Potential for Tauri

[sakgoyal]

Have you guys considered using Tauri instead of a VSCode extension using JS/Electron? smaller bundles, more performance

Also, since this is a windows specific project, why use MinGW isntead of MSVC?

[m417z]

Have you guys considered using Tauri instead of a VSCode extension using JS/Electron? smaller bundles, more performance

Yes, I plan to look at it at some point. It was briefly discussed here: #155 (reply in thread).
Note that VSCode's capabilities are also used for development, so as I currently see it, a WebView/Tauri will be part of a smaller Windhawk bundle without development capabilities, and VSCode and the compiler will be optional for mod development.

Also, since this is a windows specific project, why use MinGW isntead of MSVC?

Mostly for license reasons.

[Anixx]

Tauri is cross-platform? Why one would need it to be cross-platform? Why just not to use Winforms?

[m417z]

Qt is also cross-platform :) I agree with all points, I think Tauri can be a good option. Using WebView2 directly can work too.

[Anixx]

I did not talk about Qt. I was talking about Winforms. I do not know how Qt maintains compatibility on Windows, but on Linux lots of software needs re-write once a new version of Qt is released. This is not something desirable.

Tauri uses interpreted Javascript for frontend, which slows it down. For backend it uses Rust which can change any time like Python did in the past and that made lots of software obsolete or requiring rewrite.
Not to say, Tauri itself can lose support or change version in incompatible way.
Winforms is going to be supported as long as Windows itself is supported and its API is not going to change in incompatible way.

Since you are targeting Windows, the only sensible choice is Winforms, and you can embeed there Webwiev2, like into Tauri.

[Anixx]

you could use windows directly with WinUI or something, but documentation for microsoft is ATROCIOUS

I do not know why do you bring WinUI here. WinUI is already a dead technology. MS just finished the conversion of Windows taskbar to WinUI in Windows 11 but too late: everyone knows that WinUI is already dead. (and here)

As to programming for Winforms, there is no API that documented better than Winforms, and you can literally use visual designer for it.

[sakgoyal]

my reasons against winforms or anything non web is simple. it will require a complete rewrite. tauri will preserve the frontend code almost exactly as it is. only the IPC parts may change or small things like that.

if you want to go to winforms and go through the effort, then do it and see how annoying documentation is and how annoying translation is for that. microsoft documentation is one of the worst I have experienced in my life.

also, who cares if tauri "works" on linux. it doesnt affect it in any way. the current version is electron. is that a problem for you?

[Anixx]

if you're using Wibview2, is there a difference, whether it runs inside Winforms or Tauri? It renders html pages the same way.