ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core • Hacker News Board

ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#1

Post by rdfi » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 11:56 AM UTC

ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core
blinkingcaret.com

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#2

Post by mikece » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

This is fantastic and long overdue.

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#3

Post by Hawxy » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

Steve Sanderson (creator of Blazor) is working on something similar that doesn't use Electron:

https://blog.stevensanderson.com/2019/11/01/exploring-lighte...

From Blazor roadmaps a few months ago, I think the idea is that Blazor will become the recommended .NET Core cross-platform UI choice sometime after .NET 5.

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#4

Post by injidup » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

How about Avalonia. https://avaloniaui.net/ The assertion that there are no .NET core GUI frameworks and that resorting to the abomination that is electron is the solution is just false.

Or go full functional with an Elmish architecture using F#, .net core and Avalonia.

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#5

Post by blinkingled » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. QML is JS like, there's an IDE and KDE seems to have built lot of good looking desktop software using Kirigami/QtQuick.

It's got to be better than anything Electron for sure.

Anyone know if .NET Core Qt bindings are a technical possibility?

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#6

Post by cheez » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

blinkingled wrote: post #5

I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. QML is JS like, there's an IDE and KDE seems to have built lot of good looking desktop software using Kirigami/QtQuick. It's got to be better than anything Electron for sure. Anyone know if .NET Core Qt bindings are a technical possibility?

It's JS, but not webdev JS, which means they can't really transfer much of the DOM knowledge/tooling.

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#7

Post by thesuperbigfrog » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

This is a great step forward, but it seems like a great deal of overhead and complexity to have a cross-platform GUI.

If I were creating a new cross-platform desktop application I would probably reach for Java instead. I know that's not the popular answer, but if a .NET Core cross-platform GUI requires either using Electron or simulating a client-server setup with Node then it's not there yet.

To illustrate, here is the "Hello World" cross-platform GUI application in Java:

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/examples/sta...

Setting up a connection between two processes and building async handlers is way too much if the application is running on one machine.

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#8

Post by juliangoldsmith » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

blinkingled wrote: post #5

I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. QML is JS like, there's an IDE and KDE seems to have built lot of good looking desktop software using Kirigami/QtQuick. It's got to be better than anything Electron for sure. Anyone know if .NET Core Qt bindings are a technical possibility?

.NET Qt bindings are possible; the question is how much effort it would take.

There are already GTK bindings for Mono through Gtk#. Those should be usable under .NET Core.

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#9

Post by bluejekyll » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #7

This is a great step forward, but it seems like a great deal of overhead and complexity to have a cross-platform GUI. If I were creating a new cross-platform desktop application I would probably reach for Java instead. I know that's not the popular answer, but if a .NET Core cross-platform GUI requires either using Electron or simulating a client-server setup with Node then it's not there yet. To illustrate, here is…

Would that Java application be capable of running in the browser? JavaFX, maybe?

Re: ElectronCGI – A Solution to Cross-Platform GUIs for .NET Core

#10

Post by dx87 » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

blinkingled wrote: post #5

I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. QML is JS like, there's an IDE and KDE seems to have built lot of good looking desktop software using Kirigami/QtQuick. It's got to be better than anything Electron for sure. Anyone know if .NET Core Qt bindings are a technical possibility?

> I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm.

If I had to guess, it's because people are misinformed about the pricing and features. I regularly see people who assume that you either have to pay a large per-developer fee, or completely open source your application, even though Qt is licensed under the LGPL, so you're fine as long as you don't statically link it or depend on secret modifications to Qt for your application. A lot of people also assume it only supports C++ and dismiss it outright.