Develop mono compliant apps in Visual Studio 2005

[agent]

I'm working on my first major application (will be open source) and among other considerations such as localization (another topic, later) I'm woried about making this app cross-platform. The target platforms (including Windows, obviously) are Mac and Linux.

From everything I've been reading, the app should be made to run under mono. Does this mean I have to compile under mono or will mono run .Net apps just fine (with exception to currently unsupported classes, etc)? Since I'm most familiar with the Visual Studio 2005 IDE, this is my prefered IDE. I am willing to switch if needed, please provide suggestions.

Second question: I understand mono does not and is not likely to support the System.Windows.Forms namespace. I also read that GTK is a sutable alternative. What's the likelyhood of getting a Visual Studio 2005 forms designer that uses GTK instead of Windows Forms?

[penagate]

Mono supports WinForms through a Wine emulation layer.

You do not need to compile through Mono, but it is advised, as it makes it easier to catch problems. Mono-built apps should run on Windows without any hassles.

[wossname]

Second question: I understand mono does not and is not likely to support the System.Windows.Forms namespace.

Yes it does. It implements it very well actually. I'm writing a drawing application using bog standard C# forms code. There are a few little bugs here and there (mainly in visible controls) but they are working REALLY fast to get everything compliant.

For example, I submitted GDI+/GTK+ bug a few days ago and its been fixed already (admittedly it was a major bug).

As Pena says its actually easier to write the app in linux and compile the code in mono and then run it in windows. This way you don't waste time coding controls that are not yet implemented in mono.

However you do need a good IDE (if you are lazy) or th patience to get to know the command line compiler (I favour thi way personally, you get better control of whats going on).

I recommend you stay up to date with the latest releases of Mono (the most recent is 1.1.17.1_2 (beta)). It supports C# 2.0 (with Generics!). Thats what I'm using to build my app.

I think I'm the only other guy around here thats currently using Mono in anger so PM me if you want any help.

[wossname]

this is what i'm referring to..

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...44#post2622044