Create a cross platform Windows, Mac OS X application [closed]

Answer 1

If you do decide to go with C++ there are a number of good cross-platform GUI libraries that will allow you to avoid having to duplicate the GUI code for each platform. For example:

• Juce
• QT
• wxWidgets

There are a number of other similar projects but those are some of the better and more well-known ones. For the remainder of your code, anything system-specific will of course have to be written using separate C++ code to interface with Win32 APIs or OS X's system API where necessary. That being said, you may find you're able to avoid much of the system-specific code by using extensive libraries like Boost.

Other suggestions would be things like using a configuration file instead of the Windows registry or a plist file on the mac. Instead, shoot for platform-agnostic approaches wherever possible to minimize the places where you have to write code using system APIs.

Answer 2

Take a look at Real Studio. Seriously. You can write an app in Real Studio and deploy it on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Edit: Real Studio is now Xojo.

Answer 3

As others have mentioned is is definitely possible to create good looking cross platform GUI in Java on both Windows and Mac. However if you want your app to blend in and behave in a way that makes it "feel" like an application designed from the ground up for the platform it is running on, you really have to develop the GUI and user experience for each version of the application separately.

If you analyze what your application is going to do and figure that there is a significant portion of code/logic that could be shared between platforms then write that portion in a portable way in a language that is available on both systems. C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, etc. If there isn't a significant portion, ie most of the code is going to be for the GUI then there is less of a case for sharing any code at all.

In the case that there is a significant portion of common code, I would suggest looking into Python and Ruby as implementation languages as there are Cocoa bindings for those languages on the Mac and on Windows with the use of IronPython and IronRuby you could use reuse that code in a .Net application as well.

Answer 4

Java or Mono come to my mind. Some people may argue that java graphical toolkits are not the cuttest out there but it seems to be, at least to me, the easiest way to port your application to several platforms and avoid deployment difficulties.

Mono, on the other hand, could be a little bit more difficult to port as you would have to write at least the gui twice if you plan to have native widgets (either winforms or GTK for windows and CocoaSharp for Max) but you could write the backend only once and develop a frontend for each platform.

As I said, Java GUI toolkits might not feel "native" inside OSX or even on Windows but they sure work on both platforms, you could use either Swing or AWT.

As for mono, you can use GTK or Winforms for both windows and OSX but they still will not feel native, you can, however use CocoaSharp which are bindings to the Cocoa framework but Im not sure about the status of the project (read: functionality support)

Answer 5

You should use the best tools available for each OS.

C/C++ code can be separated from the GUI and used in each separately developed program.

Before you make a decision, take a look at cross-platform apps that have been developed with portable toolkits such as Qt or wxWidgets. In my experience they are never as polished as their native counterparts, especially on the mac.

Answer 6

If you're a Windows developer, use either Qt or C# Winforms; if you're a Mac developer, you could try Cocotron (http://www.cocotron.org/), but it's not 100% finished yet, though commercial apps have been shipped with it.