Project Centennial: Bringing Existing Desktop Applications to the Universal Windows Platform

The Discussion

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  Sweet monkey in heaven, it's about time. This is what it's really going to take to get quality software sold in the Store. 

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  where's the video???

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  This looks promising. On the desktop side of things, is a COM API available for App Service to communicate with the UWP app?  If there is a link with more info on that, please point me to it.  Also, has your team done any testing with Visual FoxPro?

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  You just use a regular app service.  You can read more about them here:  https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.applicationmodel.appservice.aspx

  There shouldn't be any reason that a Visual FoxPro app wouldn't work, as long as it currently works on Win10.

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  @jsheehan:Thanks for the link. As far as I can tell, old-school COM based tools like VFP and VB6 don't have access to the WinRT API, so they won't be able to work directly with AppService to communicate with the UWP app.  Is that a scenario you are wanting to support? 

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  @JoelLeach: You could add a dll to your app that calls the apis. I don't know of any plans to modify old run times.

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  Very cool tech and great presentation. At the 37:48 mark, the slides say "Fully UWP", and even calls out Mobile support. Does this mean Continuum on Phone will allow Win32 x86 / x64 apps to run on ARM devices?

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  @David: I don't think it will. This bridge is a converter that let's your Win32 app run in a package and access the UWP API's. At that point, it will only run on Windows 10 PC's and such an app can be published to the Windows Store later this year. What you can do from that point on is migrate more and more code from Win32 app to a new UWA (a UWP app). Once you reached the point that everything is UWP, you can drop the Win32 dependencies and take your UWA to all UWP platforms including Phone (and Continuum) and XBOX One. But as far as I understood it, it won't run your Win32 on an ARM phone device. Perhaps if someday a x86 Surface Phone arrives it will change the story...

   

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  @David: @LeonMeijer is correct.  If you watch the talk, you'll see that section is about continuing to move your code off of Centennial.  Once you're done moving, you're not using Centennial anymore.

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  I have watched the presentation last year in awe.

  This year it seems even more compelling...

  Now that we know much more about the what, and it works on the booth upstairs, the question becomes : when ?

   

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  When? Now.
  Check https://aka.ms/desktopbridge again.
  
  I honestly don't understand why I signed up for the "Bridges" newsletter several times and you never get a single mail. Even if the project finally goes live.