[MonoDevelop] wx.NET, #WT, or other cross-platform gui widgets

[Jon Molesa]

Thank you for all your inputs.  I will consider them all carefully.  I
do not wish to split the community.  I will look into COCOA# as well.
Thanks again.

One thought is to have a simple form designer for wx.NET.  I think you
were suggesting it as a plugin to MD.  Does Stetic create XML files as
the descriptor?  I could look that up myself when I get a free moment.
wx can use XRC files to build GUIs.

Anyway, thanks again.


PS - I believe you're right about the lowest common denominator, but
isn't native preferred when available.  Also wx.NET does still need much
work itself.

> Most of the apps developed with GTK# aren't intended to be
> cross-platform yet. For those that target GNOME as their native
> platform, like Banshee, FSpot and Beagle, GTK# is the obvious choice.
> Also, it's code that works on Windows and Macs but works *better* on
> Linux, so might help to promote migration ;-)

I'm a big fan of all those apps.

> The #D developers decided that a cross-platform windowing toolkit was
> beyond their remit, and discontinued work on #WT several years ago.

That's what I figured.

> If you must do it, MD is probably easier than #D because it has since

Not completely necessary, as of right now writing all code in vi.  It's
kinda nice, but slow.

> I do think that there might be some milage in promoting WX.NET or
> something similar as a true cross-platform GUI system, but IMO there's
> no need to port the IDE. Completing the toolkit itself will probably
> keep you occupied for a long time. And there's no reason why you
> couldn't have a WX.NET visual designer in MD and/or SD.

MD or SD would still need to run on a Mac.  My Mac is awfully slow.
I'm hoping Santa brings me a stick of 512.  I've been pretty good ;-).

> Alternatively you could try writing something fully managed that sits
> on top of GTK#, Cocoa#, QT#, Avalon and SWF, a bit like #WT aimed to
> do. That would be doubly interesting if it offered platform-specific
> platform integration capabilities too, so that devs could write an app
> that instantly runs on all platforms, then enhance it for each
> platform. The problem with cross-platform toolkits like WX is that
> they usually limit you to the lowest common denominator...

That would be impressive.  I too could make use of that.  :-)  A self
aware library as to which platform it's running on an adjusts it's
offerings accordingly.  True simplicity offered through abhorrent
complexity.

--
Jon