[Mono-list] Components, Controls, and Code

[Ben Maurer]

On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 15:36, Anthony J. Gatlin wrote:
> One of the great features of the Windows version of .NET
> framework is that several thousand controls and components
> have already been developed.
By controls and components are you talking about:
     1. SWF controls?
     2. ASP.NET web controls and prebuilt applications
     3. Programming libraries (ie, POP3 components etc)

I think that prebuilt web controsl/applications (esp applications)
running on Mono would be *REALLY* good. Programing libraries are not as
much of a problem as they are mostly cross platform.

For SWF controls, I hope that the power of Wine will allow us to run all
components, no matter how badly designed ;-).

> Unfortunately, these have not yet been ported to Mono. Most of these
> may never be ported because many of these components rely on
> interfaces to underlying COM objects and the Win32 API and make use of
> the evil P/Invoke.
Remember Wine!

> 
> Now that Mono is becoming highly functional, has anyone
> considered doing an analysis to see what the most needed
> components/controls might be
None that I know of.
>  and starting a group to
> develop these controls. For example, a reporting tool like
> Crystal Reports would probably be high on the list.
Crystal Reports is HUGE, I think it needs to be tackled by its own
development team. 

> Were a large number of controls and components to be made
> available for Mono, it would definitely impact (positively)
> the acceptance of the framework by the .NET community. If
> the controls were FREE, this would be an added incentive to
> switch to .NET. All of the above mentioned companies have
> VERY EXPENSIVE price tags on their products. 
Yep, I agree with you totally.

I think one of the major steps can actually be taken quicker, and
involves virtually 0 effort. Right now there are 100's of C# projects on
SourceForge. We really need a team to look at the ones that are
alpha/beta/production quality, and attempt to get them running on Mono.
I know that in one weekend I was able to catch 3 or 4 bugs just by
trying to get BlogX running on Mono (it now works great, thanks to our
friend Gonzalo!). These apps are test cases waiting for use. Also,
GotDotNet workspaces would provide a source of possible test cases.

As well, it would be nice if we could lean a bit on the C# Open Source
community and request that they include makefiles with their apps and
attempt to make them Mono friendly. I think the best way to go about
this might be to create a set of "Mono QuickStarts" that spotlight Open
Source software that works out-of-the-box on Mono -- alot of projects
will try to meet that description.

> I am certainly interested in assisting in such an endeavor
> as developing .NET controls for mono. Are there others with
> a similar interest? If so, where do we go from here?
The best way to develop applications is to use existing collaboration
environments (GDN, SF) and to regularly test your app on Mono. I also
suggest that you specify that you have done such testing, so that people
know that the software will be easy to use. Also, we might be able to
include the applications in the "test" directory for XSP and SWF.

-- Ben