Rob Relyea - XAMLified

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 3:56 AM

We have faced this question while planning our software products.  The deciding factors for us were whether we needed to access local hardware and/or a local database.  For our main product, we need to be able to run 100% locally.  We needed to cache information in a local sql database, and access hardware (GPS sensors, serial ports, WCF peer channel, Sync services, etc.)  That product is written using WPF.  The other 2 products we have in development do not store information locally (with the exception of isolated storage), so we are going the Silverlight route.  Both Silverlight products will support out of browser installations.  One other factor is that the WPF application is designed to be touch friendly.  Thanks to the Surface team, we are able to use the new Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch in the WPF app.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 4:51 AM

I guess the suggestions on Connect still do count, don't they?

I was missing some font stuff (missing characters fallback control, application private fonts) for a font management and editor tool. Also if you need to present fonts to user to choose from, based on the presence of needed characters (like diacritics, other scripts etc.), this gets quite useless when it is all fallbacked to other fonts.

Being able to extend the input framework and provide custom InputDevice was needed for our project involving white boards and other hardware for schools.

Something for the controls team - a built-in smart tag control would be welcomed, e.g. to offer options are choices after an operation made by an adorner. In my case this is for a graphical editor.

PropertyGrid was needed for some configuration management application, currently solved using a DataGrid and a bit of reflection.

And something for the XAML team - markup extensions/kind of binding support to (routed) events would definitely make the life of a developer easier.

Hope this helps! :)

Jan

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 6:22 AM

Silverlight, of course!!!

It is platform and each version gets closer to desktop applications. Even connect to database, it is easier to linqSql or EF (version 4).

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 7:37 AM

I think Mike Strobel pretty much nailed exactly how I feel about the decision. I simply give it the same consideration I used to give when deciding between Winforms or Webforms. In house, we only use Silverlight for one thing. The ability to inject externalized functionality into another application. So when it comes to Win/Web our choices are mostly Wpf or ASP.NET MVC.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 7:58 AM

We chose Silverlight because a full trust OOB SL app gave us easy the easy cross platform support we needed. Great job with SL4! It and WPF are becoming so close in features that it no longer pains me if I need to leave full blown WPF behind. Yeah it's still a bit rough around the edges, but it's definitely getting there. I understand the size vs functionality tradeoff and I think you guys have done the best you can.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 8:35 AM

OMG Mike, you saved me about an thirty minutes of writing - I could not have said it any better. I have a very full-featured, extensive WPF app. I decided that I wanted to make it a SL app for a couple reasons (the forthcoming pivot control being the nail in the coffin) but converting it to Silverlight has been nothing but a nightmare. You are dead on about the Visual State Manager which has a place, but is no substitute for simple ControlTemplate Triggers. Rob, what I would REALLY like to see is clear communication as when/if/and how the two will be a consistent programming framework. I feel that some of the difference between the two right now are a result of the Silverlight team correcting/simplifying some things that maybe were not done quite right in the initial Avalon frameworks - which is fine, but don't take functionality away. No offense to the poster who said "Silverlight, of course" but I can't believe anyone who has done any significant work with WPF is happy with the current state of Silverlight when comparing the capabilities and programming models. I understand the need for lighter weight, security considerations etc. If I had one message, I would say start at with the Controls - offer the same set of controls with the same databinding and styling capabilities. You want more LOB apps in Silverlight? Start with delivering a Menu control! (I still scratch my head about that) If you want more feedback, I would love to talk more!

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 10:29 AM

Since I don't do any work on websites, I always choose WPF.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 11:58 AM

What about the debate between WPF and  WinForms?  I like WPF's design, but in terms of straight ahead development productivity WinForms is the hands down winner.  Choosing WPF for an in-house LOB application is not a wise business decision simply because of the steep WPF learning curve.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 12:36 PM

I don't think things are clear cut at all. I have 'two halfs' of an app, one part of which is in ASP.NET and the other WinForms. For me I should be able to rebuild the whole thing in a single technology. To start with, XBAP's (before those Silverlight days) seemed a way forward but trust boundaries put paid to that. I've been arguing for a single framework for eons so it was exciting to see Silverlight grow up. But as I can't just embed and consume 'the web part' in WPF without a round trip to the webserver, it just doesn't cut the mustard. So I am most disappointed to say that with all the work required to convert two apps to two new frameworks which shold be one, I'm sticking with ASP.NET and WinForms. I was also very disappointed a couple of nights ago at the number of changes I needed to make to convert a simple drag and drop WPF page into a Silverlight one.

Finally I'm disappointed with XAML. The nice thing about getting away from ASP.NET is to ditch all that markup stuff, but here we are - and I'm I'm going to stick my neck out here - stuck with a markup intended for Blend use targetted at the printing world. It didn't pull off, and C# and VB would have been just as effective.

I believe the SL team have busted a gut to get SL onto the desktop and the WPF team have not raced out to rebuild WPF and meet them where it really counts.

# Twitter Trackbacks for Great discussion thread on Silverlight vs. WPF for new apps. Read the comments. [windowsclient.net] on Topsy.com@ Friday, May 07, 2010 1:22 PM

Pingback from  Twitter Trackbacks for                 Great discussion thread on Silverlight vs. WPF for new apps. Read the comments.         [windowsclient.net]        on Topsy.com

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Friday, May 07, 2010 1:27 PM

WPF. Mike makes excellent points; brower based apps are, for the most part, horrible.

Of course, since Scott Guthrie doesn't seem to know, or acknowledge, that WPF even exits, I doubt things will change at Microsoft; re: the inordinate attention given to Silverlight.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Saturday, May 08, 2010 3:54 AM

Robert raises a good point about the lack of attention WPF has been getting. I attribute this to my observation that Silverlight is, first and foremost, a vehicle for brand recognition. This to me separates Silverlight from most other Microsoft frameworks; whereas other frameworks are focused on the developer (making his/her life easier, and enabling him/her to write the best apps possible), Silverlight is about the brand. It's about permeating every possible area of development--the web, the desktop, the phone, etc. It's about creating a "household name" that can replace the likes of Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR. Notice how Silverlight gets a slick name and fancy logo, while its other products get long and sterile names like "Windows Presentation Foundation" and "Microsoft Office Outlook 2010". Microsoft seems to be doing everything in its power to push Silverlight as its fancy new framework for all platforms, and it's doing it at the expense of quality. Anyone remember Silverlight v1? It was obvious to anyone that Silverlight was pushed out the door hastily and well before it was truly useful. Why? Because it was being used for the Olympics. Clearly, Microsoft cares more about publicity and brand recognition than it does about the framework itself. As a developer, I am offended that Microsoft has given me such a capable framework as WPF and then tried to tell me "ok, now take three steps backward and start using Silverlight instead." No. Absolutely not. I refuse to compromise the quality of my applications and triple the number of man-hours required for a project simply to help further the popularity of Microsoft's favorite vanity framework.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Saturday, May 08, 2010 12:16 PM

No offense to those who praise silverlight, but if you are doing any serious development pick WPF. It took SL team what like 3 years to provide printing support? Something an application I was writing needed from day 1. Needless to say SL lost the competition then and there. If you want to fall into the RIA hype and all that job security replacing flash developers with your half bakes solutions then sure go ahead with SL.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Saturday, May 08, 2010 10:09 PM

I think the most important thing to improve about WPF is its image.  Microsoft should be pushing WPF as *the* platform for rich desktop applications.  Instead, it is pushing Silverlight as *the* platform, period.  This is misleading to those who are new to both platforms and don't understand that Silverlight is not compatible with standard .NET libraries.

As for balanced feedback, I don't mean to sound overly cynical, but I think you're unlikely to get the kind of balanced feedback you seek simply because these two frameworks are not balanced.  In situations where either framework is a viable choice (those not requiring in-browser support), there is simply no incentive to use Silverlight.

# Windows Client Developer Roundup for 5/10/2010@ Monday, May 10, 2010 12:30 AM

This is Windows Client Developer roundup #23. The Windows Client Developer Roundup aggregates information

# Windows Client Developer Roundup for 5/10/2010@ Monday, May 10, 2010 12:58 AM

This is Windows Client Developer roundup #23. The Windows Client Developer Roundup aggregates information

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Monday, May 10, 2010 3:50 AM

A year ago, we used WPF for a custom client for our multimedia delivery system.  In the next year, we will be replacing the WPF for a Silverlight application.  Why?  Currently most of our application is web/browser based but we needed a static client to handle hardware interaction and a few other esoteric issues.  Now silverlight has OOB which means we can connect to local hardware via COM, problem solved.  Why Silverlight vs WPF -- for our customer base, INSTALLATION!  Not having to deal with incompatible operating systems and specs, silverlight just works.  And now upgrades are painless, update the server and the downstream client updates.  Yes WPF is more powerful, but for nothing that we need.

-Jeff

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Monday, May 10, 2010 8:21 PM

We have such a big legacy code base in C++ that only a "full" .Net app would work. WPF was the way to go.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Wednesday, May 12, 2010 5:55 PM

As far I can tell only selling point for SL was crossplatform/crossbrowser which is significantlly reduced with SL4 so the Silverlight becomes more of a "Windows multi device"  in which case I would opt in in future for WPF as the one more powerfull and (funny) the one having higher adoption (ever PC starting from XP SP2 has it)

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Wednesday, May 19, 2010 1:30 PM

I didn't have time to read through all the comments, so I apologize in advance.

We frequently consider Silverlight 4 for "desktop" applications when [a] the solution needs to be cross-platform (duh) [b] it's a product and the target audience might not have .NET installed. [c] just when WPF specific features aren't needed...

Hmm... that last one is a little vague. Silverlight 4 is my default choice. I have to have specific reasons to use WPF. As soon as I have a valid reason, I don't hesitate to use it though.

One reason why I default to Silverlight has to do with the numerous rendering issues we ran into while working on NHProf.

# re: Did you debate using Silverlight or WPF for a project?@ Thursday, January 06, 2011 9:17 AM

Nice points. I like Silverlight and considering moving a windows forms LOB to silverlight 4 and some backend services. I will do this because we always end up developing some web pages (or intranets, extranets) for the LOB app anyway and it will be nice to use only one platform for everything.

Now that being said, even if silverlight is "cross platform" my app can't use the same UI for a windows phone 7 or a PC (linux, windows, mac). Printing support for Windows Phone 7? Do I need that?

Also, silverlight has done a great job overcoming browser limitations, some things will never be the same as in WPF due to that, so I'm not expecting SL and WPF to converge. But I'm still thinking, isn't it time just to make the "entire" .NET framework (leave out windows forms, replace with WPF) "cross platform" (I mean a serious effort)... or maybe silverlight has started that? If you could download and install .NET framework 4 to linux and mac, my smart client would be wpf. The phone is other story.

I think this is the real plan that will work for Microsoft and we are just seeing the first steps. Start a port to other platforms (mono) - that doesn't work, too much to port. Let's port something smaller and test it with "Silverlight"...

Regards!

MarianoC