I need to re-write an old application, that is currently Windows only, to OS X p
ID: 659060 • Letter: I
Question
I need to re-write an old application, that is currently Windows only, to OS X plus do a few updates on the Windows version.
I was thinking of just doing a full rewrite and using a framework to keep most of the code base the same for the OS X and Windows version. I'm not sure how easy this is. I've checked QT, Xamarin and Monodevelop. I'd prefer to do it in C#, so my preference would be either Xamarin or Monodevelop but I'm not sure how much of the code-base the app can share between the 2 OSes, especially the GUI part.
Which of the two (three) platforms can you recommend if I want to rewrite the Windows code as little as possible?
Explanation / Answer
Yes, with Xamarin/Monodevelop you would only have to rewrite the GUI part.
If you are unlucky, you might find some subtle differences between the Windows .NET implementation and Mono, but in such cases you should report them as bugs, so that they get fixed.
I maintain a Windows+Mac+Linux app using C#/Monodevelop, and I am rather happy with it, maybe because the GUI part is not that big.
The GUI looks very native on each system.