VB.NET on Apple Mac / MacBook

[ubkra]

Is there a simple way to make .NET applications vb.net specifically work on apple Macbook's?

[yangmz1972]

It doesn't work

Visual studio is the development environment launched by Microsoft, and it is the most popular windows platform application development environment.

If you want to use it on apple, I think you can use VMware to try to realize it. As for the use of this kind of virtual software, there are many tools on the Internet, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox

[Frabulator]

The only thing I am aware of inside of Apple is running wine.

You could run a parallel OS, Boot Camp, partition your hard drive or use a virtual machine, all of which require you to install windows.

[jmcilhinney]

It depends what type of application you're talking about. A Console application targeting .NET Core will run fine on a Mac. You can't make Windows-specific apps run on MacOS though, e.g. Windows Forms apps.

[Frabulator]

A Console application targeting .NET Core will run fine on a Mac.

Good info. Did not know that

[ubkra]

Cheers for the replies. I was looking to build a simple window forms admin tool but one user is Mac based.

Is there another tool which could achieve this that’s very similar to VB.NET and free?

Otherwise I’ll do this on the web but application would be better

[jmcilhinney]

If you want to build a cross-platform GUI application in VS then that means Xamarin. I'm not sure whether Xamarin is supposed to support VB at some point but I'm fairly sure that it doesn't right now, so you'd have to use C#. C# is not all that hard if you're good with VB though.

[ubkra]

If you want to build a cross-platform GUI application in VS then that means Xamarin. I'm not sure whether Xamarin is supposed to support VB at some point but I'm fairly sure that it doesn't right now, so you'd have to use C#. C# is not all that hard if you're good with VB though.

So Xamarin is free and will allow you to build window forms applications that'll work on windows and mac but you need to write the code in C#?

[jmcilhinney]

I just had a quick look and it appears that you need to develop Xamarin.Mac applications on a Mac using VS for Mac. You can only target Windows, Android and iOS in VS on Windows.

It may be worth looking into Docker but I have no idea whether you can actually run Windows apps containerised on MacOS.

[PlausiblyDamp]

Cheers for the replies. I was looking to build a simple window forms admin tool but one user is Mac based.

Is there another tool which could achieve this that’s very similar to VB.NET and free?

Otherwise I’ll do this on the web but application would be better

https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia might be worth a look.

[mobi12]

What kind of application you want to develop in Mac? If very simple apps that does not have to interact with files in user's computer and you want to run it in mobiles too, best to start with JavaScript instead.