Cross-Platform Modernization

Blueprint: Unify Desktop & Web Apps with a Single .NET Codebase

A guide for modernizing legacy financial Web Apps by unifying desktop and web development with a Blazor Hybrid architecture.

Industry

Financial Technology (FinTech)

Common Challenge

High operational costs and slow innovation due to maintaining separate, legacy desktop and modern web application codebases.

The Blueprint

Unify platforms into a single, cross-platform application using a Blazor Hybrid architecture to reduce costs and accelerate development.

Potential Outcomes

0Faster Feature Delivery
0Annual Savings
0Code Re-use
0User Satisfaction Up

The Objective

Many organizations, especially in FinTech, face significant operational inefficiencies from maintaining separate legacy desktop (like WPF) and modern web applications. The objective is to unify these development efforts to reduce costs, accelerate new feature delivery, and provide a consistent user experience across platforms.

Architectural Approach: Strategic Unification with Blazor Hybrid

A Blazor Hybrid architecture using .NET MAUI offers a powerful solution. It allows development teams to leverage existing C# and web development talent to build a single application that runs natively on the desktop while sharing UI and logic with a web portal. This eliminates duplicated effort and streamlines release cycles.

  • Shared UI Layer: Build your UI with Blazor Razor components that can be shared between the native desktop app and a web application.
  • Native Performance: The Blazor Hybrid app runs as a native desktop application, with full access to the underlying hardware and OS features.
  • Component-Driven Development: Use a rich suite of UI components, like the Mescius Blazor Hybrid Power Pack, to quickly build out complex features for both desktop and web targets from a single toolset.

Blueprint Summary

  • Leverage Blazor Hybrid to share code between desktop and web, reducing development costs.
  • Use a comprehensive component suite to ensure a consistent, feature-rich UI on all platforms.
  • Modernize legacy desktop applications without a full rewrite by embedding a web UI.
  • Accelerate time-to-market by writing features once and deploying them everywhere.

Key Elements of the Approach:

  • Single Codebase for UI and Logic: Centralize your development efforts by using Blazor to create UI components and business logic that can be shared across desktop and web applications.
  • .NET MAUI for Native Desktop: Leverage .NET MAUI to host your Blazor components, delivering native desktop performance and access to OS features for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
  • Component Libraries: Integrate robust UI component libraries like ComponentOne and Wijmo (for Blazor UI) to accelerate development of complex, data-rich user interfaces.
  • Unified Reporting: Use tools like ActiveReports.NET to provide consistent, powerful reporting capabilities across both desktop and web, all from your .NET backend.