Monodevelop VB.NET

Am I the only VB.NET programmer interested in using Mono to cross-pollinate my Windows (work) and Linux (home) environments?

I just read that Monodevelop is better situated on Macs, which is good news don’t get me wrong, but why is VB a second-class citizen?

Ok, </ rant>

I’ve heard that for producing a GUI for VB.Mono development, to use #Glade. Is this the best method or is there a better method?

Ultimately I wish there was a GUI for VB ASP.NET in Monodevelop. This would definately help make Mono more accessible to the not-strict-code-heads like myself.

Hi
Have you had a browse of the mono repository to see if anything is
lurking you could use?
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Mono:/


Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
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My problem, or gripe, is that while C# gets to use the #Gtk GUI developer the VB.NET version gets nothing, it all has to be coded by hand or have the GUI built in something separate (like #Glade) and then manually connect-the-dots.

Heck, I’d be happy if it was an HTML/ASPX-based GUI with the VB.NET code-behind pages without having to manually write everything.

dragonbite wrote:

> Am I the only VB.NET programmer interested in using Mono to
> cross-pollinate my Windows (work) and Linux (home) environments?

Well, Mono is tainted. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. Go learn
C++ and use Qt. Use Python or Ruby for all I care if you really want to
stick to scripting languages…


Ruurd

[QUOTE=dragonbite;1982222]Am I the only VB.NET programmer interested in using Mono to cross-pollinate my Windows (work) and Linux (home) environments?

I just read that Monodevelop is better situated on Macs, which is good news don’t get me wrong, but why is VB a second-class citizen?
[/quote]

I am sorry to hear that you are having problems with MonoDevelop and VB.

Most of the VB compiler was contributed by Rolf Bjarne as a Google Summer of Code project. He had written most of the compiler before the Summer of Code, and Summer of Code pushed it over the fence to become a full compiler.

Sadly, we have not had the resources to devote to VB and the GUI designer for desktop applications. Hopefully folks in the community will contribute this, as it does not seem to be a terribly difficult thing to do.

I’ve heard that for producing a GUI for VB.Mono development, to use #Glade. Is this the best method or is there a better method?

You could do this for now, yes.

You can design the UI with Glade, and then use the Glade APIs in Gtk# to access your widgets.

Ultimately I wish there was a GUI for VB ASP.NET in Monodevelop. This would definately help make Mono more accessible to the not-strict-code-heads like myself.

We do not have an ASP.NET designer for C# even.

But the world seems to be moving with ASP.NET MVC to a place where the GUI designer is not used as much.

I apologize if this sounds like an excuse. We wish we could provide a better experience for VB users, and we hope to do that at some point in the future.

Thanks for the reply. Half of this post is just a “woe-is-me” rant, while the other half is whether using #Glade would be the best process for building a GUI. I thought I read some tutorial that talked about using Glade, but I just found the GtkSharp tutorial so I may try that one instead.

I’ve read about the ambitions to enhance Monodevelop into a Dreamweaver-like web IDE. I’m still trying to fully understand MVC though it looks promising.

If I were more capable as a programmer (plus having more time) I would look at helping to bring this functionality to Monodevelop myself.

Heck, I can’t even get logged in on the Mono forums, so I doubt you’ll want me muckying-up the code! lol!

MVC development puts more focus on the end-user writing the HTML by hand than WebForms, which was more of a GUI-designer.

The good news is that MonoDevelop has very good ASP.NET MVC support by providing advanced auto-complete/intellisense for HTML and ASP.NET tags.

The bad news is that the GUI designer is not finished, that is something that we have been doing on and off through Google Summer of Code work.