Comment by tombert

4 days ago

Interesting, I didn't actually know that VB.NET ever got ported to Linux with the rest of .NET Core.

Does it still have the drag-n-drop GUI feature to make graphical apps, or is that a strictly Windows thing?

9 comments

tombert

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impendingchange  4 days ago

And what makes this project significant is there's a lack of VB.NET tools on Linux.

It has been challenging trying to get Gtk 3 widgets to play nice. Finally just rolled my own custom-drawn editor, treeview, and listbox. Going to release them later in a library.

  • dadoum  4 days ago

    Wait, you're not using GtkSourceView? Cool

    You could also have used Mono.TextEditor btw. I personally find it better than GtkSourceView, and for having ported it to GTK# 3 myself, it was rather straightforward to port.

    • impendingchange  4 days ago

      I actually had Claude do a lot of research into libraries. We tried a LOT of them before finding Gtk# 3 stable enough on the version used. What also was a factor was finding a version of dotnet on Linux that was stable for this combination. And it wasn't so much what would compile together, it was more what packages were available for MX Linux (my preferred flavor).

      Gtk 3 has a weird way of doing scrolled controls that I couldn't accept because the nesting caused all kinds if issues. Also, the Gtk text control is incredibly slow when the file in it grows past 600 lines.

      I wrote the editor control with an architectural design I created originally back in 2004, and subsequently lost. Much, much faster implementation. Took about 3 weeks with Claude.

      Also wrote a treeview, listbox, colorpicker. Those took a day or two each with Claude. I will be releasing those controls in a dotnet library when I am finished with SimpleIDE.

  • tombert  4 days ago

    This isn't meant to be a passive aggressive dig, but a genuine question...why make an VB.NET IDE?

    I think it's cool that you did it, it's just not a language that I've seen get a lot of love.

    • impendingchange  4 days ago

      VB.NET's verbose syntax actually makes it PERFECT for AI assistance. And it is being developed with full AI integration.

      And, Linux lacks any such tools. Not even VS Code has a plugin for VB.

      1 reply →

ethan_smith  4 days ago

The WinForms designer (drag-n-drop GUI) isn't fully supported on Linux - SimpleIDE likely focuses on code editing rather than visual design, as the .NET MAUI/WinForms designers remain Windows-centric despite .NET's cross-platform capabilities.