Great components, but AlterNET is not positioned for the future of rich editors

AlterNET UI Support
1

Hello,

AlterNET has some great controls we badly need, but they are on a technology platform which is quickly becoming legacy for Enterprise applications. While for the past several decades rich desktop applications have run on Windows and built with fantastic UI technologies like WinForms and WPF, those days are quickly disappearing. The future is those same experiences running in a web browser on WebAssembly, delivered via SaaS cloud experiences.

This is not some future concept. This second, we are spending millions to move our flagship WPF/C# editor experiences to Blazor/WASM, which is giving us the full desktop based experience for our users without having to install software. This migration is not as difficult as it sounds. Weā€™ve had great success slicing off the View layer from our MVVM architecture and replacing it with Blazor, while maintaining the ViewModels and Models as .NET Standard. Performance on WASM with .NET 8 is near desktop speeds, and more than fast enough for users.

We also have rich 2D rendering requirements. Today we are running Skia/SkiaSharp direcly on WASM with blazing fast performance as it bypasses the JS/Interop layer. This would allow your cross-platform strategy to include Web by using SkiaSharp instead.

We need your controls on Blazor/WASM. Please consider this a call to action for your controls. Other major control vendors are already well down this path. You guys have built some great things, but we need them on the next generation technology stack which will re-define what it means to deliver desktop grade applications, C# and Blazor on WebAssembly.

Thanks.

2

Hello Chris,

Thank you for your extended post.

Blazor support is on our idea list. However, we can not commit to a specific date when it will be available. Is my understanding correct that you primarily need Code Editor running on Blazor/WASM?

We know that some bigger vendors, like Developer Express, Component One, Telerik, etc., have their control packages available for any imaginable platform. Due to the limited development resources of our small team, we focus on areas where we can have the most significant impact, and thatā€™s desktop development.

We appreciate your feedback and will definitely take it into consideration.

Kind regards,
Dmitry

3

Hello Dimitry,

Thanks for the reply. I understand you canā€™t commit to any dates and only so much can be done with a particular team size. I was just suggesting from a 1-3 year forward-looking perspective, there are Enterprise customers that need your components. Specifically, the Code Editor and Scripter for SaaS based experiences, and the landscape is changing wrt. where ā€œdesktop likeā€ experiences will be built. WASM instead of Windows, and WASM apps running ā€˜asā€™ windows apps. Take a look at the new One Outlook client (which Iā€™ve been running for 6+ months in Beta), or the MS Teams desktop application. These are web apps running in a browser shell on the desktop. THIS is the new cross platform strategy for enterprise applications. What Iā€™m asking for is more of a strategic request compared to a tactical one.

Thank you for considering the request.

Warm Regards,

-Chris

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