance mode and you can keep using it.
> And it's about 100MB per app + 100MB of dependencies.
As I understand it, this is because it links the entire GUI toolkit in there, so you get a consistent experience regardless of what version of Windows it runs on. 200MB is quite a lot, but its not extreme, and if it reduces the longterm maintenance cost, it could well be worth it.
It's also brand new, hit 1.0 a couple of weeks ago, and therefore probably buggy (I hit a bug in -preview3). And it's about 100MB per app + 100MB of dependencies.
> but there is an overwhelming choice of frameworks when starting. Rather than evolve a single framework, they seem to create a new one every 3/4 years and deprecate the predecessor
They _don't_ deprecate the predecessor! That's the Apple approach, forcing everyone along. The predecessors are all kinda still supported with no "this will stop working" date, and you can still see WinForms controls in Win10 system tools.