[Development] Qt 6 Planning: Consideration of dropping support for UWP applications

[Oliver Wolff]

On 21/04/2019 10:43, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> On Donnerstag, 18. April 2019 14:46:59 CEST Oliver Wolff wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> as you might have heard, we are currently in Qt 6's planning phase and
>> thus checking things that have to be done to make Qt even better.
>> Of course we also want to use this opportuniy to drop support for
>> platforms that are no longer relevant in Qt's new environment.
>>
>> One of these platforms is Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform which
>> is used on desktop PCs (for "Tiled" UWP applications, no classic desktop
>> applications), Windows Phone, Xbox one, Microsoft Hololens, and
>> Microsoft IoT devices. With Windows Phone no longer being relevant and
>> Microsoft's IoT strategy being unclear we now consider dropping support
>> for these platforms. Additional benefits and reasons can be found in
>> https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-74755
>>
>> To be able to make the right decision, we now want your input as well.
>> If you can give some input on why support should be kept or have
>> additional reasons for dropping support, please reply to this mail or
>> add your input to https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-74755 where we
>> want to gather all the needed information before making a decision.
>>
>> As said before, nothing is set in stone. At the moment we are gathering
>> information so that we can make a well informed decision.
> 
> How does UWP support relate to using UWP APIs?
> 
> It seems a lot of new Windows API is UWP specific. For instance for HDR
> support I need to read the luminance level for SDR content in HDR mode, and I
> could only find UWP API for that.

UWP APIs are available for "classic" Windows applications as long as the 
applications run on Windows >= 10. So they can be used in Qt's desktop 
port (they might need a compile and run time check though)

This of course also means, that backends that are available on desktop 
Qt (like Sensors, Bluetooth, and Location for example) will keep working 
on Windows desktop (>= 10). These backends would not be part of UWP's 
deprecation and would be kept alive and supported.

Olli

> 
> 'Allan
> 
>