The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea(windowscentral.com)
windowscentral.com
The new desktop Outlook is a bad idea
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/office-365/new-desktop-outlook-is-a-bad-idea-heres-why
154 comments
The native views of thunderbird are wonderfully performant, especially when browsing thousands of e-mails in lists and sorting through them.
I'd never be able to go back to scrolling with "skeleton rows" that's the web default because it can't render fast enough..
I'd never be able to go back to scrolling with "skeleton rows" that's the web default because it can't render fast enough..
What's funny is that Thunderbird UI is not native. It uses XUL which is Mozilla's version of something like Electron that has existed since before Electron was even conceived as an idea. That it feels like a native application shows just how really shit Electron is.
I think the interesting part about XUL and why I really enjoyed it back in the day is that it's what HTML-for-applications could have been. It's still a "document" in the way any XML is a "document", but the markup is way more application-focused than document-focused. But instead we keep using a markup language that's designed for documents and try our best to make it usable in a very not-a-document way.
Edit: one detail I don't recall is what XUL actually uses for rendering components on-screen.
Edit: one detail I don't recall is what XUL actually uses for rendering components on-screen.
> The native views of thunderbird are wonderfully performant
Are we using the same Thunderbird? For me it feels rather sluggish.
Are we using the same Thunderbird? For me it feels rather sluggish.
Sluggish?
It's near instantaneous at everything, except when it's doing network operations. It literally does a keyword stem search on a 4GB mailbox in under a 1/10 of a second. That's the fastest inverted index lookup I've ever seen - all accomplished with just sqlite. I consider it amazing. It makes the old version of Outlook look like a dog. A one legged dog. And the leg is broken.
As others have noted, as soon at it has to access the network it slows down. A lot. And it you queue up enough operations, it can get confused - particularly if the network drops out in the middle and it has to re-sync everything. But it is imap, so I forgive it.
To get it's native non-networked speed, you do have to ensure every folder is downloaded to local storage. Do that, and it's amazingly quick.
It's near instantaneous at everything, except when it's doing network operations. It literally does a keyword stem search on a 4GB mailbox in under a 1/10 of a second. That's the fastest inverted index lookup I've ever seen - all accomplished with just sqlite. I consider it amazing. It makes the old version of Outlook look like a dog. A one legged dog. And the leg is broken.
As others have noted, as soon at it has to access the network it slows down. A lot. And it you queue up enough operations, it can get confused - particularly if the network drops out in the middle and it has to re-sync everything. But it is imap, so I forgive it.
To get it's native non-networked speed, you do have to ensure every folder is downloaded to local storage. Do that, and it's amazingly quick.
99% of HN suggest VSCode is very fast, when Sublime exist.
It is one reason why the other day we have a submission "Windows NT on 600MHz machine opens apps instantly. What happened"
Most people aren't latency sensitive. Or do not care about it enough. The world of computing has then settle of sluggish behaviour being the norm. As most are OK with it.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446933
It is one reason why the other day we have a submission "Windows NT on 600MHz machine opens apps instantly. What happened"
Most people aren't latency sensitive. Or do not care about it enough. The world of computing has then settle of sluggish behaviour being the norm. As most are OK with it.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446933
I’m pretty sure the apps do a lot more now than they did on windows XT. I wouldn’t build with Electron over something like Tauri+Svelte but I also don’t mind waiting 1 second for hundreds of great extensions and lsps to load once for a 4 hour session.
> I’m pretty sure the apps do a lot more now than they did on windows XT
The question is whether that additional work is of any benefit to the user.
The question is whether that additional work is of any benefit to the user.
Provided thunderbird is finished fetching mails. Why that is happening on the ui thread is beyond me, but thunderbird is always frozen for a couple dozens seconds after opening it after a bunch of new mail came in.
Were the last Outlook versions actually native? Say starting around Office 2016. They always felt very... off. Extremely laggy. Weird scrollbar behavior.
I don't usually use windows, but my employer uses Office 365, so I've been using Outlook web for several years now. It felt much snappier and more pleasant to use than the native client. I understand there are some features missing, but since I'm a very basic user (the most advanced thing I use is combining messages into conversations), it never bothered me.
The new Outlook UI looks extremely similar to the web one, and the app feels snappier on my machine. The thing I dislike the most is the empty space at the top of the window, but I guess that's just the current fashion.
I don't usually use windows, but my employer uses Office 365, so I've been using Outlook web for several years now. It felt much snappier and more pleasant to use than the native client. I understand there are some features missing, but since I'm a very basic user (the most advanced thing I use is combining messages into conversations), it never bothered me.
The new Outlook UI looks extremely similar to the web one, and the app feels snappier on my machine. The thing I dislike the most is the empty space at the top of the window, but I guess that's just the current fashion.
First, I agree. Microsoft has failed to provide a viable platform for native GUI development, and IMO there is still a place for native desktop applications. Part of the reason Windows stayed so prevalent for so long is its rich software ecosystem - arguably, an ecosystem that partially resulted from MS's focus on developers.
However, there may be additional reasons for building new products with web tech. Someone already needs to maintain the web versions of these applications. If you're going to offer web access to Outlook, a team needs to be responsible for maintaining that web application. By replacing the native desktop app with a wrapper around their existing web application, Microsoft reduces the need to separately build and maintain features in both platforms.
However, there may be additional reasons for building new products with web tech. Someone already needs to maintain the web versions of these applications. If you're going to offer web access to Outlook, a team needs to be responsible for maintaining that web application. By replacing the native desktop app with a wrapper around their existing web application, Microsoft reduces the need to separately build and maintain features in both platforms.
> By replacing the native desktop app with a wrapper around their existing web application, Microsoft reduces the need to separately build and maintain features in both platforms.
True, but it's at the price of having an inferior product. But perhaps Microsoft doesn't care about that.
True, but it's at the price of having an inferior product. But perhaps Microsoft doesn't care about that.
Microsoft built their whole business on providing inferior copies of other products, they never cared and never will.
Sadly, Thunderbird is becoming (or has become) a non-option in companies that use Outlook365/Microsoft365. Microsoft seems to have been quite effective in disabling IMAP and SMTP as a default in these tenants and scaring companies that even with OAuth2, these are insecure and not as safe as sticking with Outlook as the client.
Companies (actually the information security teams) may be taking shortcuts based on Microsoft’s recommendations to reduce their work while imposing a huge cost on every worker.
It used to be that companies were locked in with Windows and MS Office. But there were some alternative options for those. IMO, now companies are heavily locked in to Microsoft by subscribing to Microsoft365. There is no migrating out or exit path for this. They just have to suffer through whatever Microsoft puts them through.
Companies (actually the information security teams) may be taking shortcuts based on Microsoft’s recommendations to reduce their work while imposing a huge cost on every worker.
It used to be that companies were locked in with Windows and MS Office. But there were some alternative options for those. IMO, now companies are heavily locked in to Microsoft by subscribing to Microsoft365. There is no migrating out or exit path for this. They just have to suffer through whatever Microsoft puts them through.
Well, there is Owl [1], which I have mentioned before. Of course, it is the old "chase the rabbit" game we know since the 2000s -- MS365 is just a faster moving target than Exchange on MS Windows Server.
So far the devs have kept up well, I can count the instances I had to fall back to OWA on one hand over the last year. And I use it daily within my company.
[1] https://addons.thunderbird.net/en/thunderbird/addon/owl-for-...
So far the devs have kept up well, I can count the instances I had to fall back to OWA on one hand over the last year. And I use it daily within my company.
[1] https://addons.thunderbird.net/en/thunderbird/addon/owl-for-...
Yes, I know there’s Owl as well as some other (non-Thunderbird) options. But at the higher level, the teams defining what protocols to allow or disallow also manage the policies. That’s what I meant by Microsoft (influencing and) locking in companies.
Outlook's UI design by itself really is terrible. I don't know how so many people accept using it. I have a single business account I used Outlook for, switched to Thunderbird, and it is vastly less painful to use. I can find, read, and sort emails at least 3x quicker than with Outlook.
Modern commercial UI/UX design really has drifted far away from "good." Photoshop suffers the same problem - 10 years ago the UI was quick, responsive, and efficient. Now it feels like wading through mud.
Modern commercial UI/UX design really has drifted far away from "good." Photoshop suffers the same problem - 10 years ago the UI was quick, responsive, and efficient. Now it feels like wading through mud.
> I don't know how so many people accept using it.
Everyone I know who uses it only does so because their employers require them to.
Everyone I know who uses it only does so because their employers require them to.
I've been using Outlook for .. wow over 25 years now.
Early on it was an unstable crashy mess, but in the past 15 years it has been rock solid, reliable, and more than fast enough for anything I've ever done with it.
I am ... not happy that the full client is slated to go away at some point in the future. I know Outlook well; I know how to wield it effectively and to make it behave in the way I want it to.
I have a Macbook and a Windows desktop PC at work. Outlook on the Mac is a tire fire, and it is the new WebView2 version. Horrendous. For the moment, I can get something like the full Windows Outlook application via Outlook for the Web, which is saying a lot, because it itself is an extremely watered-down version of the full Outlook email client on Windows.
Microsoft has been doing this a lot lately, and it's starting to make me a bit angry. They replace good stuff that they don't want to work on anymore with some web-enabled version or a version built on web technologies, which itself is a bad idea, even if the replacements were feature-complete compared to what they're replacing, but they're not. They're partial skeletons in comparison to what they're replacing. Toys. ALL of the advanced features that I have come to rely on in Outlook in the past 25 years are simply not present in Outlook for Mac.
It's a bad trend and I don't see it stopping. In another decade, the apps we have now will be replaced with something else once someone at Microsoft once again gets it inside their head that it'll be better to rewrite rather than to adopt the existing code, and that version will be even slimmer and more useless than what's coming out today.
We are choosing to make things worse every day and I do not understand it. I'm not saying that Outlook is a shining example of a good application, or that it is even in the top 10 email clients, I'm saying that I'm used to it and that I like it. It has continuously improved for 25 years and now it's slated to be replaced with a fucking webapp that's running locally.
What in the world are people smoking thinking that ease of development is paramount to performance for applications which are very interaction-heavy? Typing text into Outlook for Mac on an M1 with 32GB of RAM is not instantaneous. FOR AN EMAIL APPLICATION. Unacceptable, but this is the route they're choosing because development is easier...
I will never understand how web tech got so bad, and even if I do wind up understanding that, I will definitely not ever understand why people choose to use web technologies over things which have worked and have continually improved for decades.
Early on it was an unstable crashy mess, but in the past 15 years it has been rock solid, reliable, and more than fast enough for anything I've ever done with it.
I am ... not happy that the full client is slated to go away at some point in the future. I know Outlook well; I know how to wield it effectively and to make it behave in the way I want it to.
I have a Macbook and a Windows desktop PC at work. Outlook on the Mac is a tire fire, and it is the new WebView2 version. Horrendous. For the moment, I can get something like the full Windows Outlook application via Outlook for the Web, which is saying a lot, because it itself is an extremely watered-down version of the full Outlook email client on Windows.
Microsoft has been doing this a lot lately, and it's starting to make me a bit angry. They replace good stuff that they don't want to work on anymore with some web-enabled version or a version built on web technologies, which itself is a bad idea, even if the replacements were feature-complete compared to what they're replacing, but they're not. They're partial skeletons in comparison to what they're replacing. Toys. ALL of the advanced features that I have come to rely on in Outlook in the past 25 years are simply not present in Outlook for Mac.
It's a bad trend and I don't see it stopping. In another decade, the apps we have now will be replaced with something else once someone at Microsoft once again gets it inside their head that it'll be better to rewrite rather than to adopt the existing code, and that version will be even slimmer and more useless than what's coming out today.
We are choosing to make things worse every day and I do not understand it. I'm not saying that Outlook is a shining example of a good application, or that it is even in the top 10 email clients, I'm saying that I'm used to it and that I like it. It has continuously improved for 25 years and now it's slated to be replaced with a fucking webapp that's running locally.
What in the world are people smoking thinking that ease of development is paramount to performance for applications which are very interaction-heavy? Typing text into Outlook for Mac on an M1 with 32GB of RAM is not instantaneous. FOR AN EMAIL APPLICATION. Unacceptable, but this is the route they're choosing because development is easier...
I will never understand how web tech got so bad, and even if I do wind up understanding that, I will definitely not ever understand why people choose to use web technologies over things which have worked and have continually improved for decades.
> in the past 15 years it has been rock solid, reliable, and more than fast enough for anything I've ever done with it.
I've been using it for as long as you, and I agree with these assessments. But those aren't the reasons why nobody I know uses it voluntarily, and everyone I personally know who uses it dislikes it.
I've been using it for as long as you, and I agree with these assessments. But those aren't the reasons why nobody I know uses it voluntarily, and everyone I personally know who uses it dislikes it.
Outlook Classic view on a 16GB M1 is ok. Don't use the new Outlook...
Well bloody good luck with that mate, I'm desperately looking to switch away from Thunderbird (started using it last year) and while I genuinely hate Microsoft (see many of my past posts), Outlook just plain works. Thunderbird has just been one bug after another.
Thunderbird is good, but I'll also suggest Postbox for people looking for alternatives. It's a commercial fork of Thunderbird (so about as "native" as Thunderbird is), but I find Postbox has a nicer UI, and at the time I switched its local email search was significantly faster. Layout is customizable, you're not restricted to the design (or theme) in their screenshots:
Won't be for everyone - it's not open source, not free and there's no Linux version (yet?). Personally I'm happy to pay for a professional / premium email client experience, since it's so mission-critical to my work.
https://www.postbox-inc.com/
Won't be for everyone - it's not open source, not free and there's no Linux version (yet?). Personally I'm happy to pay for a professional / premium email client experience, since it's so mission-critical to my work.
If you don't like the original Thunderbird UI, try the new Thunderbird Supernova - https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/download/beta/
They are updating the UI, and doing a good job https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/02/thunderbird-115-superno...
They are updating the UI, and doing a good job https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/02/thunderbird-115-superno...
I'm also a Postbox user and quite happy so far but I don't know if I would recommend it. Development seems to have stopped and Thunderbird is making good progress on the redesign.
I developed a Windows phone app before using UWP and it was decent during that time. I could deploy on Windows Phone, Windows and Xbox in one codebase. But then Windows phone became obsolete in the blink of an eye.
Vscode feels blitz fast. Which apps have you tried that feel slow?
VS Code is reasonably fast but it’s somewhat an exception in the world of slow Electron apps. I’ve seen performance issues with Slack and Discord. Spotify isn’t Electron, it’s CEF, but it has the same problems. The parts of Apple’s Music app which run inside the web view are noticeably worse than the other parts.
These two apps seem to be the number one and two most popular desktop-packaged webapps & they have done immeasurable damage to the perception of the web as a technology.
It's cemented the perception of web desktop tech in many people's mind & I question whether it's possible to de-infect what has become a quite strongly held dogmatism. There's few apps broadly actually uses these days, so the opportunity is also troublingly slim. I want to ask, what are the contestible assertions, what would change your mind? But even for me it's hard to imagine finding sufficient leverage, having enough examples, to really challenge the negative perceptions.
For what it's worth, discord load time is a bit obnoxious but I've found it to be pretty performant once loaded, and I'm a fairly intense user who is on many dozens of servers.
It's cemented the perception of web desktop tech in many people's mind & I question whether it's possible to de-infect what has become a quite strongly held dogmatism. There's few apps broadly actually uses these days, so the opportunity is also troublingly slim. I want to ask, what are the contestible assertions, what would change your mind? But even for me it's hard to imagine finding sufficient leverage, having enough examples, to really challenge the negative perceptions.
For what it's worth, discord load time is a bit obnoxious but I've found it to be pretty performant once loaded, and I'm a fairly intense user who is on many dozens of servers.
Framing it as “dogmatism” is unfair.
Most people just try to see what the various tradeoffs are between alternatives. For desktop apps, we’re talking about Electron versus, say, Qt, Cocoa, WPF, or whatever.
The observation that web packaged apps are typically slower and typically have worse UIs is probably not being contested here. Likewise, the advantages of Electron for cutting costs and shipping apps faster is probably not being contested.
I think the only real question people have is, “Do you care?”
I used the desktop version of Discord for a few years. It seems like—well, a real piece of shit, to be honest. So I use the web client now. Performance is only really a problem when you scroll around, deep in the history of a channel. My point of reference is apps like Adium.
Most people just try to see what the various tradeoffs are between alternatives. For desktop apps, we’re talking about Electron versus, say, Qt, Cocoa, WPF, or whatever.
The observation that web packaged apps are typically slower and typically have worse UIs is probably not being contested here. Likewise, the advantages of Electron for cutting costs and shipping apps faster is probably not being contested.
I think the only real question people have is, “Do you care?”
I used the desktop version of Discord for a few years. It seems like—well, a real piece of shit, to be honest. So I use the web client now. Performance is only really a problem when you scroll around, deep in the history of a channel. My point of reference is apps like Adium.
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Business user here.
I remember how much work I could get done in Outlook 2007 using a 1024x768 monitor on a crap workstation with 1GB RAM. I admit that this performance was often chilled by the many pitfalls of on-premise Exchange setups, lack of interop with non-Exchange services, and lack of standards-compatible email formats. Today's Outlook is less buggy, but slower.
This new version gives me the chills.
I can understand the platform change. I can begrudgingly learn to live with oversized UI elements, fat content spacing, etc.
I shuddered when finding that from an efficiency and automation standpoint it's a real downgrade. Things I experienced in one day of "Try the new Outlook":
I remember how much work I could get done in Outlook 2007 using a 1024x768 monitor on a crap workstation with 1GB RAM. I admit that this performance was often chilled by the many pitfalls of on-premise Exchange setups, lack of interop with non-Exchange services, and lack of standards-compatible email formats. Today's Outlook is less buggy, but slower.
This new version gives me the chills.
I can understand the platform change. I can begrudgingly learn to live with oversized UI elements, fat content spacing, etc.
I shuddered when finding that from an efficiency and automation standpoint it's a real downgrade. Things I experienced in one day of "Try the new Outlook":
- Keyboard shortcuts (some changed, some missing entirely)
- Context menu key did not work
- No single key operations in context menu (e.g. right click, d for Delete, a for Archive, etc)
- Limited view customization
- Janky UI reaction speed
- Window and component refresh lag / jank
- Reduced rule functionality
- There were a few more, but the traumatic experience wiped them out of my memoryAmen. Another feature I miss: offline working. Classic outlook lets you explicitly disconnect in the app, work on things, and then sync later. It also lets you download only headers on a slow connection. If you spend any time working on a plane, you know what a godsend that is.
Generally I worry about the creeping consumerization of Office apps and what it means for power users. We're still out here, and we need power tools that work for us. Have the big space eye candy if you like, but please give us the option to turn the bling off and get down to work!
Generally I worry about the creeping consumerization of Office apps and what it means for power users. We're still out here, and we need power tools that work for us. Have the big space eye candy if you like, but please give us the option to turn the bling off and get down to work!
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When there are problems with fundamental features like this, it ends up feeling the software is "gaslighting" me.
Context menu key does nothing? That's weird -- I must need a new keyboard.
Context menu key does nothing? That's weird -- I must need a new keyboard.
Companies can’t ever admit mistakes. It dehumanises them.
Microsoft has been dismantling the desktop UX for me over the past few years. I think they’re migrating the entire UI into the browser. The Office macOS UI appears and feels substantially worse to me than its Windows counterpart. I had to migrate from Windows to macOS because I was no longer feeling comfortable on Windows. My UX with the Apple office suite is by far better. Put formally, the set difference between the features of Word and Excel and the features of Pages and Numbers is empty for my use cases. Same with PowerPoint and Keynote. Outlook used to be good, a proper PIM, it never had been excellent, but it used to be good, even a decade ago. The only thing I regret now is that I’d extended my Microsoft 365 by three years before I realized what they’re up to.
> Microsoft has been dismantling the desktop UX for me over the past few years. I think they’re migrating the entire UI into the browser.
I think it's more about trapping you in the MS365 silo than anything. They want all your data in the cloud because it makes it makes it non-portable. I think the big push they'll make after the desktop apps are replaced will be about data governance because it let's them increase lock-in.
First they'll make a 100% online workflow a possibility. Next they'll convince businesses to abandon local files because it's "too risky". Then they'll start locking down everything that could be used for "data theft", including copy / paste. At that point they effectively own your data.
And it's not far fetched for them to lock down things like copy / paste. I think that's why there's been a big push for TPM and things like Passwordless. It's a solid base for authenticated / authorized actions. Yeah, they'll use it for authenticating to websites first, but there's no reason a similar system can't be used to support signed / authorized actions between apps.
So, when you copy text, it doesn't go straight onto the clipboard. Instead, the office app uses a TPM managed key to send a signed request to MS365. The TPM will have a key enrolled for office apps and will only encrypt/sign for trusted (think code signing) office apps, so Microsoft knows the request came from an official office app. You'll be logged in, so MS can check if you're authorized to copy the content to the clipboard. The public half of your TPM managed key will be stored in your MS365 account.
If you're authorized to copy content to the clipboard, MS will encrypt it with your public key and send it back. Your clipboard will have an encrypted copy of the text. When you go to paste, the receiving app will need to ask the TPM to decrypt the payload and (remember) the TPM will only let the key be used for a specific set of trusted apps, so the copied text will never touch an app that's not authorized.
Think of taking Passwordless, adding a TPM as a requirement, and using it for a workflow of app actions rather than auth actions. That's where we're headed IMO.
I think it's more about trapping you in the MS365 silo than anything. They want all your data in the cloud because it makes it makes it non-portable. I think the big push they'll make after the desktop apps are replaced will be about data governance because it let's them increase lock-in.
First they'll make a 100% online workflow a possibility. Next they'll convince businesses to abandon local files because it's "too risky". Then they'll start locking down everything that could be used for "data theft", including copy / paste. At that point they effectively own your data.
And it's not far fetched for them to lock down things like copy / paste. I think that's why there's been a big push for TPM and things like Passwordless. It's a solid base for authenticated / authorized actions. Yeah, they'll use it for authenticating to websites first, but there's no reason a similar system can't be used to support signed / authorized actions between apps.
So, when you copy text, it doesn't go straight onto the clipboard. Instead, the office app uses a TPM managed key to send a signed request to MS365. The TPM will have a key enrolled for office apps and will only encrypt/sign for trusted (think code signing) office apps, so Microsoft knows the request came from an official office app. You'll be logged in, so MS can check if you're authorized to copy the content to the clipboard. The public half of your TPM managed key will be stored in your MS365 account.
If you're authorized to copy content to the clipboard, MS will encrypt it with your public key and send it back. Your clipboard will have an encrypted copy of the text. When you go to paste, the receiving app will need to ask the TPM to decrypt the payload and (remember) the TPM will only let the key be used for a specific set of trusted apps, so the copied text will never touch an app that's not authorized.
Think of taking Passwordless, adding a TPM as a requirement, and using it for a workflow of app actions rather than auth actions. That's where we're headed IMO.
The problem for most businesses in the US outside the bubble of big industry, is internet fucking sucks in the US.
I'm at a manufacturer in the US in the NYC metro area, we pay $3k/month for 50 mbps guaranteed fiber internet (which we fully saturate). The upgrade to 100mbps was priced at $15k/month from the only provider in the area (used to be independent, then Optimum, and now all owned by the Altice monopoly)
It's a weird path Microsoft is on but I guess if only they want to knee cap their potential customer base long term, then :shrug:
I'm at a manufacturer in the US in the NYC metro area, we pay $3k/month for 50 mbps guaranteed fiber internet (which we fully saturate). The upgrade to 100mbps was priced at $15k/month from the only provider in the area (used to be independent, then Optimum, and now all owned by the Altice monopoly)
It's a weird path Microsoft is on but I guess if only they want to knee cap their potential customer base long term, then :shrug:
100% afree, its all about lock in these days and I'm so over it
I fully agree that this is all about a permanent lock-in (as mentioned in my other comment, though not in as much detail). It doesn’t seem like companies bother much. As long as there are some “this is free”, “this is cheap” and “this just works better” promises, they’ll just go with it.
The main problem is that Microsoft is trying to use a WebView. If they really want a single cross-platform app, they should develop a native framework that will work everywhere instead of shoving everything into a web engine.
The web browser is a native cross-platform GUI framework that works everywhere -- including on the web. It's the best and most used cross-platform GUI framework that has ever existed. Why should Microsoft roll their own solution? Nobody has ever been able to make this work outside of the web browser.
>It's the best and most used cross-platform GUI framework that has ever existed.
Just because it's the best on that has ever existed, doesn't make it good. It's just the least bad.
>Nobody has ever been able to make this work outside of the web browser.
Sure would be nice if everyone would give up then and we could go back to having nice, native apps using native controls, file operations, encoding, hardware access, performance, UI/UX patterns, and security features, instead of letting all that rot on the vine while we reinvent the wheel on the browser.
Just because it's the best on that has ever existed, doesn't make it good. It's just the least bad.
>Nobody has ever been able to make this work outside of the web browser.
Sure would be nice if everyone would give up then and we could go back to having nice, native apps using native controls, file operations, encoding, hardware access, performance, UI/UX patterns, and security features, instead of letting all that rot on the vine while we reinvent the wheel on the browser.
We are absolutely reinventing the wheel on the browser but in the end up we have single broadly compatible platform across devices both small and large, with multiple implementations, and mostly all open source. It runs completely untrusted sandboxed applications. The browser is the ultimate OS for anything that doesn't require raw performance or deep integration.
People have been trying to make that since the dawn of computers. But designing something like that top-down has proven virtually impossible to get right. Building it bottom-up like we have with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and now even WASM ensures that what gets built is actually secure and practical. It might not be pretty but it works.
Even performance, which is the number one criticism of electron apps, is something that can be solved. When you Microsoft looking at making the webview a common reuable component again, what is native between something like WPF/XAML and DOM/HTML is merely a matter of perspective.
People have been trying to make that since the dawn of computers. But designing something like that top-down has proven virtually impossible to get right. Building it bottom-up like we have with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and now even WASM ensures that what gets built is actually secure and practical. It might not be pretty but it works.
Even performance, which is the number one criticism of electron apps, is something that can be solved. When you Microsoft looking at making the webview a common reuable component again, what is native between something like WPF/XAML and DOM/HTML is merely a matter of perspective.
> Just because it's the best on that has ever existed, doesn't make it good. It's just the least bad.
The web browser features a set of technologies that are standardized across a wide array of different implementations. Except for a few minor differences, you can view a website in Safari, Chrome, FireFox, Edge, Brave, the list goes on.
It's a technological wonder. I'm still amazed people hate on it.
The web browser features a set of technologies that are standardized across a wide array of different implementations. Except for a few minor differences, you can view a website in Safari, Chrome, FireFox, Edge, Brave, the list goes on.
It's a technological wonder. I'm still amazed people hate on it.
There are three implementations you’ve listed for actual rendering: WebKit, Blink, Gecko. And it’s unlikely we will ever see another due to how complicated they are to build. It’s been becoming less diverse for almost two decades now.
And you’ve ignored the fact that every web view we have had on desktop so far is kinda crappy and sluggish when at least well built native apps generally feel snappy.
Webviews are one step about shitty Java apps (you know the ones) in terms of UI.
Beyond that there’s the RAM usage.
Be no longer amazed that people can have these problems which no web app they have used has overcome on three or four different computing platforms.
And you’ve ignored the fact that every web view we have had on desktop so far is kinda crappy and sluggish when at least well built native apps generally feel snappy.
Webviews are one step about shitty Java apps (you know the ones) in terms of UI.
Beyond that there’s the RAM usage.
Be no longer amazed that people can have these problems which no web app they have used has overcome on three or four different computing platforms.
Wrong - I can use Qt and QML to make an app that compiles and runs, unmodified, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and others. It can even run on web with WASM. And I wouldn't call web apps "native" or "the best".
> I can use Qt and QML to make an app that compiles and runs, unmodified, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and others.
As someone who is currently working on several QT apps that also work on mobile: That's an absolute lie. You need a lot of extra work to get it to work on both the desktop and mobile. Realistically you have to build the UI twice, QML is nowhere near as "responsive" as html/css. It's also prone to sluggishness.
I stick with Qt because I enjoy working in C++, it's just simpler to have the whole app in one language. My users also told me they dislike electron like you. But it's very disingenuous to tell people that Qt is "just as easy" to build desktop/mobile hybrid apps, they'll be sorely disappointed if they take your word.
As someone who is currently working on several QT apps that also work on mobile: That's an absolute lie. You need a lot of extra work to get it to work on both the desktop and mobile. Realistically you have to build the UI twice, QML is nowhere near as "responsive" as html/css. It's also prone to sluggishness.
I stick with Qt because I enjoy working in C++, it's just simpler to have the whole app in one language. My users also told me they dislike electron like you. But it's very disingenuous to tell people that Qt is "just as easy" to build desktop/mobile hybrid apps, they'll be sorely disappointed if they take your word.
That may be your experience, but for the right kind of app (e.g. simpler apps) I can confirm from experience that apart from setting up the Android app manifest, Qt apps don't need modifications to port, especially if you design convergence in from the get-go.
Developers want to take their web applications and turn them into desktop applications, not the other way around. The web is the master platform.
Qt has had decades to win over this space and failed. Github slapped Chromium together with Nodejs and took over the entire market of cross platform GUI development overnight.
I might not like it but I understand it completely.
Qt has had decades to win over this space and failed. Github slapped Chromium together with Nodejs and took over the entire market of cross platform GUI development overnight.
I might not like it but I understand it completely.
>Why should Microsoft roll their own solution?
Because they're fucking Microsoft. Mutilated websites posing as apps are for hobby projects. They're in charge of the vast majority of desktop operating system interaction, if my pitiful 17 dev company can write all-native programs, so can they.
Because they're fucking Microsoft. Mutilated websites posing as apps are for hobby projects. They're in charge of the vast majority of desktop operating system interaction, if my pitiful 17 dev company can write all-native programs, so can they.
What I don’t understand is why the Electron-based desktop application is so bad, but the web client isn’t. Somehow they can make a usable web app but their all-webview client is trash.
PowerBI's UI runs off of WebView and it's the most frustrating thing. That whole software feels like someone mashed together different colors of play-doh and called it a new one. There are multiple ways to do the same thing within the software, but they have differing levels of efficiency. It's a Frankenstein's Monster of technologies bundled up into this lacking visualization software.
Don’t most Microsoft products feel that way? I’m occasionally forced to use a windows machine the office gave me. Windows 11 is a new kind of janky and it also packs all the fun stuff from earlier versions.
Anyway, they don’t care. Nadella has us all by the monthly subscripted balls.
Anyway, they don’t care. Nadella has us all by the monthly subscripted balls.
>Don't most Microsoft products feel that way?
They really do. A lot of their products feel like a "too many cooks" situation where there's too many things being packed into a UI that can't exactly handle it. To make matters worse, the errors you get when something fails aren't too helpful and they are used across various Microsoft platforms. You have to always ensure you're looking for help on PowerBI vs PowerBI developer or PowerQuery.
They really do. A lot of their products feel like a "too many cooks" situation where there's too many things being packed into a UI that can't exactly handle it. To make matters worse, the errors you get when something fails aren't too helpful and they are used across various Microsoft platforms. You have to always ensure you're looking for help on PowerBI vs PowerBI developer or PowerQuery.
They already have MAUI. I don't have direct professional experience with it, but the message I'm getting from those who have used it, is that it's cumbersome. With people instead just sticking with XF/Uno/Avalonia (Avalonia being closer to Flutter in how it doesn't actually tap into the platform's native frameworks).
Even if its cumbersome, it's still a win-win for them to use it.
The outlook app will be native desktop and mobile (except linux for now).
Plus it will give the maui project more credibility, help grow its userbase. Make the framework better by providing a real world project for the maui team to benchmark, highlighting pain point, provide in-house feedback, feature request.
The outlook app will be native desktop and mobile (except linux for now).
Plus it will give the maui project more credibility, help grow its userbase. Make the framework better by providing a real world project for the maui team to benchmark, highlighting pain point, provide in-house feedback, feature request.
I would be interested to know from anyone at the Office/Outlook team why they went with what they did, and if they had any awareness of MAUI happening at all. Fully agree with the noted benefits, so any non-MAUI team insight would be really interesting
Has the Office team ever paid that much attention to what Windows was actually recommending?
All the releases that I can think of shunned the standard UI toolkits for their own homegrown UI. Presumably to show the Windows folks that the Office team is it's own little empire.
All the releases that I can think of shunned the standard UI toolkits for their own homegrown UI. Presumably to show the Windows folks that the Office team is it's own little empire.
Excel even had its own custom C compiler.
My guess would be that they're looking for parity with web apps. I have teams installed on my corporate desktop but I just use the web application any other time and it's... identical.
If you want an identical experience with identical code across the Web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux then there is only one solution.
If you want an identical experience with identical code across the Web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux then there is only one solution.
Biggest issue with MAUI imo is the lack of a Linux desktop option, wether a wrapper over GTK, QT or whatever. There's been some effort, but MS is pretty much willfully ignoring it. Not that Linux desktop is huge, but it's approaching half of where OSX is and given the early adopter focus is for Developer, it's IMO a massive miss.
Cross-platform desktop apps, should at least cover Windows, OSX and Linux (appImage/Flatpak) as a baseline. Avalonia works well enough, but MAUI just muddied the waters. With the massive efforts towards web-ui in general, it's really not surprising that many devs/shops are just shrinkwrapping with Electron. Even if there are far lighter options for embedded browser usage of the system's browser engine. In the end, the state of desktop apps sucks all around.
Cross-platform desktop apps, should at least cover Windows, OSX and Linux (appImage/Flatpak) as a baseline. Avalonia works well enough, but MAUI just muddied the waters. With the massive efforts towards web-ui in general, it's really not surprising that many devs/shops are just shrinkwrapping with Electron. Even if there are far lighter options for embedded browser usage of the system's browser engine. In the end, the state of desktop apps sucks all around.
it's one thing when third parties do this, and quite another when it's the operating system manufacturer. it's as though Microsoft doesn't want Microsoft Windows users to feel good about being Microsoft Windows users when they use their Microsoft software from within Microsoft Windows.
Microsoft appears to have stopped caring about how Windows users feel about using Windows quite a long time ago.
vscode is an Electron app and is great and more responsive than its "native" competitor apps from JetBrains.
Until you install the enough addons to VSCode to give it the same functionality JetBrains products have out of the box, then it gets slower.
JetBrains' IDEs are very heavyweight, it's apples to oranges. And while there is some native code in them, they're still driven by the JVM mostly. There is fleet, but it's not an improvement to vscode at all IMO.
How about vscode vs sublime, neovim, or any other native text editor with LSP support? vscode is slow comparatively.
How about vscode vs sublime, neovim, or any other native text editor with LSP support? vscode is slow comparatively.
VS Code is primarily an editor, while JetBrains's products are IDEs. You can add extensions to make VS Code more an IDE. And I'd like to see benchmarks proving your point. If you're using VS Code as an editor, others like Sublime Text, Notepad++, Kate and TextMate make it seem very slow.
If your definition of IDE is that everything has to be done using menus and that it needs to be super slow, you are right. If you look at actual functionality then VSCode is as much of an IDE as Eclipse.
The actual slow part is the source code analysis (that is quite robust). Apart from that, I've never noticed any real slowness. I have an M1 MBA and WebStorm is quite responsive. I've not touched Eclipse since 2015, but I remember it was fast even then.
I don't know about slow, IntelliJ is plenty fast on my "utlrabook" with a basic CPU.
But you're wrong on the menu side. They have keyboard shortcuts for everything. And you can program your own if you don't like the provided ones.
But you're wrong on the menu side. They have keyboard shortcuts for everything. And you can program your own if you don't like the provided ones.
I mean, it’s faster than Emacs on my Mac m1.
In fairness, the core of VS Code is really well-crafted highly performant code. It was designed to be fast and to work for a web integrated code editor from the start. After trying Atom and Brackets, I almost didn't touch VS Code when it came out, I'm glad I did decide to try it as I really do like it.
Of course most Electron apps don't have near the same level of effort or foresight when it comes to performance. Discord probably the second most common electron app, and Teams being third. Both of which, at the very least, have issues. Some could be overcome, or at least be more consistent with WASM built controllers, but that whole space needs some maturing and improved tooling. I've played with Tauri and Yew and think it's pretty nifty, but there's a lot of work to getting parity with say React+MUI.
React+MUI itself is pretty good. But even then, on a relatively large team with some relatively inexperienced devs, you can wind up with dependency trees that are insane, huge and slow. Taking that and going through the extra hurdles that the likes of Electron, Tauri or others add is burdonsome to say the least. It can be very nice, but usually isn't.
And while I empathize with the teams using Electron, I can even support the ideas. In the end, it's the outcome that matters. I'm not one of the never-electron types. But I also recognize the issues. I use Tabby for my terminal, which is fast enough, but still takes 3-4 seconds to load. I use VS Code which is usually a couple seconds as well. It drops off dramatically from there.
There are massive advantages a browser renderer offers... it gets all taken away by importing whatever library comes up in your npm search for any given thing.
Of course most Electron apps don't have near the same level of effort or foresight when it comes to performance. Discord probably the second most common electron app, and Teams being third. Both of which, at the very least, have issues. Some could be overcome, or at least be more consistent with WASM built controllers, but that whole space needs some maturing and improved tooling. I've played with Tauri and Yew and think it's pretty nifty, but there's a lot of work to getting parity with say React+MUI.
React+MUI itself is pretty good. But even then, on a relatively large team with some relatively inexperienced devs, you can wind up with dependency trees that are insane, huge and slow. Taking that and going through the extra hurdles that the likes of Electron, Tauri or others add is burdonsome to say the least. It can be very nice, but usually isn't.
And while I empathize with the teams using Electron, I can even support the ideas. In the end, it's the outcome that matters. I'm not one of the never-electron types. But I also recognize the issues. I use Tabby for my terminal, which is fast enough, but still takes 3-4 seconds to load. I use VS Code which is usually a couple seconds as well. It drops off dramatically from there.
There are massive advantages a browser renderer offers... it gets all taken away by importing whatever library comes up in your npm search for any given thing.
> the core of VS Code is really well-crafted highly performant code. It was designed to be fast and to work for a web integrated code editor from the start.
Seems to me this is kinda the core of the matter. VSCode written by developers, for developers, working in the domain of...development. It's almost a labor of love at that point.
Seems to me this is kinda the core of the matter. VSCode written by developers, for developers, working in the domain of...development. It's almost a labor of love at that point.
That's damning with faint praise, though, isn't it?
Is it? I'm pretty happy with vscode. I realize that if you actually measure responsiveness there are better options, but subjectively I'm happy while other "IDEs" are completely unusable for me (Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Eclipse, ...).
VSCode isn't an IDE, really, so there is a bit of apples and oranges here. But that said...
I meant that comparing VSCode to the likes of JetBrains products and Eclipse isn't meaningful because JetBrains and Eclipse are fairly terrible in terms of performance and system load.
Comparing to native programs is more appropriate. Visual Studio is a native program, true, but I think it's a terrible one.
All that said, the IDE product space has become awful overall, and I struggle to find a modern good one. So, yeah...
I meant that comparing VSCode to the likes of JetBrains products and Eclipse isn't meaningful because JetBrains and Eclipse are fairly terrible in terms of performance and system load.
Comparing to native programs is more appropriate. Visual Studio is a native program, true, but I think it's a terrible one.
All that said, the IDE product space has become awful overall, and I struggle to find a modern good one. So, yeah...
There is simply no comparison between the two. Its like comparing MS Notepad with MS Visual Studio. Jetbrains IDEs are so much ahead of even Visual Studio.
All Microsoft needed to do is look to the Apple Music app to know how bad an idea building it on WebView is.
But, yeah, I wholeheartedly agree that they should either develop or use a native framework (Flutter perhaps?) rather than trying to shoehorn a technology that has never been very good for application development.
But, yeah, I wholeheartedly agree that they should either develop or use a native framework (Flutter perhaps?) rather than trying to shoehorn a technology that has never been very good for application development.
> All Microsoft needed to do is look to the Apple Music app to know how bad an idea building it on WebView is.
Teams.
Teams.
Teams is just a horrible product overall. It wouldn't be better with a completely native app.
I really don't get the Teams hate. Or lure organization uses Teams every day to great effect. None of its competitors have apps worth equivalent functionality at a similar price point.
It absolutely has bugs and issues, but what it does and what it costs seem to easily outweigh those.
It absolutely has bugs and issues, but what it does and what it costs seem to easily outweigh those.
> I really don't get the Teams hate
Yesterday i lost 5 minutes to change my picture profile in Teams. So good hidden.
+ other small antiuser features all over.
Yesterday i lost 5 minutes to change my picture profile in Teams. So good hidden.
+ other small antiuser features all over.
Mattermost?
Coming back to this a week late but, MY GOD YES!
Name a native UI framework that enables seamless cross-platform deployment without extensive testing on each platform.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Sure. Electron or similar tech are doing a very simple thing: they're externalizing development costs by transferring them to the individual users in the form of storage costs, performance costs, and user experience costs, to name a few.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is a behemoth. Your argument makes total sense for a small shop with limited bandwidth to test. Companies like Microsoft don't get that excuse. They're simply padding their bottom line at our collective expense, and they can do it because they have extremely sticky services in a lot of areas (in this case, corporate email infra).
Meanwhile, Microsoft is a behemoth. Your argument makes total sense for a small shop with limited bandwidth to test. Companies like Microsoft don't get that excuse. They're simply padding their bottom line at our collective expense, and they can do it because they have extremely sticky services in a lot of areas (in this case, corporate email infra).
There's two platforms. Two. Windows and MacOS. Let's not pretend there's dozens. Why does one have to jump through hoops for two simple platforms? Just write the UI code twice. It's not rocket science really.
Same goes for Android/iOS.
Same goes for Android/iOS.
There are 5 platforms Microsoft wants to support: Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, and Web.
These new Microsoft applications run on all these platforms identically across all these platforms and mostly with the same code.
These new Microsoft applications run on all these platforms identically across all these platforms and mostly with the same code.
Presumably that would at least double the cost. Additionally, you have to find native Windows and MacOS developers, which are harder to find than web devs. Given that, it's not surprising that companies are moving toward web tech like Electron.
you just mentioned 4. that's not 2, that's 4. And you forgot chromeOS.
Tauri is quasi-native in that it uses native WebViews. It ought to be the best of both worlds once we accept that web-based UI is the only way now
Does webui not require testing on each platform+browser combo? Or are we just accepting that sometimes it is going to break and not allowing the same consideration for native GUI frameworks?
One would expect Microsoft puts Windows before cross-platform.
Microsoft no longer seems to be in the business of putting Windows first. Since they're completely out of the mobile market, they're always going to have be a cross-platform software company now. They want to sell software subscriptions and that requires going to where the users are.
I’ll try, Flutter?
We had a few users try it out before we had a chance to block it using Group Policy. It was an abysmal experience for those who opted-in, and I can't imagine it ever replacing the native client without massive backlash in its current state. It clearly caters to a subset of basic users who only send/receive individually. Shared calendars, shared mailboxes, rule management, plugins, etc. were all absent and are features that a majority of our users rely on day to day. There's clearly a huge gap between the folks working on this new version and the native app's userbase — and sadly, as we've all observed, that's becoming the norm with a lot of releases coming out of Redmond lately.
It’ll be fine. It’s a lot more stable than native outlook. Native outlook has a ton of sync issues to name one of many problems with it
I was using the new Outlook.
For unrelated reasons, I found myself in a state of rage and removed the Edge browser from my Windows installation in it's entirety.
Outlook no longer works...I guess you need Edge, or maybe some components are shared...
I am now using Thunderbird.
I just felt like sharing...
For unrelated reasons, I found myself in a state of rage and removed the Edge browser from my Windows installation in it's entirety.
Outlook no longer works...I guess you need Edge, or maybe some components are shared...
I am now using Thunderbird.
I just felt like sharing...
At work I switched from the Outlook client app to the web version as soon as we migrated our email from on-prem Exchange to MS365 (cloud hosted).
Specifically, I get my email at outlook.office.com. Works great in Safari and Chrome on Mac.
Searching old emails is way faster and easier in the web version. It takes up no space on my machine, and there are not thousands of potentially sensitive emails sitting on the hard drive of a laptop I carry around. Way better all around.
I also run Teams in a Chrome tab instead of the Mac app. It runs way more efficiently that way for some reason.
Specifically, I get my email at outlook.office.com. Works great in Safari and Chrome on Mac.
Searching old emails is way faster and easier in the web version. It takes up no space on my machine, and there are not thousands of potentially sensitive emails sitting on the hard drive of a laptop I carry around. Way better all around.
I also run Teams in a Chrome tab instead of the Mac app. It runs way more efficiently that way for some reason.
Occasionally I find myself somewhere I need to access email but have no network connection. No local cache means a big ol’ screw me
> Searching old emails is way faster and easier in the web version. It takes up no space on my machine, and there are not thousands of potentially sensitive emails sitting on the hard drive of a laptop I carry around. Way better all around.
Do Mac computers not encrypt their drives? Like Bitlocker on Windows?
Having sensitive information on your laptop should not be a worry if your IT team does their job right.
Do Mac computers not encrypt their drives? Like Bitlocker on Windows?
Having sensitive information on your laptop should not be a worry if your IT team does their job right.
They do, it's enabled by default I believe. macOS also wipes the private key from memory whenever the laptop is asleep, rather than keeping it around like LUKS or BitLocker.
I acquired Office 21 LTSC because I really hated the new design so now I'm safe for the next 5 years.
Realize there are probably hundreds of UI designers working at MS who need to look busy.
Realize there are probably hundreds of UI designers working at MS who need to look busy.
> I acquired Office 21 LTSC because I really hated the new design so now I'm safe for the next 5 years.
I'm personally using various free alternatives to Microsoft's offerings - Thunderbird for mail, LibreOffice for office work, something like Nextcloud for cloud file storage etc.
While things aren't always great, it's still surprising to me how viable this alternative path is nowadays, especially when it feels like control over the software we use is getting taken away from us (for a variety of reasons).
Either way, software that meets the users and their needs where they are is great! Someone will benefit from cloud based software, someone else with local software that's very popular, whereas others will just be happy to get by for free.
Of course, it's also great that we even have those options and alternatives in the first place!
I'm personally using various free alternatives to Microsoft's offerings - Thunderbird for mail, LibreOffice for office work, something like Nextcloud for cloud file storage etc.
While things aren't always great, it's still surprising to me how viable this alternative path is nowadays, especially when it feels like control over the software we use is getting taken away from us (for a variety of reasons).
Either way, software that meets the users and their needs where they are is great! Someone will benefit from cloud based software, someone else with local software that's very popular, whereas others will just be happy to get by for free.
Of course, it's also great that we even have those options and alternatives in the first place!
> ...While things aren't always great, it's still surprising to me how viable this alternative path is nowadays, especially when it feels like control over the software we use is getting taken away from us (for a variety of reasons)...
You said it best right there! I've also been using open source alternatives for many, many years...and have plenty of scars to prove it...but nowadays the options are so great. I also admit, there's still room for improvement.
Funny enough, i think Google Docs opened the opportunity for products like LibreOffice, etc. to make some headways...because people who have simpler use-cases see that the previously more limited features of an online tool like google docs served the user good enough (not great, just good enough)...that office productivity tools became less a strategically essential tool, with obvious exceptions for niche cases, or cases where someone is using an excel file as a full database when they should not. So, i think this gave products like Libreoffice a chance to catch up, and users with non-niche use cases felt that this offereing is good enough, though of course nowadays its so much better! As you rightly stated: "it's also great that we even have those options and alternatives"!!
You said it best right there! I've also been using open source alternatives for many, many years...and have plenty of scars to prove it...but nowadays the options are so great. I also admit, there's still room for improvement.
Funny enough, i think Google Docs opened the opportunity for products like LibreOffice, etc. to make some headways...because people who have simpler use-cases see that the previously more limited features of an online tool like google docs served the user good enough (not great, just good enough)...that office productivity tools became less a strategically essential tool, with obvious exceptions for niche cases, or cases where someone is using an excel file as a full database when they should not. So, i think this gave products like Libreoffice a chance to catch up, and users with non-niche use cases felt that this offereing is good enough, though of course nowadays its so much better! As you rightly stated: "it's also great that we even have those options and alternatives"!!
I bought an Office 2007 Pro DVD on Ebay last year and it works great on Win 10.
That article should be one line long:
The new Desktop outlook is a bad idea because it supports only Office 365 and not on-prem exchange.
(Which itself is a speculative claim with no substantiation except one anecdote)
The new Desktop outlook is a bad idea because it supports only Office 365 and not on-prem exchange.
(Which itself is a speculative claim with no substantiation except one anecdote)
Couldn't have agreed more. What a waste of 5 minutes.
the lack of feature parity and the real showstopper is NO OFFLINE SUPPORT, are also good points for why its a bad idea.
They literally said "ah yes let's change our iconic industry standard UI that everyone has been familiar with for 20+ years to a terrible standalone desktop version of the Outlook Web App"
I would love if instead of replacing Windows Mail they just FIXED its email rendering. Windows Mail’s UI is far more touch screen friendly, decent and clean, VASTLY moreso than the new Outlook.
However the number of times I need to log into Gmail to see my email because it doesn’t render correctly in Windows Mail is just too dang high.
My intuition tells me Windows Mail is using the old pre-Blink Edge engine and if they could just switch that to new Blink Edge then that would make me so very happy.
However the number of times I need to log into Gmail to see my email because it doesn’t render correctly in Windows Mail is just too dang high.
My intuition tells me Windows Mail is using the old pre-Blink Edge engine and if they could just switch that to new Blink Edge then that would make me so very happy.
I hate the new outlook more than the old outlook. The insider beta version of the desktop version sometimes doesn’t render properly and search is painful to use, granted the new version is missing million features from the desktop version so I use both.
I use the web version when I need only my “online” inbox, to check email and answer quickly, like a first parse including flagging, categorizing, and replying quickly. Because hotkey shortcut combos are different or non-existent and access to local mailbox PST files is not available I use the desktop version for the archiving, filing, and eventual researching and answering with attachments, etc.
I make extensive use of categories and the search folders feature of the desktop version and I made my workflow into just two archive folders INBOX and SENT where every single message that was saved is properly categorized.
The new outlook cannot access my archive and it’s also horrible at search, like it’s desktop brethren.
Finally, I use Outlook because it is m365 and mandated by IT.
For personal email I use Gmail and mailspring.
I use the web version when I need only my “online” inbox, to check email and answer quickly, like a first parse including flagging, categorizing, and replying quickly. Because hotkey shortcut combos are different or non-existent and access to local mailbox PST files is not available I use the desktop version for the archiving, filing, and eventual researching and answering with attachments, etc.
I make extensive use of categories and the search folders feature of the desktop version and I made my workflow into just two archive folders INBOX and SENT where every single message that was saved is properly categorized.
The new outlook cannot access my archive and it’s also horrible at search, like it’s desktop brethren.
Finally, I use Outlook because it is m365 and mandated by IT.
For personal email I use Gmail and mailspring.
> businesses might stop purchasing newer versions of Microsoft Office if it doesn't come bundled with traditional Outlook.
I can't imagine someone who needs Excel dealing with non-Microsoft equivalents because Outlook is making its webapp its official app like Teams - and you could see the writing on the wall there for a long time.
I can't imagine someone who needs Excel dealing with non-Microsoft equivalents because Outlook is making its webapp its official app like Teams - and you could see the writing on the wall there for a long time.
I tried it, and it's not great. Probably OK for light home or school use, but I have work to do, and as terrible as desktop Outlook is, it's powerful and terrible.
The new outlook also shows other Office365 apps in an icon column on the left — which I really don’t need because I already have them in the Windows task bar.
I honestly don't think the windows devs even use windows
No less than 3 (THREE) pop-ups, huge banner ads everywhere, VIDEO pop-up. Writers make less and less money with writing; advertisers are getting desperate; readers frustrated and information lost - leaking from a pipe riddled with holes.
And we pretend to be capable of making contact with a new form of intelligent life? This consciousness is watching us, molding us, and we do not know if it is attempting to co-exist with us or change us for its own purpose. We have a lot to learn. There needs to be a revolution of the mind.Can it inline quote emails properly on MacOS? The regular outlook client was still unable to do so in 2022, last time I tried.
I have no idea why people would like Outlook, it's an inferior experience compared to other email clients and calendar applications in my opinion. I can't even have my personal gmail calendar imported into my work calendar so nobody can schedule meetings for me when I'm picking up kids from a school event or have a dentist appointment. I have to sync calendars by hand.
I have no idea why people would like Outlook, it's an inferior experience compared to other email clients and calendar applications in my opinion. I can't even have my personal gmail calendar imported into my work calendar so nobody can schedule meetings for me when I'm picking up kids from a school event or have a dentist appointment. I have to sync calendars by hand.
Outlook + Exchange is the best example of email/calendar integration and group scheduling I've ever used, and I say this as a pretty devoted hater of MSFT. I mean, my daily environment is OSX, and I read most of my mail in the native Mac mail client, but I keep Outlook running in a VM to deal with calendaring and scheduling because it's so good at it.
There definitely ARE limits to it -- I've never tried to merge personal stuff into my work cal, as you seem to want to do -- but for what it does, it's the best I've seen.
There definitely ARE limits to it -- I've never tried to merge personal stuff into my work cal, as you seem to want to do -- but for what it does, it's the best I've seen.
This is the best question, and has kept me from using Outlook as a personal email client since forever.
I used the new Outlook just long enough to see it was horrible at using existing rules and making new ones and just didn't try anything else. But I can't imagine why they would fix one little thing like properly handling inline quoting when they wrecked the remainder of what had been a decent corporate email app.
I used the new Outlook just long enough to see it was horrible at using existing rules and making new ones and just didn't try anything else. But I can't imagine why they would fix one little thing like properly handling inline quoting when they wrecked the remainder of what had been a decent corporate email app.
Just curious, would people here pay for a Windows native mail client focused on offering a great user experience? I work on multiple Windows projects and had in mind to create my own mail client since a while, but I’m skeptical people would pay for one given the number of free options already available (even if they all kind of suck IMHO).
Or asked another way, what would make you pay for an outlook alternative?
Or asked another way, what would make you pay for an outlook alternative?
It doesn't make much sense to talk about Windows native GUI these days. There's no such thing anymore. Win32 is no longer viable due to using controls and APIs that haven't been updated for years (decades?), ropey support for hidpi displays and other basics. WinUI, the official replacement, has problems and isn't used by large parts of Windows itself anyway.
That's OK though. If you look at this thread, you can see there's been a shift in what people mean when they say "native". It used to be well defined: Win32 on Windows, Cocoa on OS X/iOS, GTK or Qt on Linux, app written in a C-derived language. Nowadays people are using it to mean "not web".
Why has this occurred, well, most people don't really care what exact libraries or languages an app uses. What they care about is the user experience. People are using the word native to mean stuff like, works offline, works with files, isn't too laggy, consumes reasonable amounts of RAM, integrates well with the OS. And above all - uses a sophisticated GUI toolkit. A big part of the native vs web experience gap is that although HTML has a lot of styling functionality it's a seriously impoverished UI toolkit, barely reaching Win 3.1 standards out of the box. So people roll their own widget toolkits that they layer on top, but none of them are all that good and the modern culture of conflating widget toolkits with design systems means they are constantly being tossed out and redone from scratch (this isn't unique to the web, Jetpack Compose has the same issue).
The result is that many widgets taken for granted by Windows 95 users like splitters, menu bars, status bars, pervasive keyboard accelerators, virtualized and editable table views, tree views, customizable toolbars, draggable tabs, floating tool windows etc are just gone and power users are the first to notice this.
You can therefore satisfy people's desire for native apps by providing that sort of UX regardless of what actual tools you use to do so.
That's OK though. If you look at this thread, you can see there's been a shift in what people mean when they say "native". It used to be well defined: Win32 on Windows, Cocoa on OS X/iOS, GTK or Qt on Linux, app written in a C-derived language. Nowadays people are using it to mean "not web".
Why has this occurred, well, most people don't really care what exact libraries or languages an app uses. What they care about is the user experience. People are using the word native to mean stuff like, works offline, works with files, isn't too laggy, consumes reasonable amounts of RAM, integrates well with the OS. And above all - uses a sophisticated GUI toolkit. A big part of the native vs web experience gap is that although HTML has a lot of styling functionality it's a seriously impoverished UI toolkit, barely reaching Win 3.1 standards out of the box. So people roll their own widget toolkits that they layer on top, but none of them are all that good and the modern culture of conflating widget toolkits with design systems means they are constantly being tossed out and redone from scratch (this isn't unique to the web, Jetpack Compose has the same issue).
The result is that many widgets taken for granted by Windows 95 users like splitters, menu bars, status bars, pervasive keyboard accelerators, virtualized and editable table views, tree views, customizable toolbars, draggable tabs, floating tool windows etc are just gone and power users are the first to notice this.
You can therefore satisfy people's desire for native apps by providing that sort of UX regardless of what actual tools you use to do so.
I know, I'm familiar with the Windows GUI ecosystem and understand what people mean by native. My question was to know if people would pay for an Outlook alternative that "works offline, works with files, isn't too laggy, consumes reasonable amounts of RAM, integrates well with the OS".
So far nobody said yes.
So far nobody said yes.
I’d imagine most individuals don’t pay for Outlook either. The question you might ask is “will self employed folks or small businesses or medium businesses or large businesses buy my email client vs using Outlook they get for free with their M365 subscription and can call MS for support for?”
That said, on the Mac at least, there are a number of paid email clients that are fairly popular and seem to be sustainable, so maybe there is a market after all. I always figured those apps were more “a native app for Gmail” than for Exchange.
That said, on the Mac at least, there are a number of paid email clients that are fairly popular and seem to be sustainable, so maybe there is a market after all. I always figured those apps were more “a native app for Gmail” than for Exchange.
Yes, iOS and macOS have a fairly decent market for paid email clients. I myself bought AirMail years ago (before it moved to a subscription model).
"In April 2023, Microsoft started pushing an option to Microsoft 365 users to switch their desktop Outlook programs to the New Outlook as well. This has been optional for Insiders for a while, but now everyone gets a taste of the New Outlook. One of the key benefits appears to be full support for 3rd party e-mail and calendars, such as the very popular GMail. No doubt that many home users will welcome this option, but if Microsoft 365, which shares its code base with perpetually licensed Microsoft Office packages, loses Outlook, this will be one less reason for Microsoft to keep improving it."
All the Microsoft Office seems to be going to web programming for use on the Microsoft 365 websites and a unified codebase for PWAs / "native" clients that are WebViews or similar.
This leads me to believe that the future of Windows is as a ChromeOS-like thin client with everything happening in Azure to maximize Azure use, enable Copilot / AI, and increase subscription revenues.
All the Microsoft Office seems to be going to web programming for use on the Microsoft 365 websites and a unified codebase for PWAs / "native" clients that are WebViews or similar.
This leads me to believe that the future of Windows is as a ChromeOS-like thin client with everything happening in Azure to maximize Azure use, enable Copilot / AI, and increase subscription revenues.
What are some usable alternatives on macOS you folks use? I also need the calendar thing. Outlook is quirky and I essentially pay for it. If this ships, this will only become worse.
I seriously thought they were silently abandoning the desktop version of Outlook.
I have not been able to get it working again for more than a year, after setting up O365 account.
The attempts to get it working again involve MS-developed special utility program(s) -- but this has never fixed the problem for me.
I gave the problem to our IT support people. They tried but ultimately gave up and asked if I would just use the web-based Outlook instead. What was I going to do? Say, no?
I have not been able to get it working again for more than a year, after setting up O365 account.
The attempts to get it working again involve MS-developed special utility program(s) -- but this has never fixed the problem for me.
I gave the problem to our IT support people. They tried but ultimately gave up and asked if I would just use the web-based Outlook instead. What was I going to do? Say, no?
In 2023 it seems like no one wants to use anything other than JS and CSS to build a native desktop application. I would be interested in seeing a desktop environment that just cuts to the chase and makes the entire desktop a web view so that developers don’t need to package things into extra layers. Weren’t there a few failed mobile OSes that tried this in the early 2010s?
Palm Pre's webOS (2009) is the most famous. After an acquisition by HP (2010-2013), it was acquired by LG's (with patents going to Qualcomm). The only other major entrant, Firefox, was short lived (2014-2015). Chrome OS (2011-) only sort of counts; I don't think the OS chrome is using Chrome, just the same underlying drawing libraries, but it does run webapps.
Before that was a neat Linux project Pyrodesktop (2007) which was an x11 window manager using Firefox guts to render. There was also a trend of trying to mate Javascript technologies to gnome back then, with efforts like gjs seeing some adoption. I don't know how popular it is, but a spinoff of css was/is used for styling in GNOME for a while.
These days there's tons of web desktop projects. https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops . Only sort of in the spirit but i quite adore Greenfield, an html5 Wayland desktop/compositor. https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield
I absolutely think there is all-in potential for the web. I think we're missing a visible rallying point, where a stronger community of app makers can cooperatively advance beyond-the-web capabilities. Project Fugu & WICG help a lot but are also working with Safari (and sort of Firefox) handcuffed to them.
Before that was a neat Linux project Pyrodesktop (2007) which was an x11 window manager using Firefox guts to render. There was also a trend of trying to mate Javascript technologies to gnome back then, with efforts like gjs seeing some adoption. I don't know how popular it is, but a spinoff of css was/is used for styling in GNOME for a while.
These days there's tons of web desktop projects. https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops . Only sort of in the spirit but i quite adore Greenfield, an html5 Wayland desktop/compositor. https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield
I absolutely think there is all-in potential for the web. I think we're missing a visible rallying point, where a stronger community of app makers can cooperatively advance beyond-the-web capabilities. Project Fugu & WICG help a lot but are also working with Safari (and sort of Firefox) handcuffed to them.
css is still used in gtk (but a very minimal version) and javascript is used to write gnome extensions.
That's ChromeOS.
You may be thinking of Palm webOS which failed in the market, partly because it felt slower than Android, iirc.
You may be thinking of Palm webOS which failed in the market, partly because it felt slower than Android, iirc.
There were a couple posted on HN recently.
Capyloon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262627
Kera https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36260589
Capyloon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262627
Kera https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36260589
You want Active Desktop?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop
We use MS365 at work.
Outlook for the web is ok until you try to use the 'groups' feature. I need to hold a 10 minute tutorial on the backwards UI for the group view within outlook.
The 'groups' functionality is decent.. so sad they hide buttons and kinda just stopped working on it.
The 'groups' functionality is decent.. so sad they hide buttons and kinda just stopped working on it.
I just turned this off for our 10k fleet yesterday. (via reghack script and GPP)
utterly ludicrous that MS would make this available to everyone and not offer an official way to turn it off for a couple of months AFTER the release to public.
So sick of MS pulling this stunt.
utterly ludicrous that MS would make this available to everyone and not offer an official way to turn it off for a couple of months AFTER the release to public.
So sick of MS pulling this stunt.
What a terrible ad laden website.
That's what I was thinking. Funny to read criticism about usability and aesthetics from a website covered in popups and banner ads.
I did not see any ads. Must be my adblock.
There was lots of whitespace from the ad placeholders having unique names though.
Try disabling Javacript for this website and it's gonna be perfect
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Microsoft, in the past 10 years, have failed to provide a good UI option for developers. WinForms is legacy. WPF is legacy. WinRT is dead. UWP is dead. MAUI is a mess. WinUI looks to be either abandoned or not getting enough attention to make it a viable option.
From the above, it is understandable why teams in MS are building new products with Web tech. The Windows team should consider this a failure because Windows now has no good, viable option for GUI development.