Well, We are just about to release monoppix V1.1.8. The main feature of V1.1.8 (which is based on mono V1.1.8 ) is the ability to run native C# System.Windows.Forms code without using "Wine" on Linux.
Here are some examples of winforms (and controls) compiled on VS2003 and running on our soon to be released Monoppix V1.1.8:
I've started with the basic TreeView and Tabs , Than I threw in some basic controls such as check boxes, multiple selection list box, a date picker and some group boxes.
I compiled the project and this is the result I got on WinXP
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I took the exe file to Monoppix , ran 'mono winforms2.exe' and got the following
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As you can see most of the controls work ok.
Than I tried to select a new date
This is the way it should look..
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And this is what i got in Monoppix, Not sure if this is a Mono or Monoppix or my code bug, but the
Calendar pick date window didn't open and the date line became disabled
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Next is a Data Grid , clicked on the data tab, hit the Load button. This is the WinXP results window
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And on Monoppix it looks ok as well.
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The last control I tried to demo is the picture box (and some radio buttons with events..)
in WinXP
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and the monopix version..
So overall the end result is quite good , Mono's V1.1.8 implemented most of the Winforms controls , they work ok and similar in look and feel . Because of that, porting .NET windows applications to Linux should be really easy , Just work on VS2003, compile and run it on Linux using Mono. There is one control that's missing which I would like to see soon and that's the RichText box, currently it throws out a not implemented type of exception . I think that this control is critical due to the fact that a lot of WinForms applications use it and thus its absence prevents a lot of good winforms applications being runnable on linux as well.
Final words, Monoppix V1.1.8 is about to be released in the next few days (Track this blog or go to www.monoppix.com for the release announcement) . Hopefully, it would help VS2003/WinXP Winforms developers check how their solution would look like on Linux and open their minds about running their applications on non MS platfors,.
Like to hear some comments on this or if you know of a small C# winforms open source application that would be nice to see working on Linux that I can test.
Click here if you want to download the demo application presented above.
Roiy