In good news for developers, Microsoft is making app development much easier on Windows, courtesy of Project Reunion. Previously, at Build 2020, Microsoft announced Project Reunion to bridge the gap between Win32 and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps for Windows 10.
This week, at Microsoft Ignite, the company shared the progress around Project Reunion so far. Microsoft also reiterated its commitment to simplify app development on Windows and provide developers with suitable experience.
Microsoft outlines Project Reunion progress
“We’re creating a unified app platform that allows you to focus on your app and take advantage of new or existing code. We also know you need a great development environment and tools that help you stay productive,” said Kevin Gallo, CVP, Windows Developer Platform, Microsoft.
Project Reunion offers developers the freedom to choose components specific to their app’s requirements. This freedom eliminates the need to rewrite the app from scratch.
Microsoft wants developers to benefit from some of the latest OS and hardware capabilities. Microsoft continues to achieve what it wants Project Union to be all about.
For instance, the on-going progress to WinUI, WebView2, and other app model features suggests that Microsoft is on the right path.
- WinUI 3 Preview 3 enables developers to access to some new app development tools, allowing them to use the existing code and develop ARM64-compatible apps.
- WebView2 enables developers to eliminate the dependency on a specific version of Microsoft Edge. Developers can host web content in native apps, courtesy of the new WebView2 Runtime.
- App Model features enable developers access to a lighter footprint on user’s systems. This way, developers can incrementally improve their existing apps.
Microsoft will make these updates available to developers in the coming months.
Microsoft is also releasing updates to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Windows Terminal, and React Native for Windows. This way, Microsoft hopes to keep developers engaging and productive.
Microsoft has backported WSL 2 to Windows version 1903 or higher. It will enable WSL 2 users to access the same performance parity as Windows 10 version 2004. Microsoft has also added support for Linux graphical user interface (GUI) apps to Insider builds.
Windows Terminal Preview 1.4 offers a new command palette, enabling developers to navigate and interact with all terminal commands in one place.
Last but not least, React Native for Windows v.0.63 offers new features like navigation support, improved theming support, automatic linking of native modules, and services to allow inter-module communication.
