Forum Discussion
What platform/technology/framework to use. I am lost. :-(
NickJ911 Uno Platform may be a good fit for you; it is open source, production ready today (MAUI is not) and proven with real apps. It leverages .NET 6, C# 10 and Xamarin (not Forms but the stuff in .NET), uses one of the best designed .NET UI frameworks: WinUI 3, which you use directly to build for Windows and then UNO has ports of WinUI 3 for Android, iOS and more on top of Xamarin.
UNO also lets you target the browser via webassembly with the same UI framework and source code (so not a mix of 2 frameworks like Blazor and MAUI)
On top of that, if you like C# and would prefer declarative C# to XAML for your UI, you can create your UI (and so your entire app) in C# 10 with C# Markup 2 for WinUI and Uno Platform (disclosure: I am the author of that library - let me know if you need help using C# Markup)I have about 20 years C# .NET experience, last 8 years in Xamarin, and specialize in the developer experience of .NET UI frameworks.
NickJ911 Openness to differing technology options does fit initial study but selecting a technology path for desktop development must be done, as you know of course. The problem is what I know to be a great distortion of UWP merits being cast as demerits, in a powerful rumor mill, with very many developers and designers shying hard away from UWP, unwisely and unfoundedly.
Production App submission with UWP's full and tried capability of robust feature sets would allow you the best latitude and design possibilities in building-while-conceiving a desktop productivity application, with such fully stable toolbox controls as to present many design options for Page layout and visual structure. Plus, if the Android implementation can be handled while preferring a differing interface via simpler Xamarin Forms anyway, it would be much better for desktop app development to define the later Android apps desired similarities and differences, by first optimizing the process to better the Desktop App outcomes, with existing tried and true UWP standards. UWP for some odd reason often is mentioned as if possessing terrible nature to it, but in truth it is excellent, and ironed out very well in entire process from solution/project creation all the way to submission to the store. Developing first and exclusively for the desktop/laptop app expression, is a way of fleshing out ideas I prefer, leaving mobile implementations more rudimentary, and while desiring a differing code base for the mobiles, and that not difficult to code as C# logic should not be anything new, but same or lesser than the desktop code behind.
Rushing away from UWP presently is to lose the best tool we have for desktop Windows 11 power, in my opinion, and to my coding experience.
-- Patrick
