A Guide To Desktop Application Development In 2022

Before the web and mobile apps became the main focus, many people and companies used desktop applications to solve their daily tech-related problems. It seems like web and mobile-based solutions have gradually surpassed them; however, there has recently been a big throwback in the popularity of desktop application development. For instance, Trello, Azure, and Wrike are the best examples of web-based apps that have begun to expand into desktops.

In 2022, web applications and mobile apps are dominating the software industry. As a result, so many businesses and individuals won’t depend on desktop computers as heavily as they do today because we’ll all be using our phones to access most things.

However, there are still people developing desktop applications for various reasons. Don't be deceived because desktop apps like Microsoft Office Suite remain valid for years to come, other great desktop applications like the IDEs used for software development; Visual Studio, VS Code, Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, etc. are all desktop applications, and without them, creating other apps would be hell. So I believe you have seen a reason why the knowledge of desktop app development is very important.

What Is Desktop Application?

Desktop apps are software programs that interact with the operating system instead of web-based or mobile apps and can only be installed on a laptop or desktop device. It also can connect to the web, fetch some data, and use it for processing. They can be any program as long as they run on a desktop computer or laptop and provide a user interface for input and output.

Desktop applications are usually used in one place but might have a “system tray” icon that remains visible on the screen. The term is also used to define an app that runs only on the desktop rather than being available through a browser or other means.

Some desktop applications like word processing and media players allow you to perform different tasks, while others, such as gaming apps, are developed for entertainment.
Some examples of desktop apps are:

• Photoshop
• Skype
• Browsers like Chrome, IE, Opera, Safari, and Firefox
• Discord
• Microsoft File Explorer
• Microsoft Word, Excel
• Visual Studio
• Visual Studio Code
• Android Studio
• VLC and so on...

What Is Desktop Application Development?

Desktop application development is a process where software developers build apps that can be used on desktop and laptop computers. These apps are usually built for different operating systems like Windows, macOS, Linux, or other desktop operating systems. The list of software categories that can be built as desktop apps includes personal productivity software (e.g., word processors), media creation and editing (e.g., video editors), and entertainment (e.g., games).

Desktop applications in a few cases may require any internet connection to run depending on if it needs some resources from the internet before it functions properly, and users have to download and install them on their computers. The desktop applications can be developed in different languages, including C/C++, C#, Java, Python, Ruby on Rails (ROR), PHP, Perl, etc., typically using libraries like Qt or GTK+. 

Why Should You Develop A Desktop App Instead Of Mobile Apps?

Most people assume that developing or learning to develop desktop applications these days instead of mobile applications is an old-fashioned thing to do, but little did they know that desktop app development is the future! Nowadays, most people spend their time online on desktops, especially software developers rather than on smartphones; the demand for desktop apps has never been higher.

There are countless reasons why you should develop or learn desktop app development instead of mobile apps, including. Let's go through these reasons;

• Increased profitability in your market
• Higher engagement rates
• Greater visibility in search engines, and 
• Much lower costs to build. Just to mention but a few!

From the above reasons, It is very clear that desktop application development is not demanding and it is also used by many enterprises and cooperations to record and track their daily sales and so on. There is a high chance that you are reading this amazing article via a desktop or laptop computer, and the browser you are using is a desktop app that makes calls to different servers.

Therefore, desktop apps are everywhere and used by so many people. And in as much as programming, blogging, and other tech areas are concerned, desktop apps will always be used. So if you are interested in learning to program desktop apps, you have nothing to lose because you will always meet the need to use or build one to solve a problem.

Top 5 Frameworks Used For Desktop Application Development

In the desktop development echo system there are so many options to choose from, and most times it can be a very hard decision to make. Different frameworks can be used for desktop application development Aside from just analyzing the features of a particular framework, you are required to acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages that come with using a specific framework.

As a desktop developer, determining the best framework to use is never a walk in the park. Therefore, in this section, we are going to list and explain different frameworks used for desktop development. And making a good decision about which framework that will be okay for your journey will make your life easier as a desktop app developer.

The Best Framework For Desktop Application Development 

1. WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation)

Windows Presentation Foundation is one of the flagship frameworks of .NET mainly used for creating a 2D or 3D graphics desktop application. It has one of the most powerful rendering engines for developing a very sophisticated and beautiful user interface for desktop applications. Anyone who loves to use WPF for desktop app development must know C# or VB.NET programming languages.

WPF has succeeded in winning the hearts of numerous programmers since it was first introduced to .NET back in 2006. And the reason is that the runtime libraries of the WPF are usually set in the Windows operating system. One of the interesting components of WPF is its ability to unite different user interface components. These components include vector graphics, adaptive documents, pre-rendered media objects, and rendering 2D and 3D.

2. Electron Js

Electron is widely known for its cross-platform nature and this development framework was developed by GitHub. It uses a JavaScript framework called Node.js, and this is an excellent choice for developers looking to build desktop applications that work on multiple platforms like the macOS, Windows, and Linux operating systems.

Many large companies and software developers are using this framework to develop their apps, including Facebook Stack, and Microsoft. Web Developers also can build software with Electron because they do not need particular knowledge or experiences from other specific platforms since they are already familiar with Node.js syntaxes.

The ability for web developers to utilize an existing JavaScript codebase while adding additional functionalities will play a significant role in developing productivity when building products.

3. UWP (Universal Windows Platform)

There is an exciting framework that made the .NET platform famous for desktop application development. It’s called UWP, and it allows developers to create cross-platform applications. Universal Windows Platform (UWP) will enable developers to build apps that can run on many different Microsoft-owned platforms, especially Windows 10, and Windows phones.

This implies that your software will be able to run on multiple devices. This is made possible by a specialized algorithm for Windows application development. If you must develop desktop apps using the UWP framework you must know C# or VB.NET and also a markup language called XAML.

UWP is one choice for creating apps that run on Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices and can be combined with other platforms. UWP apps can make use of Win32 APIs and .NET classes.

4. WinForms (Windows Forms)

WinForms is a class library that has been present in the .NET desktop framework since its very inception. Initially, it would replace the Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) but now acts as an event-driven tier platform.
A desktop application created in .NET using WinForms is governed by events—meaning all visual elements come from overlying control classes and are waiting on user input before functioning further. 

Windows Forms (WinForms) is a free and open-source graphical (GUI) class library providing a platform to write client applications for desktop, laptop, and tablet PCs.

5. Cocoa

So far we have been talking about desktop app development frameworks concerning Windows operating system and cross-platform ones. The desktop app development framework will be incomplete if we don't talk about Cocoa.  Cocoa software is a native framework for native macOS development. It is an object-oriented framework for creating a user interface for macOS, iOS, and tvOS.

It not just adds the functionality of the UI but also makes the interface more engaging. But to develop apps through the Cocoa framework, developers will be required to use development tools provided by Apple. These include Xcode and other programming languages used in Windows desktop development, including Python, Ruby, and Perl.

There is also the AppleScript programming language. These different languages will require bridges to enable Cocoa to use them, like PyObjC, RubyCocoa, and PasCocoa. There are a variety of development frameworks available for desktop apps. It depends on the operating system you want to use and what kind of app it will be.

What is the best programming language to develop desktop applications?

Questions like this one lead many newbie developers astray, and I will take my time to explain the misconception you must avoid. The fact is, there is no best programming language in the whole wide world,  but what we do have is the best programming language for a particular project.

In other words, there are a lot of programming languages one can use for desktop app development. But the best one depends on the project and features you plan to add. That being said, the following is the list of programming languages that works very well for desktop app development. So What should I learn for desktop application development?

1. Java
2. C#
3. C++
4. Objective-C
5. JavaScript 
6. Dart
7. Python

Many may be wondering, Is Python good for desktop applications? The shortest answer to this question is YES OF COURSE but most python developers will recommend using C# and .NET for most desktop application development. Therefore desktop apps are coded in the above programming languages. Moreover, Is Java good for desktop applications? Sure! Java is used to build robust and platform-independent applications in many domains. This language is used for developing Android applications, web applications, desktop applications, and many more.

Additionally, the above list is not an exhaustive list of programming languages one can use for desktop app development. Feel free to explore more because most of the languages are general-purpose programming languages. Also, most newbie developers love to ask How are desktop applications developed? because there are many frameworks and languages used to create desktop applications. They can be categorized by the platform they support or as cross-platform technologies along with the programming languages and libraries used. And this gives rise to a question like;

What is the best way to create a desktop application?

The architecture of CPUs is very much different for different computers, and because of this most developers love to create desktop applications in such a way that they can be executed on different CPUs. Therefore, Using the cross-platform desktop framework is the best choice to develop a desktop app that later can be easily transitioned to another desktop platform, mobile devices, and web application.

Which technology is best for desktop applications?

So far we have mentioned the frameworks one can use for desktop app development. According to a survey, the most popular technologies for building Windows desktop apps are Windows Forms, WPF, and UWP. You can develop in any of them using C# and Visual Basic, Microsoft's flagship programming languages. 

Final Thoughts

That was it. To conclude, No one should make you think that you are on the wrong journey if you want to learn desktop app development because the programming languages used and desktop computers are not going anywhere soon. Instead, take your time to think about a project you would like to work on while you will learn desktop app development.

Good luck in your desktop app development journey!!!

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