21/09/2020

So, I'm building a demo for work in an app that is strictly Native C++. For the past decade whenever I've had to do UI work, I generally default to using WPF and C#. It's been quite a while since I built a UI front end using Native C++. I didn't want to have to interop between C# and C++, so I started to look for what the right way to do this is. The options are:
1) Win32 Native controls - Bit of a PITA and very old tech
2) WinUI 3.0. This is what Microsoft is pushing for the next UI incarnation for Native code (and managed code). Unfortunately, this is a bit of a mess and not complete.

Both of these solutions suck. So, I started looking at Open source solutions. The big two are wxWidgets and QT. I tried wxWidgets and its certainly better than using Win32 native controls. But, the programming model feels very antiquated (lots of macros). My former boss suggested looking at ImGui. Have to say, I love it. Simple to use and fast. Probably not great for a commercial app but for prototyping, it seems to fit the bill nicely.