Please suggest the skin control library .NET for WinForms (with good community, well written, well tested, fast). Another requirement is it should works for Mono.
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Best Regards,
Murat
You maybe not found you want because Mono use by default GTK# and .NET use Windows Forms. Mono have Windows Forms stack but this is not completed yet and maybe never will.
Related
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.
Specifically I want to be able to determine at runtime when portable class library code is running on Silverlight, WinRT, or .NET
My best idea right now is:
typeof(object).Assembly.GetCustomAttribute<AssemblyProductAttribute>().Product
On .NET it returns "Microsoft® .NET Framework" and on Silverlight it returns "Microsoft® Silverlight" but I'm not sure if it distinguishes itself on WinRT as I'm not developing with Windows 8 at the moment.
So I'd like to know if that works or any better ideas.
While there are usually very few good reasons for it, here's a class that does so:
http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/SourceControl/network/forks/onovotny/MvvmLightPortable/changeset/view/f356af74426f#GalaSoft.MvvmLight/Portable/GalaSoft.MvvmLight/Helpers/DesignerPlatformLibrary.cs
I use it as part of logic to determine IsInDesignTime for a PCL.
I intend to learn C# and start coding Windows .exe applications, but the only thing that is holding me back is that not all potential users have the .NET framework installed and therefore would be unable to run my application.
Is there any way around it?
Thanks!
No. c# only target .NET (or a comparable framework, such as mono). As an aside, Win7 comes with .NET preinstalled, and I believe Vista did as well. There are also a ton of MS apps which require .NET. It's getting near ubiquitous on windows machines, so I wouldn't worry about it.
YES, there was XenoCode that can wrap everything that your app needs and runs it in as a standalone. I don't know what kind of dirty tricks they use, but there IS a way.
Now it's Spoon
From their site:
Spoon Studio
Easily virtualize all of your applications for instant,
zero-install delivery on Spoon Server and Spoon.net.
Spoon Studio lets you convert your existing software applications into virtual applications
that run with no installs, conflicts, or dependencies.
BTW, I'm in no way affiliated with them - just curious if the community will accept it or flame it.
Yes, with .NET Native.
Instead of compiling to intermediate language, it will compile to native code and run with statically linked .NET libraries. Therefore, there will be no .NET Runtime requirements for end users.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dn642499.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn584397(v=vs.110).aspx
Does not work before Windows 10
C# is just a programming language. From a strictly technical point of view, someone could develop a C# compiler that targets the Windows API or <insert your target platform here> directly. Sure, it would be a lot of effort because C# was designed to fit .NET, which means the compiler writer would essentially have to re-implement .NET to provide all C# features.
From a practical point of view, you just want to use C# to target either .NET or Mono.
Microsoft started shipping .NET 2.0 with XP since 2005. So, even if your target machine was bought somewhere within the last 8 years, it should still have .NET.
If you are targetting the linux machines on the other hand, there is the mono framework available for that. You don't even have to include it, most repositories like ubuntu, debian, etc. has packages available for mono in their repositories. All you have to do is make your own package dependent on Mono runtime.
NO as simple as that
Everybody might say that it is already installed/ or you need the runtime. But that means YOU NEED IT
It's not about C#. It's about whether you want to develop managed or unmanaged applications. C# is the choice for developing managed applications which run on .NET Framework.
If you want to avoid it, you can go to Visual C++ (without .NET) development using Visual Studio
However, .NET framework comes pre-installed with latest Os like Win 7 these days.
Microsoft makes a redistributable installer that installs the version of .NET that you require. It bloats your install, but it's pretty much the only way to do what you need.
You'll need the .NET Runtime. However, most of the PCs running windows already have it.
I know WPF libraries aren´t implemented by mono class library, however(as far as I know) the mono 2.6 runtime is fully compatible with the .NET 2.0/3.5 runtime, so if the WPF libraries only make PInvoke calls to windows api it is theoretically possible to run a wpf application on windows using the mono runtime.
The reason for wanting that is deploying a wpf application as a standalone executable for windows. Has anyone tried something like that before? If so, what were the results?
In short... No
At this point, the Mono project does not have plans to implement Windows Presentation Foundation APIs as part of the project
Mono will provide Moonlight support which, from what I understand, would also use a subset of XAML to create its UI (the same as Silverlight does) but there are legal complications involved. Such as, it's limited to non-microsoft and non-mac platforms.
If you want to find a list of open-source cross-platform alternatives to WPF/XAML I'm working to compile a list of viable alternatives.
Well I did give it a try with little success. I first checked with corflags if required dll-s are implemented in mixed mode (PresentationFramework, PresenationCore, WindowsBase, System.Xaml). They are all pure CIL implementations so that should work fine with mono. Next I installed mentioned DLLs into mono's GAC and tried running a very simple WPF application. This is what I got:
Assertion at mini-codegen.c:1186, condition `reginfo [sreg].born_in
0' not met
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an
unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more
information.
So although in theory this should all work, WPF is probably way to complex to run out of the box on mono, it would be cool if there was a pure CIL implementation of WPF that was compatabile with both mono and .NET Framework.
As much as I know, Mono does not support WPF.
Also, WPF uses graphics modules and interacts directly with the GPU. So I can't see how u can use WPF with no hidden pinvokes.
Sounds like you need to read about WPF architecture to better understand it.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms750441.aspx
Many pieces are missing in Mono and solely available in .NET. Therefore, your "theory" is not correct, and you cannot run WPF applications on Mono, even on Windows.
At MIX 2010 Miguel de Icaza said in his session that Mono isn't going to support WPF. Anything tangentially related to WPF-like support is only to provide what is needed for Moonlight.
Not fully, but..
You can use Moonlight 4 ( silverlight 4 ) in a desktop mode:-
https://github.com/inorton/MoonBase - MVVM helpers
https://github.com/inorton/XamlPreviewer - XamlPad clone
Two Questions:
Is there any way to write cross platform programs on Microsoft Visual Studio?
If there isn't then could I write a C# application on VS2008 and recompile it with MonoDevelop and have it work?
1 - I dont' think so. Not without something like Mono.
2 - Yes you can, but Mono doesn't cover all the framework - they are working on it.
The best thing to do is check with the Mono Migration Analyzer. The Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA) tool helps you identify issues you may have on Mono - http://mono-project.com/MoMA.
I have found most of my .NET 2.0 applications can be converted, but you may need some tweaks.
You can always use C++ and QT. Soon QT will be released on LGPL license (from version 4.5) that will give some more freedom.
The only limit of using free QT license is that you don't get integration with VS. However this can be handled by using eg. CMake (which will generate VS solution files).
Yes, Write your code, compile and run on another platform using Mono. When you compile you generate IL, which Mono can use. Note: Some functions aren't available on Mono. Delphi Prism, is an add on for Visual Studio which allows you to code to Linux and Mac from VS albeit in the object Pascal language though.
Yes, see same issues as in 1
I agree with Joe90, just one thing he left out: MonoDevelop can compile .sln and .csproj files because it has a MSBuild implementation.
So point MoMA at your code and if you get a green light it should compile as-is in MonoDevelop.
As a MSCLR junkie I have to admit that Mono has a few 'better' implementations of certain critical functions (mostly to do with encryption). You will get more usability power from these.
Another thing to watch out for is subtle logic errors. If a class is implemented in Mono it does not mean that it will behave the same the MSCLR one (Mono is a cold-room implementation and as such they DO NOT use the original source code). This is really where you will get good results from a well unit-tested code base.
For a good indication of what you should expect, I remember seeing a large amount of #if MONO in the AgsXMPP repository.
You could ideally write a C# application and have it run on the Mono platform. BUT, that will depend on the libraries of MS .NET that has been ported yet to Mono.
Just in case, there is no language constraint, you could consider using other languages like Java, Python, Ruby and the like..
Good Luck!
As many others mention your success will depend on the libraries you use. Mono does have Winforms but I would suggest that you also look at GTK# http://www.mono-project.com/GtkSharp as your windowing library. If you use GTK# you will use a library which is not reverse engineered (as Winforms is in Mono).
My understanding is that "non-gui" .NET 2.0 stuff is pretty much in place with the newest versions of Mono
You don't need mono develop, the whole idea of mono is you can develop for .net and have the same assemblies work on both mono and .net, provided you only use stuff which has been implemented in mono.
Stuff which won't work:
pinvoke,
wpf,
linq to SQL
Stuff which will work:
.net 2.0,
c# 3.0 (including linq to objects and linq to xml),
winforms
If you write your application in Silverlight, anyone with a web browser and the Silverlight plugin can access your app. This is as cross-platform as you're going to get with .NET.