Keep in mind that although I know how to code, I am NOT a professional developer. moving on:
I am looking to create a simple GUI program for an embedded system that runs on both Linux and windows. The issue is, the person responsible for developing the applet insists on it being written in c#. I can run .net framework code through mono, and the .net core is multiplatform by design, but he was going to use UWP, and that obviously won't work on Linux. I have looked into Avalonia, but it is not compatible with the version of .net he uses. He told me that QT apparently won't work for some complex reason b/c we are just running a local app and nothing web-connected or even from a server. To be very clear, I need cross-platform GUI in c#. I am also not asking what the best option is, just what possible options even exist. I and the dev will go from there.
thx in advance, RUWO
You have some options which depending on your needs might work well, I would go with AvaloinaUI, but here are your options:
Avalonia Is a WPF-inspired cross-platform XAML-based UI framework providing a flexible styling system and supporting a wide range of OSs: Windows (.NET Framework, .NET Core), Linux (also ARM), MacOS. Android and iOS are on the Roadmap.
There is also a functional wrapper for Avalonia https://github.com/AvaloniaCommunity/Avalonia.FuncUI that makes using it from F# a charm.
Gtk#
is a Graphical User Interface Toolkit for mono and .Net. The project binds the gtk+ toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries, enabling fully native graphical Gnome application development using the Mono and .Net development frameworks.
Eto This framework can be used to build applications that run across multiple platforms using their native toolkit, with an easy to use API. This will make your applications look and work as a native application on all platforms, using a single UI codebase.
CoreUI/LibUI Bindings to portable C Library. Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports.
QtSharp Mono/.NET bindings for Qt
This project aims to create Mono/.NET libraries that wrap Qt (https://qt-project.org/) thus enabling its usage through C#.
Avalonia is currently heading towards version 1.0 but it's already stable. I am using Avalonia now since about a year, and my experience is pretty good so far. The community around it is growing fast, and the core developers are very active in the official gitter chat.
.NET Maui is now an option as of recently, and is developed by Microsoft.
Related
Currently I'm working on an WPF app that will be packaged as UWP app so I can publish it in Windows Store. I'm following this video in making this happened (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJkbYPyd08w)
Now, I want my application to implement Subscription Base service. So I found this link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/monetize/enable-subscription-add-ons-for-your-app
But it seems that I can't add UWP Windows.Services.Store Namespace library into my project. I try to seek in Nuget without success.
Where can I get this library? How to use it in WPF?
Thanks
You only need to add the Microsoft.Windows.SDK.Contracts NuGet package to your project. For details, see this blog post.
tl;dr: WPF runs on .NET Framework, UWP on .NET Core. .NET Framework and .NET Core cannot directly share code with each other, for this you require .NET Standard class libraries.
I see that you're quite new to C#, so I'll try to keep it short and simple.
.NET is a lot more than people think it is, what most people mean by .NET is the .NET Framework. What it actually is, is the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and the Common Intermediate Language (Historically MSIL now CIL), on top of which you have the .NET Standard, this is a base collection of classes that all .NET implementations must have and is the way of sharing code between different Frameworks.
Another layer up you get the Frameworks. .NET Framework being the most popular but also the oldest, it features ASP.NET, WinForms, WPF and more.
The .NET Core is the Framework form Microsoft featuring Cross-Platform support, so your programs can run on Windows, Linux and OS X, UWP runs on the .NET Core.
Here is a great diagram visualizing this
Note: In the upcoming release of the .NET Core 3.0, you will be able to create WPF applications running on windows (WPF will not be supported on Linux or OS X)
I wanted to tryout C# for general purpose programming (not web development). I program in Windows environment, but I would like to avoid coding specifically for Windows (.NET), because I want to keep the option open for a future migration to Linux.
Are there any specific libraries in C# .NET that wouldn't work in C# Mono for general purpose programming work (not interested in Windows Forms, Silverlight and stuff like that) ?
Is there any internet link of things/features that provides a list that works on C# .NET wouldn't work on C# Mono or vice versa? I didn't readily find anything in google per se.
Note: I would be interested in specific answers, not opinions of which is better or worse (thanks!)
It is possible for a CLR assembly (even in the form of a DLL, as mentioned in the comments) to be read by Mono, as long as it does not have dependencies that do not exist in Mono, because...
...not every piece of code that compiles for .NET will compile for Mono, since there are lots of Windows-specific things in .NET (not strictly part of C#) that aren't implemented (WPF, ASP.NET async stack) or don't make sense at all in Linux (COM is one such example, I think).
Fortunately, there is a list of what .NET features are implemented in Mono. Even more fortunately, it seems they have an app that tells you a priori whether your code makes use of anything not implemented in Mono (but I have never tried it).
if you install xamarin (you need Pro or bigger so you have VS integration) you can create Portable Class Library that targets xamarin (which is based on mono) and visual studio will allow you to only use classes that are compatible with mono.
http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/application_fundamentals/pcl/introduction_to_portable_class_libraries/
apparently you can also use xamarin studio to create a PCL and there is a free version of that.
I'm a newbie to programming, and I'm considering using C# to write a VERY simple program that simply edits a text file.
Will it work on Macs and Linux? What will work?
I want to know what makes a program cross-platform?
C# can be compiled for and ran on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS) by using .NET Core.
Previously, cross-platform development using C# could only be done by using Mono which is a third-party implementation however it is now recommended to use .NET Core as it is developed by Microsoft.
Now C# is fully cross platform and has variety of frameworks and run times.
Java is a language + framework. But C# is just a modern language. C# language features are very powerful, easy to learn. No confusion between framework and language.
C# can be used in following frameworks
.Net core (Multi platform supports Linux, Windows and Mac), mostly used to develop restful services, web applications and enterprise systems
.Net Framework (Windows only), Same as .net core, but has more windows only features
Unity - One of most used game engine to develop games for PC, Sony, Xbox devices etc..
Xamarin - To develop native Mobile apps (Android, IOS, Mac)
.Net standard - Create a library in .net standard use in all above applications
Java - Code once, Ship same file to all platforms
C++, C, Rust - Code once, Compile for specific platform
C# - It is just a language, pick your framework according to requirement.
Most popular applications like Chrome, Firefox uses C++, Rust and they are compiled for each platform. But still they share the majority of code between these platforms. Some games use C++ to share the code between IOS and Android.
For new developers its good to start with NodeJS and C#. Both are easy and can do any type of applications.
It's hard to answer something like that to somebody, which states that he just starts programming, but I'll try to give you an (somewhat simplified) overview: C# is a language, which is compiled into an executable program. The language itself is portable between plattforms, as long as you have a compiler on each target plattform. On Windows you have the "default" .Net implementation and on Linux/Mac you have Mono. To do something useful - like editing files - you have to use some libraries. There is a standard library which is available on each plattform. As long as you use only that functionality, your program will be cross plattform. Obviously is will not be cross plattform, as soon as you use some library specific to a certain plattform. Editing files is part of the standard library, so you can implement such simple tools in a cross plattform way. When choosing a book, you should look for books which focus on the "raw" language and not on Visual Studio or other specific tools.
A new open source release from Microsoft called CoreCLR is cross-platform and can now be used for this
The CoreCLR repo contains the complete runtime implementation for .NET Core. It includes RyuJIT, the .NET GC, native interop and many other components. It is cross-platform, with multiple OS and CPU ports in progress.
-from the CoreCLR repo
I would not recommend c# as the top choice for multiplatform coding. I would recommend python instead it is very easy to run even as a script and works perfectly on all platforms. If you insist on c# be prepared to deal with the same problem explained by Justin Ethier. Python on the other hand, is the same for all platforms, it is super powerful fast and even has wrappers ready to connect to other languages.
C# is cross-platform thanks to .NET Core, but without a cross-platform User Interface library you can only make very basic console programs with it. In order to make cross-platform apps for Windows, Mac and Linux you need a cross-platform User Interface library like Nevron Open Vision
Yes, C# is fully cross-platform thanks to .NET Core.
.NET Core is a free and open-source, managed computer software framework for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. It is the cross-platform successor to the .NET Framework which only run on Windows. The project is primarily developed and supported by Microsoft (through the .NET Foundation).
C# is cross platform and you can run your program in Windows/Linux and Mac. For Linux, though, you need to run it using mono
as jvm makes java as plateform independent is it possible with CLR to make .net framework supported languages like c# plateform independent on mobile
Yes, you can use the Mono CLR. Mono is the open source implementation of C#, .NET BCL and the CLR.
MonoTouch runs on the iPhone
MonoDroid runs on Android devices
Yes-ish. At the tooling level, see MonoDroid, MonoTouch or the WP7 tools. However, in each case you are using the language to target a specific mobile platform. You may need different UI code for each, even if the core code is shared.
.NET Compact Framework works on mobile devices (and has for about 8 years now). .NET is also cross-platform (kind of) through the Mono and MonoTouch projects.
Technically, yes, but each handset has it's own limitations that may not make it very feasible.
If you look at the mono-project, it's a portable implementation of the CLR which can target mobile architectures, but it's still an area of development and not very mature yet.
MonoDroid is the project targetting Android handsets, but it's in a beta stage at the moment.
MonoTouch can target iOS, but it cannot take full advantage of the framework. Apple's licensing prevents virtual machines from running on the iOS, so .NET applications need to be AOT (Ahead-of-time) compiled to run on it. This works, but you won't be able to use parts of the BCL like the reflection API.
There's some early development for mono to support WebOS (Palm) too.
Recently, I came across Mono and MonoDevelop packages in Ubuntu linux. They claim to have a .NET runtime in accordance with CLI. Before installing the packages myself, I would like to know the following:
How powerful is Mono?
Can I develop GUI application for
linux like developing WinForm
applications for Windows.
Is MonoDevelop IDE compatible with Visual Studio IDE. Can I import VS 2008 solutions to MonoDevelop and work?
Does it support .NET 2.0 and above?
EDIT: Adding one more doubt
Is there any way to run the .NET exe (of a winform app) in Linux without building the cod e in linux? In fact I don't have the code for some of the small utilities I developed earlier and would like to run them in linux.
(Strange, markdown starts the enumeration with one, even though I began with 2...)
Yes, you can, but you're limited with 3rd-party components, because the internal implementation is different, and last time I checked (not very long ago), the Mono WinForms implementation made my test app look rather strange (owner-drawn list view). It is not really recommended, though Mono claims that it's now completely WinForms-2.0-compatible.
MonoDevelop is/was a SharpDevelop branch, with the latter having solution support. I don't know if MonoDevelop has. But the cool thing is, you can just develop with Visual Studio and run your compiled apps on Mono. And Mono is, by the way, also available for Windows.
Yes, it does, as far as the CLR goes. As Marc Gravell already wrote, the Windows Foundation libraries are missing, as are a few other (System.Management, for example). But things should mostly work, including ASP.NET 2.0. Mono's application portability guidelines are a good read on this.
1: pretty good, actually. Not all the full framework is there, so if you are writing code that should build on both MS .NET and mono, you need to build and test early against both platforms
4: yes - although things like WPF/WCF/WF (3.0) are missing or slimmed down
I don't know much about the development environment, since I use VSTS (on Windows) and just use a NANT script to do the build on mono...
Define "powerful".
Mono has a WinForms implementation to allow for some level of source compatibility. However, depending on your needs, you might want to use one of the Mono bindings for a Linux native framework, like Gtk# or Qyoto
Wouldn't know.
Depends on what parts of .NET you mean. C# the language seems to be pretty current, things get fuzzier the closer you get to the enterprisey features as was already mentioned.
To sum things up, if you'll be using Mono as a separate target platform, you're likely to have good results. If you want a no-code-changes-required .NET compatibility layer, less so.
Very powerful. There are no major bugs in the core implementation. It is not a science project. The deficiencies are mostly where you would expect, the newest APIs (Microsoft inherently has a first-mover advantage there).
Yes. We just finished a project where most of the GUI code was developed in WinForms on Windows. I was able to work on it using Ubuntu without major headaches. That said, this is one of the hardest parts of the API, and there are still issues. See http://mono-project.com/WinForms for details.
Don't know, as I don't use it.
Yes, though again, there may be some missing APIs in the runtime.
Note, I use Ubuntu Hardy (8.04).
Mono is mighty powerful. It has all the .Net muscle on a very strong open source skeleton.
When you say "develop GUI application for linux like developing WinForm applications for Windows" I understand that you are asking about a visual designer that will allow you to quickly create the UI. Yes, it is possible. MonoDevelop has Stetic - a built-in visual designer for Gtk#. There is also QyotoDevelop which enables QT support in MonoDevelop.
Yes, MonoDevelop natively supports VS project/solution file format. You can use the same code base to compile your app with VS in .Net on Windows and win MD in Mono on Linux.
Currently Mono supports C# 3.0 with some stuff beyond that already implemented and a lot in the pipeline.
Yes, in many cases it is possible to run a .Net compiled app in Mono, however with MonoDevelop's support for VS solutions it doesn't really matter. It takes as much as pressing F7 to rebuild the whole project, so the effort is really negligible. The best tool for checking if your application can run in Mono is MoMA.
Mono is very powerfull, sometimes even more powerfull than Microsoft's implementation. link text
Yes you can. Winforms 2.0 is supported
I believe so.
Yes it does. C# 3 is supported and just look at winforms and the asp.net implementation to see how much is supported from each of the projects. Look at http://mono-project.com
I use WinForms in mono. The 2.x releases are very good.
I develop forms in visual-studio on windows, and run them in Linux, with zero code changes. Yes, forms look a little different than on XP, but then again, an XP-themed GUI would look kind of strange in GNOME.
If you are just getting started, stick with WinForms, while you get comfortable with Mono/Linux. However at some point you might want to investigate GTK.