[Mono-list] Windows Forms...wah

[Philippe Lavoie]

Most developers write for a target audience. There lies the fallacy of
multiple-platform software. Users want their software to behave like any
other software from their machine and developers want to write it once.

I wouldn't want to use a mono application that doesn't support theming
under Gnome. The windows guy demands an install shield + whatever other
things make a windows guy happy.

Qt is the only real choice (I think) if the developer wants its users to
have the same native look and feel.

Ideally, a developer should customize his application for the target
machine. This might not always be possible, but from the end user
perspective it's always appreciated.

Anyway, implementing windows.forms might help some windows guy port his
application on Linux. However, to the Linux user it will look too
"windowish" and it might cause localization issues, etc.

I think the original intent of the mono project is being lost. Miguel,
please correct me if I'm wrong. The original intent was to get a nice
set of development tools to write Gnome/Linux application with.

The goal of getting free applications from the Windows world should be a
side benefit due to the .NET model and not the main focus of
development. 

To be honest, seeing how C# is evolving: a lot of Java tools are being
ported to C#. I think that the reverse is going to happen. More and more
unix programs (developed with QT# or GTK#) will start to pop on the
windows world. This will inform developers and users alike that there
are alternatives. They might even find it better looking.

From my little perspective, the important thing is that if I develop
with GTK# or QT# it can work on both linux and windows. Not that I'm
targeting windows. But because I have windows at work and sometimes it's
nice to take a lunch time programming for your own little project.

Phil


-----Original Message-----
From: Christoph Wille [mailto:christophw@alphasierrapapa.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 11:26 AM
To: manyoso@yahoo.com; code; mono-list@ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-list] Windows Forms...wah

I'm on the #develop team (and I know which UI frameworks are in
development)

Having that said: we look at portability differently than other MS .NET 
developers (which are the majority), we are planning for it. But most 
developer don't. They don't care unless it is as simple as switching a 
compiler switch (like we are supporting Mono inside #develop). If they
have 
to rewrite the application, at a minimum they will think twice and
abandon 
the idea a second later.

You could start a poll for MS .NET programmers: given those four UI 
frameworks, which one would you choose to write apps when you'd plan for

running on Windows and Linux? Guess what... next to no one would care
about 
any framework other than Windows Forms.

Windows Forms is important to get MS .NET developers to use the Mono
platform.

I was only commenting on the part "If there is a better GUI toolkit and
it 
could run on most platforms, most people will use it instead of
WinForm".

Chris

At 11:17 AM 9/20/2002 -0400, Adam Treat wrote:
>I don't see what the problem.  We have _four_ toolkits that are
actively 
>being
>worked on.  Qt#, Gtk#, SWF with winelib, and XSharp.  As far as 'on par
with
>the Windows Forms tools' well Gtk# has glade and we're working on uic#
>backend for the Qt Designer as we speak.  The good folks over at
ICSharpCode
>have also expressed interest in supporting Gtk# and Qt# as well as SWF
with
>SharpDevelop.  I think we have a wealth of GUI toolkit options here
guys:-)
>
>Cheers,
>
>Adam
>
>On Friday 20 September 2002 11:02 am, Christoph Wille wrote:
> > At 10:19 PM 9/20/2002 +0800, code wrote:
> > >I agree with you. If there is a better GUI toolkit and it could run
on
> > >most platforms, most people will use it instead of WinForm.
> >
> > Define "most people". From my experience it will attract programmers
> > starting on the new platforms like Mono, but only very few from the
MS .NET
> > camp. You are almost limiting the portability to a one-way road,
which is
> > not a good thing.
> >
> > Most important to the success of a platform are the tools - and
unless you
> > have tools that are on par with the Windows Forms tools (yes, that
would be
> > Visual Studio .NET's forms designer), you can have the best platform
in the
> > world and only few are going to use it (it needn't be hard, just
harder
> > than "the other thing").
> >
> > We can discuss (and even flame) about the potential ugliness etc. of
> > Windows Forms - it is the UI toolkit that sits on top of .NET, fact.
It
> > must be darn easy for MS .NET programmers to re-wire their apps for
Mono
> > (read: as little changes as possible, next to no roadblocks)
> >
> > Chris


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