What are the Open Source alternatives to WPF/XAML? [closed]

Answer 1

Qt is developing QML, which looks a lot like XAML except in JSON. It's available as a preview built against the current version, and is available in snapshots of the next version.

Here's a little snippet from http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7-snapshot/declarative-ui-components-progressbar.html

import Qt 4.7
import "content"

Rectangle {
   id: main

    width: 600; height: 405
    color: "#edecec"

    Flickable {
       anchors.fill: parent
       contentHeight: column.height + 20

       Column {
           id: column
           x: 10; y: 10
           spacing: 10

           Repeater {
               model: 25

               ProgressBar {
                 property int r: Math.floor(Math.random() * 5000 + 1000)
                 width: main.width - 20

                 NumberAnimation on value { duration: r; from: 0; to: 100; loops: Animation.Infinite }
                 ColorAnimation on color { duration: r; from: "lightsteelblue"; to: "thistle"; loops: Animation.Infinite }
                 ColorAnimation on secondColor { duration: r; from: "steelblue"; to: "#CD96CD"; loops: Animation.Infinite }
               }
           }
       }
   }
}

Answer 2

Novell has an open source implementation of Silverlight, with great support for XAML, called Moonlight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(runtime)

http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight

Answer 3

• The Web is taking most of the steam away from desktop apps as it is.

  I think that the big reason is that everyone's so focused on the web right now. HTML5 is going to be a quantum leap forward in what the web can do. With fast JavaScript interpreters and capable browsers, the need for a desktop programs will begin to wane over time. That's the horse that Google is betting on, and to a much lesser extent, Apple as well.

• Creating something good would have radically different implementations for each OS, so the base toolkit itself wouldn't be very portable.

  If you think about it, the Web is the only really common substrate we have upon which to develop this sort of infrastructure in a cross-platform manner. WPF is incredibly different from an architectural perspective vs. WinForms/straight WinAPI code. Adapting something like it to each OS would take a great deal of very different plumbing for each OS if you were to have a prayer of making something that performed well. (Not that web apps are very fast, mind you, but they're getting better).

• Look and feel is always going to be somewhat of an issue.

  Whose look and feel do you use? Do you try to adapt the UI to the OS chrome so it looks "native", or do you do something like Swing did years ago and develop apps that look distinctively different from everything out there? (Ugh, that was a train wreck...) And if you choose to adapt the UI to each OS's look and feel, you may have all sorts of measurement and design issues.