Is it planned to make the editor compatible with Linux and MacOS ?

[SeleDreams]

Hello, i was wondering if it was planned to allow the editor to be used on other platforms than Windows such as Linux and MacOS in the future like Unreal Engine ? since there are some cross platform and open source UI frameworks in C# that could maybe help the transition
There is avaloniaUI for instance that is a cross platform C# UI framework xaml based under the MIT license too https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia

[Kryptos-FR]

Hi @pikachuk

That was discussed internally a few times. It sure would be great but there are a couple of issues:

• current editor is using extensively WPF and XAML (especially templating and data binding) which is only available on Windows.
• the build system is only pretty much Windows-centric, so even if we have a xplat UI it will be hard to make it work in all platforms
• that will require a lot of work to migrate from one UI to the other

Another approach we discussed was to to overhaul Xenko's UI and use it to make the editor (pretty much what Unreal Engine is doing). But that's an even greater task.

I'm not saying that it won't happen. I for one would champion that work. But before we talk of a xplat editor, we need to make the rest of the libraries a bit more .Net standard friendly (to ensure proper cross platform compat) and also improve the overall build system.

I'm sure @xen2 has some ideas and insight as well 😉

[xen2]

Out of curiosity (not going to happen anytime soon), it might be good to directly ask developers of https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia how/when they feel their framework could be good enough to be used for a project such as Xenko GameStudio.
Pinging @grokys

[Kryptos-FR]

One of the main missing control would be the docking manager. There is a related project at https://github.com/wieslawsoltes/Dock. I don't know if they plan to integrate it directly into the main Avalonia control library once it is more stable.

[Kryptos-FR]

FYI I started a proof of concept here: https://github.com/Kryptos-FR/Avalonia.GameStudio.

I already encountered several issues related to migrating most projects to .Net standard or .Net Core. And that's even before changing the UI from WPF to Avalonia.

[Luraktinus]

if you need a open source game engine where the editor runns on linux, use https://godotengine.org

[Bugsbane]

I can't speak to the technical challenges of making it work, other than to say that if you get them worked out, you'll get more technically savvy contributors when you do. I for one am excited by the prospect of developing games using my (Linux based) studio, using Xenko.

[SeleDreams]

@xen2 @Kryptos-FR Since .NET Core 3.0 will support WPF and WinForms, do you think it will be doable ?
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/05/07/net-core-3-and-support-for-windows-desktop-applications/

[Kryptos-FR]

@pikachuk Doesn't change anything. The UI frameworks are still Windows-only.

[SeleDreams]

what do you mean ? aren't the ui frameworks wpf ?

[Kryptos-FR]

@pikachuk WPF and Winforms will still be Windows-only, even in .Net Core 3.0. They won't be cross-platform.

[SeleDreams]

@Kryptos-FR oh I see, I heard though that they made wpf and winforms open source so I hope some people will try to port it to linux and macos

[Kryptos-FR]

@pikachuk Unfortunately, they already closed that door (emphasis mine).

Most .NET Core components are cross-platform and we appreciate contributions that either improve their feature set in a given environment or that add support for a new environment. We will typically not accept contributions that implement support for an OS-specific technolology on another operating system. For example, we do not intend to create an implementation of the Windows registry for Linux or an implementation of the macOS keychain for Windows. We also do not intend to accept contributions that provide cross-platform implementations for Windows Forms or WPF.

From: https://github.com/dotnet/wpf/blob/master/Documentation/contributing.md

[SeleDreams]

Oh, that's a shame