Show HN: Cross Platform .NET Desktop Application Framework

[oblio]

Eto is very interesting but unfortunately there seems to be just 1 (very active) developer behind it, from what I can see.

On the other hand, Xamarin.Forms had an announcement recently, an announcement that Hacker News missed. I submitted the news a few days ago but it didn't reach the first page:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14383467 ->

https://blog.xamarin.com/glimpse-future-xamarin-forms-3-0/

TL;DR:

Xamarin.Forms will support desktop environments:

- Windows (WPF)

- MacOS (Cocoa)

- Linux (GTK#)

This is on top of the mobile bits: iOS, Android, UWP.

As an added bonus, they've added Xamarin.Forms embedding into native interfaces.

It's actually major news since Xamarin.Forms would become the first cross platform UI toolkit that:

1. supports both desktop and mobiles

2. is backed by a major vendor

3. is truly usable from a memory managed language as part of the core offering

[clintcparker]

Great call out. Also, Xamarin Forms should be even more useful when XAML Standard drops.

https://github.com/Microsoft/xaml-standard

[maxxxxx]

I have never heard anything positive about Xamarin.Forms from people who have used it. Has this improved?

[badprose]

I don't know that people missed it, or we're still suspicious of "one UI framework to rule them all"...

[zerr]

Well, there is Qt/QML, and if the price is not an issue - Embarcadero FireMonkey.

[j_s]

Apparently this is a hot topic.

The options I'm aware of are:

https://github.com/picoe/Eto (OP - BSD)

https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia (MIT)

Currently only with a preview for Mac, Xamarin.Forms is roadmapped for desktop platforms "Q3 2017": https://blog.xamarin.com/glimpse-future-xamarin-forms-3-0/

Licensing for Xamarin Forms was funky for a while (required paying for Xamarin prior to MS acquisition) but appears to be MIT now.

[johnhattan]

And for games, there's MonoGame.

http://www.monogame.net/

It's based on the old XNA framework. At least one successful commercial game (Fez) was written with it.

[geniium]

This is a hot topic? Not so sure.

[denisw]

Given the title, it seems that this should rather link to the framework itself (https://github.com/picoe/Eto).

[jjuel]

Or even the blog post about the framework (https://www.browseemall.com/Blog/index.php/2017/05/23/creati...).

[pvg]

It can't since the authors of the post are not the authors of the framework. Title should probably say template or something to that effect.

[AlikhanPeleg]

Yes template would be more descriptive.

[lwansbrough]

I'd be wary about investing too much time into something like this. Microsoft is making a massive push with .NET Core and its availability on both Mac OS and Linux. Coupled with the expansion of the .NET Standard to encompass more of the .NET Framework APIs, it won't be long now before Microsoft announces the ability for the Universal Windows Platform to run on all major operating systems. Of course they may want to rename it to something more friendly - like Univeral .NET Platform, or just Universal Platform - but I suspect we'll see this in the next year or maybe two.

Build apps for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS with C# and XAML. Sounds pretty cool to me. So it isn't to say this isn't a great idea by the BrowseEmAll devs, but I'm just not sure how needed it'll be once Microsoft steps in.

[lostmsu]

Yeah, I felt that trend too with XAML Standard.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I carry this file around to detect platforms with .NET:

https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft/blob/master/TrueCraft....

I hereby release it into the public domain.

[louthy]

Kudos for releasing to the public domain, but you should also attach a license to it (MIT is good)

Edit: sorry, I see there's a top level license. Browsing github on my phone wasn't giving me the info I wanted :)

[arenaninja]

This is exciting news, but in the world of Electron apps I do wonder if it is not too late already.

Qt has been around for a while and though it gained traction Electron is far outpacing it. It seems that there is no ASP.NET Core since it was borne out of an actual use case with ASP.NET.

Again, kudos to the author and it seems like a great technical feat, but to my knowledge what matters is adoption rate.

[camus2]

> This is exciting news, but in the world of Electron apps I do wonder if it is not too late already.

You're acting like the whole desktop app industry has moved to implementing desktop apps in HTML with Electron.

Fortunately for users this assertion is false, given how shitty most Electron apps are usability and performance wise (VSCode being the only exception).

[pjmlp]

Thankfully no one around me is either using Electron or thinking about even trying it out.

As for Qt, web devs have C++ allergy, hence why the company behind Qt came up with QML. exactly to fight against this trend.

[OldSchoolJohnny]

Why not link to something that explains it first, like an overview?

[slowmotiony]

Can I use this in .net core projects?

[insertnickname]

No

[AlikhanPeleg]

This uses .Net and mono

[dafrankenstein2]

c# for unity, asp and xamarian. wow.