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Build Cross Platform Applications with Xwt

by Anand Narayanaswamy on Nov 23, 2012 |

Xwt is .NET Framework based open source cross platform UI toolkit for Mono and .NET and is built on top of the native widget toolkit of each supported platform using a common API. It is primarily used for the creation of desktop applications that run on multiple platforms from the same codebase. The applications created using Xwt will look and feel native in the relevant platform.

Xwt can be used either as a standalone framework to create an entire application or can be embedded into an existing host. It allows developers to develop the core part of the application using native components and make use of Xwt for the creation of specific modules such as dialog boxes, message boxes etc.

The latest release of Xwt includes the following features

Support for GTK, Cocoa (Mac) and WPF (Windows)
Ability to make use of more than one backend in the same application
Widget library
Drawing API
Extensible
Ability to plug new backends
Ability to extend existing backends
Embed user interfaces inside a native UI

The XWT toolkit includes the relevant libraries for Windows, MacOS X and Linux. In order to generate the required libraries, open Xwt.sln with either Visual Studio 2012 or MonoDevelop and build the solution. For example, if you build a WPF application in Windows you need to make use of Xwt.dll and Xwt.WPF.dll.

In order to create content for your application you need to make use of widgets. XWT ships with numerous widgets which inherit from Xwt.Widget abstract base class.

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Xmt flashback by Scott Gregory Posted

Xmt flashback by Scott Gregory

I thought I was inside a time-warp when I first skimmed this headline.

I recall programming in a previous toolkit called Xmt, from the now-Java(script) guru David Flanagan. www.amazon.ca/6C-Streamlined-Design-Programming... was his Xmt library book, as in Motif, as in X11, as in, "Darn I must be old..."