Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by yodon on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @11:40AM (#15696588)

As an alternate approach for .NET desktop apps, Electron.NET[0] is a variant of Electron that adds a dotnet backend. Build your UI in the HTML/CSS/JS flavor of your choice and then implement the functionality backing that UI in C#.

Electron.NET is relatively new and I just yesterday published what I think is the first boilerplate sample for it (using React/Typescript/MobX) [1] (note: my sample app currently looks terrible because there’s exactly zero CSS applied, I was hoping to get some of that added later this week having gotten the functional details working first. The demo in the Electron.NET repo replicates the stock Electron demo, if you’d like to start your explorations with pretty first).

[0] https://github.com/ElectronNET/Electron.NET

[1] https://github.com/yoDon/Electron.NET-React-Typescript-MobX

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by paxy on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @02:23PM (#15698278)

Both projects eventually use the Chromium renderer, just with .NET bindings, so all you're doing is introducing a whole new framework dependency in order to make development a bit easier.

While I love the concept (and C#/.NET in general), this is yet another performance hit for end users.

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by DDesmaisons on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @06:48AM (#15703101)

In the case of Neutronium, the framework follows standard MVVM with WPF controls. It can bind same data context as standard wpf component so there is a very smooth learning curve

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by yodon on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @02:44PM (#15698450)

You don’t have to use Electron if you don’t want to, and end users don’t have to use apps if they don’t like the performance characteristics of the apps. That said, there are a lot of very well liked apps being built very quickly on the the Electron framework, and those of us who like C# can do so even more happily using Electron.NET. So to tl;dr this answer to your comment, yes, it’s 100% about introducing the desired framework dependency to make development easier.

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by andrew_ on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @03:28PM (#15698792)

What I don't understand is: If Electron apps can be compiled to be cross-platform out of the box, why use an Electron binding for .NET that makes it inherently locked into Windows (without jumping through fancy hoops for other platforms)? I wrote a lot of Windows-only freeware on .NET over the years, and there's just no reason for it that I can see, if the core component of an app is cross-platform by default.

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by yodon on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @04:03PM (#15699088)

> Why use an Electron binding for .NET that makes it inherently locked to Windows

You’re a couple years behind on cross platform support in dot net and completely missing the cross platform support in Electron/Electron.NET. Zero hoops to jump. Electron.NET apps just work, out of the the box, on macOS and Linux, in addition to on Windows. Today.

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by mikewhy on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @04:23PM (#15699256)

I don't think this is cross-platform:

Cross Platform? (Closed): https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium/issues/14

And it looks like all the examples reference .net 4.5, which isn't .net core: https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium/search?p=1&q=NE...

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by nightski on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @04:30PM (#15699326)

That's not Electron.NET which is what the parent was referring to.

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by m_fayer on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @03:49PM (#15698966)

Cross-platform capability is not the only possible motivation to use something like this. Personally, it interests me because I don't see WinForms/WPF/UWP as viable, so right now the web stack is the only capable high-level UI toolkit on Windows. On MacOS, you can still get by with native.

For an app I'm working on, I'm exploring the possibility of a shared core in C#, with the UI layer rendered with the web stack on Windows, and with Xamarin.Mac (native binding for .NET) on MacOS.

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Re:Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaS... by j_s on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @03:28PM (#15698794)

The discussion two weeks ago was very similar to this one.

Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15616638

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