Supported .NET Versions

[Bernd Welter]

Hi Oli,

recently a partner asked me which Microsoft.NET versions are supported by the xServer.NET control. Could you please give us a statement from your perspective? Does it work from scratch? Is there anything special we would have to consider?
How about Microsoft.NET CORE?
And maybe also an official recommendation what approaches you'd recommend for future developments?

Best regards,
Bernd

[Oliver Heilig]

Hello Bernd,

the xServer .NET Control Supports .NET Framework >= 3.5. While Microsoft somehow
prolonged the live span of WPF/Winforms for .NET Core, there are no plans for a Core version of the control, and honestly i think this won't be a sustainable solution for future client applications.

I did a teardown of the different options for desktop clients a while ago. With a perspective of .NET core these options would come into my mind:

* There's a (totally inoffical) fork of the control for .NET core. But this is completely unsupported and not really maintained, so use it at your own risk.
* You can use a WebView/browser control and embed the map there. I made a sample for WinForms, but you must check the options for .NET Core then. You can also check the new WebView2.

I must say the future of map clients is browser based, especially if you consider newer technologies like vector rendering. So if i had the task to build a desktop client today, i would definitely use the WebView apporoach.

Oli