Calcpad for Apple/iPadOS

[hanneskoenig457]

Hello,
I bought an iPad because it's better for me than my heavy Lenovo workstation to be flexible in the university. But one of the biggest disadvantage's for me now is that I can't use Calcpad. [because I like it a lot ;). ]

So I know your web version, but on iPadOS the external keyboard doesn't work.

Just to have asked, I would know if it's possible to migrate Calcpad to Apple\iPadOS or even to the AppStore.

Thank's in advance

[Proektsoftbg]

Hi,

Theoretically it is possible because .NET runs also on MacOS and iOS (and Linux). There are also UI frameworks that run on other OS, like Xamarin, .NET MAUI, Avalonia or Uno. Unfortunately, I personally do not have any experience on programming for Mac and iOS, and it is a lot of work.

We are definitely in a great demand for contributors that are C# developers. I am trying to sort this out for some time but didn't manage so far. e are Any help from the community in this respect will be highly appreciated.

I will leave this issue open, but I do not think this will happen fast.

[Proektsoftbg]

There are two workarounds to quickly solve the problem is to use Calcpad for Windows on you iPad:

The one is to use TeamViewer to connect to your home computer remotely from everywhere and work on your own desktop. The good thing is that all files will be there when you are back.

The other is to run a lightweight Windows virtual machine on iPad with UTM. In this case, you can use a cloud storage to share your files with your other computer.

In this way, you can run any Windows application, not only Calcpad. Of course, the native iOS apps are better option, if available, but if not - this is a possible solution.

[hanneskoenig457]

Sorry for answering lately.
I'am already using a workaround. I connect to my home laptop via Jump desktop (remotely).

But as you say it's a workaround. I have to turn the laptop on after i connected vpn to home network and ... it's not that handy.

I will have a closer look at utm when I got time. Thanks for this.

I understand and agree, that migrating to iPadOS or making the source code OS-independent (like you said with .net Maui)is a lot work.

One further idea.
I suppose it would be nice if you could make the Online IDE as Progressive Web App (PWA) with:

"display": "standalone",

In manifest.json

Then it would be possible to "install" the PWA on homescreen on IPadOS and use it in full screen even as own instance. Would be nearly as handy as the native app. (Information for windows users: there is no f11 to toggle Fullscreen on iPad)

Here a some reference:

simple short PWA Guide

What are your thoughts on this?

[Proektsoftbg]

Yes, it is possible, and I also have thought about this. However, it is still a lot of work to migrate, and will not happen very fast. It is not so simple as it looks, because Calcpad is not a JavaScript application. We can re-use the existing C# code and not going to JavaScript. The solution for C# is to migrate to Blazor on web assembly.

So, I have already added the support to other OS to the wishlist.