[MonoDevelop] Monodevelop to write Win32 apps?

[jmalcolm]

Jean-Claude, I am not sure if you are new to Mono, MonoDevelop, or .NET in
general.

Mono is just .NET that runs Linux, Mac, Windows, and others.  If you write
an application that runs on .NET without calling 'unsafe' code then it
should run fine on Mono as well.  Mono code is simply .NET code.

For example, if by "Win32-API Windows apps" you mean writing Windows Forms
GUI apps then your code should run well on Mono on Linux and elsewhere.

Unsafe code is unmanaged code that calls outside of the .NET framework
directly to the operating system or libraries that may not be available on
other systems.  You can do this on Mono just like you would on .NET but then
your code would not be portable to other platforms.

For example, you could write an application in MonoDevelop on Windows that
calls the Win32 C library directly.  This would run on .NET or on Mono on
Windows but would fail on Mono on other platforms as the Win32 API is not
available on those systems (although some GDI+ is emulated by Mono on
Linux/Mac).

If you run MonoDevelop on Windows you do not even need Mono.  You can write
and run your app on the real Microsoft .NET and write the exact same code as
you would in Visual Studio.  In fact, MonoDevelop will read Visual Studio
solution files so you can write it in Visual Studio first and move it to
MonoDevelop later.

Although Mono supports Windows Forms apps well, MonoDevelop does not have a
visual forms designer for Windows Forms.  You can either use alternative
IDEs like SharpDevelop or Visual Studio or write the code by hand.  There is
a visual designer in MonoDevelop for the GTK GUI framework.  Most people who
write GUI apps in Mono choose to use GTK instead of Windows Forms.  GTK apps
can run on Windows, Linux, and Mac although supporting libraries need to be
installed on Windows and Mac (typically already present on Linux).

Although Mono supports various .NET languages, C# is the most mature and
best supported.

If you are trying to code Win32-API apps that do not use .NET then it is
possible with MonoDevelop but you are really barking up the wrong tree.

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