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SteveSandersonMS / WebWindow

.NET Core library to open native OS windows containing web UI on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Experimental.
Apache License 2.0
1.99k stars 215 forks source link

Supporting mobile #51

Open juho-hanhimaki opened 4 years ago

juho-hanhimaki commented 4 years ago

What about mobile (Android / iOS)? Could this technology be adapted to also support building mobile apps. It would be exciting if one could build existing Blazor app to mobile app.

It would be a sort of alternative to PWA. The PWA experience is still not super great on most platforms. Hopefully it will get there so there would be no need for alternate solutions but oh well.

x3haloed commented 4 years ago

I think the biggest problem with PWAs is that they don’t get to take advantage of the discoverability or sense of security provided by the App Store or Play Store, and for that reason, I think this is a legitimate and enticing idea.

scott-scott commented 4 years ago

That would require support for Android and iOS from .net core, of which there currently is none.

https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/3.1/3.1-supported-os.md

edit: what about using this? unless I'm misunderstanding what you are after.

x3haloed commented 4 years ago

That would require support for Android and iOS from .net core, of which there currently is none.

https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/3.1/3.1-supported-os.md

Targeting .NET Standard and implementing on Xamarin or Mono won't work? Please pardon my ignorance; I haven't had a chance to look through the source code here.

x3haloed commented 4 years ago

Looks like WebWindow already targets .NET Standard -- netstandard2.1, to be exact. In this case, it should definitely be possible to implement on mobile via Xamarin.Android v10.0 and Xamarin.iOS v12.16. I'm not sure how easy or hard it would be to get "native" builds working...

Edit: Now that I think about it, if you/we want to target desktop and mobile, why wouldn't we just avoid this project and create a Xamarin.Forms project where the main form is just a WebView? Xamarin.Forms can run on every platform (except Linux) with macOS in preview. Advantages? Disadvantages?

aherrick commented 4 years ago

@x3haloed Agreed. That's likely the approach I would take. Forms App with a full screen WebView.

denisbredikhin commented 4 years ago

Hello guys. Any plans from MS to work in this direction? I've checked BlazorMobile, by recommendation of @scott-scott, but the difference is that it is using WASM runtime, and not a full .NET (Core or Xamarin). And for my task I need a full one (WCF client).

vanderstack commented 4 years ago

I have an application I'm working on right now which I had been building as a PWA so that I could have the 'feel' of an app while still working in Blazor, but ultimately my goal is to be able to publish to the app stores and windows store. It would be amazing if this prototype could be extended to allow the development of a fully cross-platform WebView based Blazor application.