Why did VS2019 dropped JavaScript project support?

Question

Hello there,

I'm creating UWP games with Javascript and Visual Studio 2017. Each time i've tried to upgrade to VS 2019, i was unable to open my project (*.jsproj) files.
It always says that VS 2019 doesn't support those files.

So, my question is, why? Why abandonning Javascript support in VS 2019?
I'm one of the persons who got a slap in the face when Visual Studio abandonned XNA support... And now, same is happening again with JS projects...

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hello @Dobermann Studios ,

Thank you for taking time to post this issue in Microsoft Q&A forum.

Actually, yes, refer to this release notes of Visual Studio 2019: Universal Windows Platform or this document: JavaScript and TypeScript in Visual Studio 2019.

“UWP JavaScript apps are no longer supported in Visual Studio 2019. You cannot create or open JavaScript UWP projects (files with extension jsproj). You can learn more via our documentation on creating Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) that run well on Windows.“

So, my question is, why? Why abandoning JavaScript support in VS 2019?

Deprecating features is always hard, Daniel Jacobson had explained some reasons in this thread: Please don’t remove JavaScript UWP development from VS 2019: “The usage for WWAs and .jsproj in Visual Studio has been low and going down over time. An increasing number of developers are choosing to build PWAs instead.”

You can also refer to this thread: UWP JavaScript apps, and Elvis Xia mentioned: “UWP JS Apps is no longer supported by Visual Studio 2019 won’t have any effect on running existing UWP JS Apps. Because under the hood, UWP JS App and PWA apps are the same, they are both running under WWAHost, consumed by the same Edge JS Core and Html Renderer.” And, maybe, you can consider trying PWA.

Really, I am sorry to say that UWP JavaScript Apps are no longer supported by Visual Studio 2019.

Thanks for your understanding.

Sincerely,
Tianyu

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