For a project, I build a WinForms application using .NET 7.0. I noticed it must run on Linux so I made some research and found that it's possible to run .NET code with mono but it's not applicable to WinForms. Is there a solution to convert my project without having to make the design of the forms from scratch (like would be the case with mono development)?
Thanks.
What I tried: Installing mono and running my code. It says me that no CLI image was found.
No cross-platform desktop GUI exists in .NET out of the box.
To overcome this issue Microsoft created MAUI although it was announced Linux devices won't get official support.
Your best bet would be to migrate to Avalonia or UNO, both are great open-source, free and feature-rich frameworks built on top of .NET which works on any operating system, including Ubuntu, macOS and Windows.
Both frameworks use XAML dialect which should feel familiar for developers coming from WPF, UWP, or Xamarin Forms.
UNO can be developed using C# markup instead XAML
No XAML needed if you don’t want it – Enjoy a Flutter-like
UI development experience with C# and .NET Hot Reload
by using C# for Markup
Only .NET 7 console app runs (through .NET 7 runtime) on Linux, no WinForms, no WPF.
If you need a .NET desktop app running on Linux, and you are targeting GNOME desktop environment, you could give a try to gtk# based on mono.
Related
When I tried to compile my WPF C# .NET Core project for "osx-64" I got this error:
There was no runtime package available for "Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App.WPF" for the specified runtime identifier "osx-x64".
What can I do? Does anyone have an idea?
Thanks in advance.
WPF in .NET Core is only available on Windows, see reference.
One of the biggest enhancements is support for Windows desktop applications (Windows only). By using the .NET Core 3.0 SDK component Windows Desktop, you can port your Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications. To be clear, the Windows Desktop component is only supported and included on Windows.
(.NET Core Version 3.0.103 (Commit: b7ef045669), Platform/OS: ubuntu linux 18.04-x64, Winforms branch version (date): Thu Mar 26 07:37:13 2020 -0700, VSCode 1.43.2)
I cloned current version of Winforms from Github, tried to use appropriate installation script (build.sh) but finally got only error message (I think it's a bug).
Possibly someone was more succefull?
(Even though Winforms Designer doesn't still work in VSCode on Linux as I got from documentation there should be possibility to create Windows Form Application templates from console, port existing application from .NET Framework to .NET Core and so on).
So can anyone share your experience about this?
Winforms is currently a Windows-only technology in the .NET Core runtime. I haven't seen an instance of someone circumvening this limitation.
.NET Core (and in the future .NET 5 that is built on top of .NET Core) will be the future of .NET. We are committed to support .NET Framework for years to come, however it will not be receiving any new features, those will only be added to .NET Core (and eventually .NET 5). To improve Windows desktop stacks and enable .NET desktop developers to benefit from all the updates of the future, we brought Windows Forms and WPF to .NET Core. They will still remain Windows-only technologies because there are tightly coupled dependencies to Windows APIs. But .NET Core, besides being cross-platform, has many other features that can enhance desktop applications.
The Mono Project supports Winforms, which can be run on linux, however I'm unaware of how to develop Winforms via Mono on vscode.
I just read that there is possibility to develop Windows Forms using .NET Core 3.0. Unfortunetly designer is still under development and not available. I also read that even if Windows Forms can be done using Core 3.0 that doesn't mean that it can run on either MAC or OS (same with WPF). My question is what is then the sense of it if it cannot be deployed on diffrent systems besides Windows? What type of desktop application can i really develop to be able to deploy on various systems rather than Windows forms?
That's because Microsoft seems to plan to retire the original .net and just focus on developing .netcore. My suggestion is to build application using web technologies. This way you have the best of both worlds either build web application or develop cross platform apps using something like electron.js
there are so many great apps built with electron like Vs Code or Github
There are many use cases for Windows-only desktop applications, particularly in the corporate world where applications are for internal use.
If you need a cross platform application I would suggest either a web application, or you could consider Electron.
AvaloniaUI (A cross platform XAML Framework for .NET Framework, .NET Core and Mono) would be a perfect choice if you are familiar with WPF.
There are many other frameworks to develop cross-platform desktop apps. You can checkout my github repo electron-alternatives for more cross-platform desktop development options.
Originally it is set to use .Net3.5 for compatibility with win7. (Actually using WPF)
However when it comes to users in win8 which supports only the .Net4.0,
it is required for users to download and install .Net3.5,
which results in a terrible user experience.
Here comes my question:
How to make a software compatible with multiple .Net versions?
Actually I tried to use .Net 2.0 for the software and it goes well with both win7 and win8. However when it comes to .Net 3.5, the backward compatibility seems to be awful. However I really need some features available in 3.5, or WPF.
I don't mind if I have to build multiple binary releases, provided a auto-selection mechanism is available.
P.S. I've found a similar question at Make same app compatible for Net3.5 & 4.0#stackoverflow but got no help after reading it.
Edit
I'm using both winform and WPF. I'm using WPF for a better looking UI, however, as is nutoriously know, the webbrowser in WPF cannot render in a WPF app. So I use a winform webbrowser.
If you're making an normal WPF desktop application, just move your target framework to .Net 4 and be done with it. .Net 4 is fully supported on Windows 7 as well as Windows 8. If you don't want to have the users download an install .Net 4, include it in your setup distribution.
Make sure you don't use types that are not included in the lowest version you target!
.NET 2, 3 and 3.5 all share the same CLR, which should have the same effect on your code and expected outcome. 3.0 and 3.5 has different types as well, so watch out for that.
.NET 4.0 has a different CLR and your code might not act 100% in the same way as with the CLR 2.0.
But, why not ship with the redistributable 4.0 framework. It works on XP sp3, Vista sp1 , 7 and 8. Distributing .NET 4.0 redistributable with application
Hey guys - I just wrote an app using c# and ready to deploy it. Never deployed a c# app before.
I deployed it and VC# outputted a .application file, application folder, and an installer. One of my users ran the installer (Windows 7) and was prompted to download/install the .net framework - which took upwards of 10 minutes. This is not acceptable for how simple my app is.
Moreover, I will need this app to be able to run on mac osx and linux if possible. Should I have wrote this in Java instead (poor planning on my part). What are my options?
C# is compiled to bytecode that runs on the CLR, the virtual machine that's at the core of the .NET framework. So yes, you need the .NET framework to run that.
Most current versions of Windows (XP, Vista, 7, etc.) come with some version of the .NET framework pre-installed, so your users don't have to download and install it. However, you might have used a version that's not already installed on the computers of (some of) your users.
For Linux and Mac OS X there is Mono, which is an open source implementation of .NET, but it does not contain everything that Microsoft's .NET contains, so your program might not work fully on Mono.
Using Java is not a real solution in the sense that your users would need to download and install the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) to run Java programs, very similar to the .NET framework. An advantage if you'd have used Java, is that Java is much more cross-platform compatible than .NET (Microsoft has no real interest in making .NET run on anything else than Windows).
.NET apps require the .NET framework. Java apps require the JRE. Your app is simple because .NET has done a lot of the work for you. A lot of companies write desktop apps in C++, but you will have to be mindful of cross-platform issues.
Yes, with any language that compiles to run on a managed runtime (.NET or Mono CLR, Java JVM) you will need to have that runtime installed. A C# application can compile to run on Windows on the .NET CLR, or on all the platforms you mention to run on the Mono runtime instead. Alternatively, a Java application would compile to run on the Java JRE, which is also compatible with all the platforms you mention.
So with either language there is potentially this extra installation overhead, and with either language you can achieve what you want.
You'll need to have .NET installed on your client's system in order to use your application.
As for running cross-platform - depending on how your Application is written, this can be simple or difficult.
You may want to look at Silverlight. This is directly supported on OS X and works on Linux via Moonlight.
Another alternative is to use Mono to run your .NET application on other platforms.
A C# app will need an implementation of the CLR (.NET) running on the local machine in order to run. A Java app will need an implementation of the JVM so it is really no different. On Windows, I would expect most people to have a .NET install.
Take a look at the Mono project as far as running it on Linux and Mac:
http://mono-project.com/Main_Page
One thing you can consider is using an older version of the .NET framework to ensure that the greatest number of people have it installed. I would use .NET 3.5 or even 2.0 if you do not need fancy new features. That would have been installed already on Windows 7 for example.
Since the Windows 7 user had to download the framework I assume you are currently targeting .NET 4 which means you must be using Visual Studio 2010 (or an express version). Here is a link that tells you how to target a different version of the framework:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb398202.aspx
One quick note about Mono, it is an excellent cross-platform option but it does not support the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) GUI framework at this point. You will either have to use Windows Forms or create different front-ends for different platforms.
If you want to create a Linux GUI (also available on Windows and Mac) you can try GTK#:
http://www.mono-project.com/GtkSharp
For a Mac native GUI you can check out MonoMac:
http://mjhutchinson.com/journal/2010/06/09/monomac_in_monodevelop
An excellent IDE for cross-platform .NET development is MonoDevelop (it will read your VC# project files):
http://monodevelop.com/
Like Java, .Net languages need a runtime installed. The full .Net framework is sometimes too big for small applications, so there is a smaller version of it call the compact framework with a smaller footprint that will install and download faster. You can read about it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa497273.aspx. As noted by other answers most current versions of Windows come with various versions of .Net framework, so this installation may not be needed for every user.
As far as your cross platform needs go Mono allows for running .Net applications on Linux, I am not sure about running them on OSX. My assumption is you can not. Unfortunately your cross platform requirements made .Net a bad choice, and you should have gone with Java.
Other people gave you complicated answers. Well here's my simple answer. .NET framework is needed to run .NET applications and so do Java need JVM (as MCain said). Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft includes .NET Framework built inside Windows. And in addition, .NET have versions, from 1.0 to 4.0. With Vista and Windows 7, .NET 3.5 is installed by default. I think your app is targeted for .NET 4.0 which is why a Windows 7 user needed to install .NET framework. For me, if I have to write a simple program, I'll use .NET 2.0 (later version = larger libraries, etc) so that my users (if they are Vista or Windows 7) don't have to install .NET again to run my software. You can choose which version of .NET you will target from New Project Window in Visual Studio.
You can change the target framework in the properties tab. If you start a project in VS2008 the default is .net 3.5 and for VS2010 it is .net 4.0. If you don't need the advanced features you can change your target back to 2.0 which should be available on most computers by now (I would guess far over 90%). Be sure to remove dependencies which are not available in 2.0 (like System.Linq, System.DataSet.Extensions) and the accociated imports (But the compiler will tell you what to do).