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I have stumbled onto Uno today, and I have been trying to figure out if this platform would be better for our needs. We have a WPF app that we want to make a web version and using Blazor WASM, we were able to showcase how we can reuse most C# business logic we have and replace the XAML by HTML/CSS. Our application needs to connect to an external hardware that serves it data through Rest API(And is also the web-server for the WASM). It will also allow us to go multi-platform if we need native access in the future. Its 2 minutes to midnight, with the release of Dotnet 6, I was on the verge of starting the transition to HTML/CSS.

Since this morning, I have been trying to figure out if Uno would allow us to keep most of the WPF we have? How much of the WPF XAML can be reused? All, some, none? Do we loose the CSS flexibility for components design in the transition? Can Uno handle runtime generated XAML element to WASM? Blazor WASM can be reuse in MAUI with Webview2, is Uno version for native app a better alternative? Is UWP a reliable avenue, as a framework I mean it seems to be the foundation for Uno? Seems like MAUI & Uno are walking parallel path, is there a potential merge or one of them dying?

Hopefully someone can help better understand the difference. I appreciate any feedback :).

Shuryno
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  • I wish I could a bounty for my question, but I need 75 reputation. Although I had this account for more than 10 years, I usually find all I need without asking questions. So , as Fresh Prince would put it, you're only 56, you don't have a rep yet! :) – Shuryno Nov 23 '21 at 13:56
  • Did you end up moving to Blazor? – JP Garza Feb 14 '22 at 21:18
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    @JPGarza I forgot this thread, yes I stayed with Blazor. I met the people behind Uno and I think they have an amazing tool and it has great potential. Moving clients from Wpf to web and multi-platform quite efficiently. What pretty much made the difference is the customization of the UI using CSS, our need is to move away from the desktop(UWP Xaml) feel and have a UI that is almost identical to what designers wish. – Shuryno Feb 14 '22 at 21:34
  • @Shuryno Can you share more about your experience migrating your WPF application to Blazor? We are also considering this option. Thanks a lot. – YantingChen Jun 10 '22 at 04:00
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    @YantingChen Well, there are difficulties linked to unavailable resources, like UDP broadcasting, but these are du to browsers limitations. We had to change some concepts that use UDP for network pair discovering. Also SSL can be difficult to manage, since our box is intra network and not always on internet and is not a server, it seems impossible to have a real SSL certificate and self-sign are not easy to use. – Shuryno Jun 14 '22 at 13:08
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    Other than that, HTML and CSS are very flexible, but not back-end dev friendly(At least its a general feeling around here), hahaha. I think the best way to handle it would be to have a full fledge integrator that knows these 2 part. As for Blazor itself, I really like it. Its very easy to pick-up for a c# developer. Some thing are a bit tricky, but you get use to it. Wasm is amazing, but right now the lack of multi-threading is a pain. Its coming soon though. If business logic is very decoupled from your WPF UI, it should not be very difficult, especially if you have a front-end specialist. – Shuryno Jun 14 '22 at 13:12

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