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Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

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Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#121

Post by LemurMadness »

alkonaut wrote: post #21

Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? I really don't care what language is used so log as JS is avoidable (It can still be a compilation target so it could even be JS), and I can make a snappy desktop app that takes 10 not 100mb. I'm not even sure which one I'm hoping for at the moment. Xamarin seems to have bet fully on mobile. Avalonia looks nice but feels like it w…

The main problem with Avalonia is that it's still in alpha. It looks like a good solution, though, so definitely something to keep an eye on if you're looking for a solution that doesn't require running a web server and render for the UI.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#122

Post by pknopf »

LemurMadness wrote: post #120
pknopf wrote: post #9

This reminds me of the project I am currently working on. .NET/QML https://github.com/pauldotknopf/net-core-qml Not quite production yet, but it will be soon. I'd love to here some input. You can check the unit tests for how things are working currently. At a certain point, I will also implement a Qml debugger in visual studio code.

I really like this approach, particularly since it allows a clean separation between the responsibilities of designing the UI and writing the back-end code. The UI designer can still wire up events and design them in Qt Creator (maybe using placeholder events?) but then the .NET dev can write the back-end stuff for it.

Exactly.

The tech-stack perfectly slices responsibilities. That is what really motivated me to do it. Seemed like peanut butter and jelly.

Also, performance. Anything beats electron.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#123

Post by WorldMaker »

alkonaut wrote: post #21

Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? I really don't care what language is used so log as JS is avoidable (It can still be a compilation target so it could even be JS), and I can make a snappy desktop app that takes 10 not 100mb. I'm not even sure which one I'm hoping for at the moment. Xamarin seems to have bet fully on mobile. Avalonia looks nice but feels like it w…

It's starting to look like PWAs will be soon powerful enough for mobile and Windows cross-platform development. I'm somewhat hopeful that maybe we'll finally start to see more PWA APIs and Electron/Electron-esque desktop integration APIs converge.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#124

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

bsaul wrote: post #47
pjmlp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the latest Windows Developer Day, Xamarin.Forms is that framework in what concerns Microsoft. As for the rest, sorry for being so blunt, but it is just not wanting to learn. We we were writing applications across multiple OS and hardware architectures for ages now. It is easy, no, as it requires actually putting some effort into a proper architecture and OS/hardware abstractions, but it is surely doable.…

"It feels like devs now want to write apps without spending any real effort on them." I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click. This is pretty much a solved problem, and has been since MVC was invented in the 70s (not saying it's perfect, but it does the job). So there should be an easy an portable way of doi…

> I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click.

The bajillion constantly changing web frameworks says that people are perfectly delighted to spend the effort to learn the "method du jour" to do those things.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#125

Post by mamcx »

nicoburns wrote: post #37
alkonaut wrote: post #21

Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? I really don't care what language is used so log as JS is avoidable (It can still be a compilation target so it could even be JS), and I can make a snappy desktop app that takes 10 not 100mb. I'm not even sure which one I'm hoping for at the moment. Xamarin seems to have bet fully on mobile. Avalonia looks nice but feels like it w…

There's some promising early stage projects in Rust world. They're all building on WebRender (firefox's new renderer), but without the DOM/JavaScript bit.

Yeah? Where I can look?

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#126

Post by roryisok »

CodeCube wrote: post #95
roryisok wrote: post #12

I was really excited when I saw this because I thought someone had finally brought us a .net alternative to electron, using xaml. Unfortunately this seems to be electron but with a .net webapp running in the background? You still need node and webkit for the UI it seems. If that's what this is, it was already possible to do with edge.js and electron so I'm not sure what advantage there is here.

https://www.xamarin.com/forms Mac desktop support is in preview ( https://blog.xamarin.com/preview-bringing-macos-to-xamarin-f... ), and Linux and WPF backends are in development. So ... almost there!

Wpf? Does that mean it might be possible to target windows 7?

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#127

Post by roryisok »

jlebrech wrote: post #39
jcelerier wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? Qt ticks all your marks (though the "easy" part is through QML which is a superset of JS), + mobile, (+ one day web maybe https://msorvig.github.io/qt-webassembly-examples/window_ope... though that's fairly experimental).

yep, qt + wasm is the future

Am I missing something? Doesn't wasm still need a browser to run? What advantage are qt bindings if you still have to load webkit?

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#128

Post by j_s »

lwansbrough wrote: post #102
j_s wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> native UI driven by React + JS. https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows Watching how Microsoft manages this project may give an additional insight into how ideas you are suggesting would fare. (It doesn't seem to be a tire fire or anything from initial impressions.)

I’m fully aware of this, but it only solves the problem for React. Which isn’t really very good solution.

I shared it primarily because it is an open-source UI project managed by Microsoft that has to support an "API" that is cross-platform, but it also meets this portion of your original criteria:

> as long as you can host the language a given UI framework is built in, you can use it to create UI elements in whatever platform you want

(The work has already been done to host React/JavaScript cross-platform alongside .NET: see Edge.js http://tjanczuk.github.io/edge/ previously mentioned elsewhere in this thread. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsJustASoftwareIssueEdgejsBri...)

As an aside, I recommend you include some details summarizing reasons for rejecting existing solutions when initiating future discussions so all participants can begin on the same page.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#129

Post by jlebrech »

roryisok wrote: post #127
jlebrech wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, qt + wasm is the future

Am I missing something? Doesn't wasm still need a browser to run? What advantage are qt bindings if you still have to load webkit?

then when people use the browser they get the same experience as native, not the other way round where people expect a native app and are given a browser masquerading as an app.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#130

Post by j_s »

cm2187 wrote: post #53
bsaul wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It feels like devs now want to write apps without spending any real effort on them." I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click. This is pretty much a solved problem, and has been since MVC was invented in the 70s (not saying it's perfect, but it does the job). So there should be an easy an portable way of doi…

It's even worse than that. It makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms, makes different version more complicated to maintain and keep in sync, creates more attack surface, etc. And even from a non technical point of view, there is a consistency of experience across platforms point of view. There are very good reasons to have fully cross platform apps that you develop only once. And in general, I do…

> _It_ makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms

Can you clarify specifically what you mean by _It_ there? Maybe (working backwards up the comment chain...) C++, Qt, MVC, "writing apps without spending any real effort", duplicating "applications across multiple OS and hardware architectures" (my vote for most likely), Xamarin.Forms, "easy to use portable desktop application framework", or something else?

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