News

Microsoft Closes Request for Universal UI Builder: 'It's Baffling'

• By David Ramel
• 03/24/2025

Microsoft last week closed a feedback request for a universal UI builder as capable as WinForms, putting an end to a long-sought coding nirvana with a decision that angered some developers.

"It's baffling" said one developer about the decision, who added: "Microsoft have abandoned every development advantage they ever had and instead are constantly chasing Javascript and Python developers who have no interest in C# and .NET and never will."

One universal UI builder would address a lot of confusion and angst among Microsoft-centric developers in the .NET space, with a dizzying array of options offered to build just desktop apps alone, (see "Choosing the Right UI Framework for Native Windows Applications").

We've covered this issue before in articles about the multiple choices just for the desktop (".NET 6 Desktop Dev Options: WPF, WinForms, UWP, .NET MAUI, Blazor ..." and "Microsoft Details 9 Desktop Dev Options, from WPF to Blazor".)

The Developer Community item, "Business Case for a Universal UI Builder as Capable as the WinForms Builder," was filed in June 2024. That quite lengthy and detailed post from Jeff Jones -- complete with a screenshot -- starts out: "Microsoft, using an adjunct specialized team in coordination with the Visual Studio team should create a universal UI builder that is equal to, or superior to, the functionality in the WinForms designer in order to reduce initial development time, support time, and lowering total SDLC costs and driving more use of Azure to increase revenue and stave off decreasing revenue from Visual Studio and consequently Azure."

Here's that screenshot of what this could look like:

Jones elsewhere said he was interested in "a UI designer for WinForms, WPF, WinUI, MAUI, Blazor, and WinUI."

On Friday the issue was closed by Microsoft "because it is out of scope with our general product direction." The company said that product direction is outlined in other Developer Community posts titled "XAML Designer for .Net MAUI" and "[Feature request] Visual designer for WinUI 3."

Various comments on those threads offer up the Uno Platform's work in this area as an alternative to Microsoft's efforts.

Uno Platform, which offers a core open-source platform along with paid products, recently introduced a "Hot Design" feature that transforms a running application into an interactive design environment, accessible from any IDE on any operating system, allowing developers to see changes in real-time as they edit their UI code. This feature aims to streamline the development process and improve productivity by providing immediate feedback on design changes.

The case for using Uno Platform as a solution to the problem was presented in a social media post on Saturday from Mark Patterson, who noted that while Microsoft closed the issue because it was "out of scope," Uno Platform in its own post "closed it" because it was "DONE Via Hot Design."

Both the .NET MAUI post and the WinUI 3 post referenced by Microsoft are Marked "Under Review," with the latter having been published in December 2021.

Jones, who authored the UI builder post last June, last week weighed in on the "Visual designer for WinUI 3" post in a comment, saying:

Thank you, MS, for at least starting to consider this. It does no good to criticize MS for however late this is, but instead I encourage MS to take this seriously, state clearly the business case (and there is a good one), and consider creating a UI designer that not only addresses WinUI today, but multiple markups now and adaptable to future ones.

If MS moves ahead, they have one chance to get this right and not deliver a half-baked solution that is buggy, misses the target, or a twist on the "live preview" mess. Let the UI designer show that MS still has the ability to be forward-thinking and high quality, understanding what developers want AND need, like MS used to be.

The very next comment in that thread simply said, "I think the uno platform would be better."