Compile my VB.NET application for Mac and Linux - vb.net

I have just finished my vb.net application and I wanted to compile it with Mac and Linux as well.
I have looked around and found mono project... I tried to use mono to open my application but the GUI is not as it should be. so my question is: there is way to maintain my Gui even on other platform? If not there is an IDE for Mac/Linux that support vb.net? I use Xcode for programming in c but the GUI Builder is so hard to use... There are other simple IDE/Gui Builders?
Of course it will be great if I can build directly from visual studio or with some simple way as well.
Thanks for all future replies.

Mono's VB.NET was not very mature. So you might hit both compiler and runtime issues.
If possible, evaluate and wait for .NET Core.

Related

Setting up cross platform development for Mono/ARM

I'm going to develop and compile C#/Mono app on Windows 7 with Visual Studio and then run this app at Linux device. I googled a lot, but one point is still confusing me - how should I set up my development environment. I have Mono for Windows installed on my laptop and now there are two possibilities:
create regular windows c#/net project which will use references from Windows\MS.NET framework, build this project using msbuild, copy and run this app on Linux
create Mono target for VS, create project which will use references from ProgFiles(x86)\Mono\lib, build this project using xbuild etc.
Which way I should choose? It seems to me, that option #2 is more preferable, but I do not understand why.
None of your solutions is very good. I would choose a 3rd one:
Develop your code with Linux, using MonoDevelop IDE.
There are many reasons why this option is the best, such as:
Mono for Windows is suboptimal: You will find some things don't work (which do work on Linux) or things that are much slower than normal.
Mono is not 100% compatible with MS.NET: Some things are unsupported in Mono (e.g. System.Management) or have too many bugs to be considered stable (e.g. WCF). So it's better that you test on Mono as soon as possible, i.e. while developing and debugging locally.
MonoDevelop is still a very good IDE which can compete with VS in some areas (e.g. Code Completion).
Well, I use myself mono on Linux/ARM and I do all my development under Visual Studio, just compiling for AnyCPU and taking a bit of care on what to use.
You can even debug your program on the target machine from Visual Studio using MonoDebugger, it starts to work decently.

Sharpdevelop using Mono

Is it possible to run sharp develop on Linux using mono?
I have already tried it on wine but the only supported version is 2.n
This version does not support .Net 4.*
No, it is not. MonoDevelop is a fork from SharpDevelop precisely because at the time SharpDevelop could not run on Mono, and that has not signifcantly changed since then. In a way, this situation shows the flaw in Xamarin’s strategy of following MS .Net, which is a moving target. But MonoDevelop is useful for whatever is portable in .Net, which excludes MS VB.Net & WPF.

MonoDevelop: same project for MonoMac and GTK# possible?

Perhaps my question is totally naiive and this is the reason why I couldn't find any information with Google or something else - but nonetheless, I think it is worth asking here.
I want to develop a C# application which behaves naturally in Mac and Windows (Linux would also be nice, but is not directly needed). My main operating system for development should be Mac OS X and therefore I want to go with MonoDevelop.
I can setup a project for MonoMac - works fine.
I can setup a different project for GTK# - works fine.
My question is now, what I have to do to get a project with a possibility for a MonoMac and a GTK#-frontend. So I will go with the MVC pattern and want to work in one project. As a result, building my project would result in a Mac executable (based on the MonoMac stuff) and one windows executable (based on GTK#).
Am I completely wrong with my approach?
What do I have to do to achieve my goal?
Yes, for a multi-platform app with the best possible look-n-feel on each platform, you would need one executable per platform. Using an MVC approach is the best way to do this - you can have a solution containing a library project with all the shared code - models, processing code, business logic, etc - and a project for each "frontend" executable containing the platform-specific views and shell.
If a really good native experience on Windows is higher priority than Linux support, I'd recommend using WPF or Windows Forms instead of GTK#. This would mean you'd have to split development between Windows and MacOS - you would need to open the same project in Visual Studio, SharpDevelop or MonoDevelop on Windows, and edit the WPF/WinForms project and the shared library there.
OTOH, GTK# has the advantage you could start off writing a single frontend that would work on all three platforms, and then write the platform-specific ones afterwards.

Can I develop for MonoTouch using VB.NET?

Is there any way to develop for MonoTouch using VB.NET, rather than C#?
Currently Visual Basic is not supported in MonoTouch, but we plan on adding this to the mix in the future, as well as expanding our language support.
The reason for our lack of support is that in addition to shipping the VB compiler, we have to ship templates and we have to port the VB runtime which currently has many dependencies on desktop features of .NET and Mono.
Currently, C# is the only supported language in Monotouch. Also, Monotouch apps are not your average managed .net assemblies. Monotouch C# code is compiled to native code (similar to Vala)
I don't expect to see VB.Net in Monotouch in the near future - as of now, Miguel and his gang is busy with Monodroid & the Mono framework proper. According to their roadmap, they do have plans to support VB.net in the future. No time-frame has been mentioned.

How to develop IronPython applications on Mono?

I might need to write some GUI application that runs on .Net (and Windows), while what I can work with is Mono (on Ubuntu and/or Gentoo). I am very familiar with Python; in addition, I understand that the Mono Windows.Forms assemblies seem to be satisfactorily usable (I've run successfully .Net applications using Windows.Forms).
What are the steps I would have to take to have an environment where I can develop stand-alone IronPython on a GNU/Linux maching? Also, I would very much appreciate some .Net-Mono compatibility pointers (e.g. things I should know or avoid).
I'm not looking for an IDE; I'm quite at ease using vim for my editing purposes, and I don't mind building GUIs programmatically.
Note: what I'm actually asking, is help with the following:
I obviously have to install IronPython; so I make sure my Mono packages are installed, then I run the IronPython installer (using Mono, obviously) just like I would on Windows? Will this make the IronPython assemblies available to Mono? If not, how can I do that? Ubuntu 9.10 has a package for IronPython, but it's not the latest version; at the same time, for compatibility purposes, I can't upgrade the Ubuntu installation. I can't find an ebuild for Gentoo.
Do I have to install any more assemblies?
After I successfully install IronPython, how do I create a .Net/Mono executable from my IronPython sources? Is there a “proper” way?
Is there a way to “embed” the IronPython (and any other required) assemblies in the final .exe?
Check Windows Forms section on IronPython Cookbook for hints about creating Windows Forms applications.
As to the environment, I would write the app in Mono and check it works on Windows. I would set up two virtual machines and any source control system to transfer sources between them.
The key part is to write and run tests so you can verify it works on both platforms. So you cannot use just GNU/Linux machine to be sure. But I think you can install Windows 7 for 30-days trial period.
I used to write WinForms tests so here is link to my blog and several other articles:
GUIAT blog
Acceptance Testing .NET Applications using IronPython
Functional Testing of GUI Applications
IronPython says it requires Reflection.Emit and lightweight code generation. FAQ iOS tends to frown on that kind of thing. So if you want to do iOS, you may be out of luck.