[jasallen]

Microsoft's Xamarin Forms 3.0 (stable release later this year) allows you to target Linux and Mac[1] and is very similar to UWP conceptually - UI written once, run anywhere. It's just that Xamarin's "anywhere" is much larger :)

Disclosure: I work on Xamarin team at Microsoft

[1]https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/85747/xamarin-forms-fe...

[randomf1fan]

Question for you - I have created a few (okay, two) UWP apps, but the limited success of the store has made me look to using Xamarin. Only thing is, Xamarin's XAML is sufficiently different from UWP's XAML that I got disoriented and gave up.

If I want to target cross platform apps (including Linux and Mac), should I wait for Xamarin Forms 3 or will UWP eventually expand to cover Mac & Linux?

I'm only a hobby programmer so I don't want to waste hours learning something that will be a dead end.

Any insight you might have would be very useful! thanks

[pjmlp]

Microsoft is working out a XAML standard to cover that case.

If you check BUILD 2017 sessions, there were a couple of talks about it.

[jasallen]

IF UWP will expand to do that it's not in any announced roadmap (and if it's being discussed internally I'm not privy to such things :) ) whereas Xamarin is doing it now(ish). You are right, the XAML is a bit different, the syntax is the same, but we use different class structures.

[porkbelly]

Oh heck, don't waste your time waiting for MS. Qt works cross platform Windows, OSX and Linux right now.

It even does iOS and Android without any recajiggering. You can just compile your desktop app straight to your cell phone if you want.

It's amazing.

[mamcx]

Also, another question.

I have looked for xamarin.forms to be ready for years now, but still is very limited/inmutare. I'm building the most simplistic crud app with zero-care for good looks and good UI, yet every step requiere a workaround (for example, you can't have a Password EntryCell, you need to create it from code using a ViewCell).

Exist a lot of functionality available in the base controls not exposed in forms.

Now, with regret I'm thinking in use react native (that destroy the ability to use F#) or use HTML.

How much better will 3 be? Some place where I can talk about this?

[jasallen]

I find it weird that you consider it a workaround to put a Password Entry field inside a cell rather than using a "PasswordEntryCell", that's just simply nesting a control, in what platform don't we have have to do that? Might this platform or that one _have_ "passwordEntryCell" sure, but I fail to understand why such would be a first class citizen in your mind.

I also can't imagine jumping ship to React Native. If you're going to jump off Xamarin Forms and already like f# / .net then native Xamarin.IOS and Xamarin.Android are more easy, powerful and expressive than React Native.