How well does Xamarin do with Desktop development?

Question

User interface

I decided that it was time to get acquainted and write a couple of projects with a progressive (modern) user interface in C#. I have mastered the language, now I want to make it the main working language. Xamarin is definitely in the development plans, because. thing is universal for the most part. But I also liked WPF. I want to focus on mobile development, but I also want to master the desktop, a useful and in-demand skill, especially since I have a couple of projects specifically for this platform in my plans. My question is this.
1. If I'm developing a project for desktop only, are Xamarin tools enough?
It is logical to assume that WPF is more powerful in this. But I'm interested in the prospect of mastering Xamarin as a universal tool for all platforms (except the web).
2. How good is UI customization in each of these technologies?
3. Does it make sense to learn both or is Xamarin enough?
They seem to be structurally very similar, and there and there xaml. It’s just that if you google projects on Xamarin, most often these are mobile applications, it seems that no one writes Desktop on it (except apparently the office where I worked :) and that’s all for the sake of C # and a port on a poppy).
4. By the way, another rather important point for me, is it possible to make a code editor with syntax highlighting here and there?
I understand that you can’t say for sure here, so your opinions are of interest. Thanks

Answer 1

1. Xamarin is only about mobile, Mac application exception. WPF - about windows desktop.
2. Xamarin allows everything the same as native development tools. Plus, you can always port native components.
3. Xaml only in Xamarin.Forms, Xamarin.Native has its own tools for each platform.
My opinion is that you are confusing warm with soft. If projects under winodws - WPF. Need mobile development - Xamarin. You can share business logic between them, but the UI does not overlap in any way.

Answer 2

1. If I'm developing a project only for the desktop, are Xamarin tools enough?
It is logical to assume that WPF is more powerful in this. But I'm interested in the prospect of mastering Xamarin as a universal tool for all platforms (except the web).

Xamarin Forms has support for "backends" (in XF terminology) for WPF, GTK, MacOS. It seems like they are still in beta, there were nugets, the sources are available on the official github, there were articles on this topic in the official blog and a bunch of unofficial ones. Try it, it's already done.
Look at the sources of avalon studio , it is written in avalon. Avalonia is more focused on desktops, but there is no native rendering of the UI, which, however, is not a minus.