Cross platform

[Koger]

Hi

I have made a rather large and complex application for Win32. Now it
seems that the application should run on other platforms, so I'm
looking around a trying to find the best way to do this.

The application should run at Linux and Mac as a minimum. Can .net
help here, now or in the future?

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Koger <[e-mail]> wrote:

I have made a rather large and complex application for Win32. Now it
seems that the application should run on other platforms, so I'm
looking around a trying to find the best way to do this.

The application should run at Linux and Mac as a minimum. Can .net
help here, now or in the future?

Just to clarify, is the application currently a .NET application? If
not, .NET isn't going to help you.

The Mono project provides a runtime and class library which will run on
Linux, Unix and Windows. I believe the idea is that "Unix" includes
Mac OS X, but I haven't tried Mono on that platform. In either case,
you'd be better off using a platform-independent GUI widget set such as
GTK# rather than using Windows Forms - the latter has really been
designed with Windows in mind. GTK# won't have the same native look, of
course, but it will be much more portable.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

[Koger]

No the application is written in Delphi. So I have thought about
Kylix, but that won't run on Mac OS X afaik.

But what is mono, is it a development IDE?
Is it a .net compiler?
Can it run a .net program written in MS VS.net?

Thank you I hope you can answer these q's

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Koger <[e-mail]> wrote:

No the application is written in Delphi. So I have thought about
Kylix, but that won't run on Mac OS X afaik.
Ah, if it's in Delphi, you've got *some* chance - the newest version of
Delphi can compile to .NET code. I don't know how much it relies on
other libraries though.
But what is mono, is it a development IDE?
It's an implementation of the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure)
specification - basically a runtime and class libraries. See
http://www.go-mono.com for more information.
Is it a .net compiler?
The project includes a C# compiler and a VB.NET compiler, I believe.
Can it run a .net program written in MS VS.net?

Yes, assuming that program doesn't use anything which isn't available
in the Mono class library (and no invoking of native DLLs which won't
be present on all platforms...)

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too