When will wpf be cross-platform

[BruceQiu1996]

• .NET Core Version: (e.g. 3.0 Preview1, or daily build number, use dotnet --info)
• Windows version: (winver)
• Does the bug reproduce also in WPF for .NET Framework 4.8?: Yes/No
• Is this bug related specifically to tooling in Visual Studio (e.g. XAML Designer, Code editing, etc...)? If yes, please file the issue via the instructions here.
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**Problem description:The technology is very good but the platform is too weak

**Actual behavior:Because of platform my company will drop it and use ###javafx!!!!!(Worried about the market? The desktop was your strong point, but now it has become an expired product)

**Expected behavior:Quickly cross-platform I will so happy and keep happy working.

**Minimal repro:Plz faster!!!!!

[thomasclaudiushuber]

@BruceQiu1996 I don't think there is any intent to bring WPF cross-platform. It relies on underlying infrastructure, like MilCore and DirectX.

But there are solutions in the pipeline and solutions already ready today.

a) From Microsoft:

• .NET MAUI: There will be a cross-platform framework with .NET 6 that is called Multi-Platform App UI (MAUI), and you can use it to build desktop apps for Windows and MacOS (and also apps for iOS and Android and more platforms supported by the community). Find the repo here: .NET MAUI repo

b) From Community/Open Source

• Platform UNO: Available today to bring your XAML/C# app to Android, iOS or even to the browser via WebAssembly. Find it here: https://platform.uno/. Uno uses the latest XAML dialect from UWP/WinUI.
• Avalonia UI: Very similar to WPF. Find it here: https://avaloniaui.net

If it's so super urgent, I recommend you to take a look at one of the open source projects mentioned above.

Note: This issue is a duplicate of #48 #2967 #3356.

[ClosetBugSlayer]

WPF is still literally the most powerful UI framework in existence. It deserves a renaissance and it'll get one. Wait till everyone discovers how easy MVVM is with C#9.

[BruceQiu1996]

Oh thx for your comment.you give me some very strong advices. @thomasclaudiushuber

[LeoYang06]

Because it can't be cross-platform, the company has to use qt for some projects, so it has to use C++ development, which is quite helpless.

[chancezheng]

Hope It will be cross-platform at .Net 6.0

[ccarlo88]

I've been investigating some options last weeks and found out quite a few very interesting options (for me, at least) and I hope this can help some more unsatisfied users with C# world lately.
Have you ever heard about GTK? It is used for developing the whole Gnome desktop... You can use GTKBuilder together with the tool Glade, which is very similar to what we have in the XAML.
Probably you are asking yourself "but how about the c#?". Well, good news for you! It supports quite a few programming languages including one which is called "Vala"! It is basically equal to C# (except for the conventions) and you have the advantage that it compiles to machine code, so no more runtime needed! If you want, of course, you can use C, Rust, Python, Perl, JavaScript or Vala!

Vala for C# programmers

No more need to get stuck in a single OS! Compile to whatever you need with the advantage of the speed!

[mixonomicon]

Have you ever heard about GTK?

In the absence of WPF, we actually port most of Windows LoBs to Linux LoBs through C#/GTK (GTKSharp). It forces us to recode our UI but business and data goes unchanged. Its not comparable though, the level of visual features is just not the same, it would have been much better to have WPF ready.

[JeViCo]

It's 2023. Still not cross-platform

[t9mike]

Even if Microsoft decided to support Mac/other with WPF, using it over 3rd party options might not make sense. Would MS continually improve it over time? Would they abandon the project or radically redefine it? https://avaloniaui.net/ looks solid and has a great set of core developers continuing to improve it.

[ccarlo88]

@JeViCo there's not even support for AOT compilation for UWP anymore (or Windows SDK as it is called now) like we had in the past. MSFT became just another Virtual Machine provider now (aka Cloud provider) 😆

[robloo]

For enterprise/business cases, as of today, WPF is effectively cross-platform using Avalonia UI as the base rendering/composition engine and platform abstraction layer. See:

https://avaloniaui.net/XPF

[mixonomicon]

For enterprise/business cases, as of today, WPF is effectively cross-platform using Avalonia UI as the base rendering/composition engine and platform abstraction layer. See:

https://avaloniaui.net/XPF

That's not correct, we had this convo in another thread. There are several problems, especially with business/enterprise use:

1. WPF is NOT Avalonia, and vice versa. They are not source or binary compatible. This is due to the choice Avalonia creators made early on to completely overhaul style system and make it more CSS like.
2. As a consequence, NONE of the 3rd party WPF libraries (Infragistics, DevExpress, Telerik, etc) work in Avalonia

This is a major pain point of Avalonia in business LoBs and tools, as there is a pressing need for fully operational UIx elements such as advanced grids, charts, etc. It is not something you really wanna build yourself, and Avalonia crew seems too focused on their own small island to seem to want to do anything about it. IMHO, they should have long been in negotiations/consulting with 3rd party to extend/modify WPF stacks for Avalonia.

I am telling you this not because I think Avalonia is bad, on the contrary, we use it extensively, especially with the cold shoulder given by MS. But one needs to be realistic about it, many times the availability of features in Avalonia ecosystem hindered our product management due to client expectations.