Comment by nozzlegear

15 days ago

Just wanted to add a shoutout to WinJS for posterity, with which I built a Windows 8 app that I had published to the Windows Store for a brief period of time. Then they open-sourced the UI part of WinJS and decided it was just a web framework instead of an officially supported method for building Windows apps iirc, which was the end of my foray into the Windows store.

https://github.com/winjs/winjs

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nozzlegear

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domenicd  15 days ago

I was actually part of a team at Barnes & Noble.com which tried to use WinJS for a serious application. (We were previously using Chromium Embedded Framework, or our own hand-rolled WebKit integration, for the desktop e-reader.)

It didn't go great. I gave a talk about it. https://youtu.be/HySQR0t_7CI?si=5sfKbb-7u-qqD65R . (Be gentle to my 2012 self's speaking skills.)

pjmlp  15 days ago

I have a WinJS book somewhere, from Microsoft Press.

When it was announced at PDC, they only talked about WinJS and nothing else, the folks of .NET Rocks have a few shows where they mention they thought .NET was done, and they needed to refocus into something else.

The show where they interview Miguel de Icaza they go into this.

jerhewet  15 days ago

> for posterity

Anyone remember this one?

Microsoft Press: Learn Java Now (complete with J++ installation CD). https://www.amazon.com/dp/1572314281

  • pjmlp  15 days ago

    Of course, the reason for the lawsuit, and redoing Ext-VOS ideas with Cool instead of J++, later renamed to C#.

    Ironically, Microsoft nowadays not only has their OpenJDK based distro, they even host Java conferences.

  • jeremycarter  15 days ago

    The CD is available on Archive.org

    • jerhewet  12 days ago

      I have the book (and CD) on my shelf above my machines in my home office. I vaguely recall buying this at Costco, around the same time I bought the 4 volume Microsoft Press C++ series (for dirt cheap, at the time) from Costco.

      MS Press used to publish some amazing references. I have a LOT of 'em.

Klonoar  15 days ago

If you want JS, isn’t react-native-windows an option?

  • nozzlegear  15 days ago

    It probably is now, but I don't think it was at the time. This was back in the early Windows 8 era, when apps were called "Metro" – 2012 to 2015 I think? I'm primarily a .NET dev by trade, but I wanted to try something different with WinJS so invested time in learning that.

  • smileybarry  15 days ago

    WinJS was a bit different, where your app was genuinely just a bundle of JavaScript and a UWP host process dealt with the rendering. (No Electron-esque to deliver with your app) Made for some tiny, succinct apps.