I have searched to see how to open website on a mobile device, which is built using Silverlight 4.0 and VS 2010. Is it possible to open website on a mobile which is build using Silverlight 4.0 or 5.0?
There are no Silverlight plugins for those mobile devices (or more specifically their browser+operating systems). Silverlight support for mobile was abandoned when iPhone refused to allow plugins (Flash or Silverlight).
The only phones that really supports Silverlight are the Windows Phone 7 devices (which I must admit are very nice). The downside is that they only support installed Silverlight applications, not via the provided version of Internet Explorer.
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I have a need to create a desktop application that can run on Windows machines (Windows 7, 8, 10 and Windows Server). I understand I can use Classic WPF, but prefer to use Xamarin Forms.
Does XF support Windows Desktop apps? If so, are there any gotchas to be aware of?
The next release of Xamarin Forms, Xamarin Forms 3, is going to add full support for desktop apps on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The MacOS support is in preview now, but the Windows support is still in development.
As I understand it, the plan is to use WPF for the Windows support, so your solution would include a WPF project in addition to each of the other platform specific projects. That will allow development of traditional desktop Windows apps, rather than UWP type apps.
The hope/assumption here is that, because these are WPF apps they should therefore be able to run on versions of Windows that don't support UWP apps - Windows 7 and Server 2008 for example.
There's more on what's coming in Xamarin Forms 3 on the Xamarin Blog here, and also in the Microsoft Build 2017 talk by David Ortinau.
I was at a talk by Xamarin TSP Michael Sivers last night and he mentioned that there are discussions ongoing about a XAML standard that could be adopted by both Xamarin and WPF which makes a lot of sense in the context of Xamarin forms apps on WPF.
on Windows, Xamarin Forms supports UWP apps only.
I was watching some video tutorial for developing Windows Phone 7 apps (& hoping to develop Windows 8 apps on that basis ;) The guy in the video tutorial was using Visual Studio 2010 and I have Visual Studio 2012. He created a new project using the option "New -> Project -> Silverlight for Windows Phone". Although I don't have such an option I do have an option called "New -> Project -> Windows Phone". This got me wondering whether there is a difference between those two. Could anybody explain the difference between them, if there is any?
Visual Studio 2010 can only make applications for Windows Phone 7. And Silverlight is the only API available to third-party developers on WP7 (even XNA is based on Silverlight).
With Windows Phone 8 (supported by Visual Studio 2012), new kind of applications were added: native (C++ based), HTML5... That's why calling the category "Silverlight for Windows Phone" didn't make sense anymore, and it was renamed simply "Windows Phone".
It's just a name, it makes no difference to you. When creating a new "Windows Phone app" project, Visual Studio will ask you which version you want to target. If you pick "Windows Phone 7.1", you'll get the exact same API that you had in Visual Studio 2010.
Microsoft only trying to reduce the terminology and popularize certain ways.
Windows phone app is the same as Silverlight for windows phone. the only difference is that Silverlight project in visual studio 2010 targets at the developer choice windows phone 7.0 or Mango (Mango is numbered by the SDK as Windows Phone OS 7.1, while users call it Windows Phone 7.5) or 7.8 according to updates installed. But if you use the windows phone project in visual studio you will target either Windows phone Mango or 7.8 or 8. please note that optional updates may be needed to target some platforms as Windows phone 7.8. windows phone 7.8 is basically a windows phone 7 with some feature backported to it from windows phone 8 as multi size live tiles and some features not backported to it as arabic support.
Silverlight and XNA were completely separate ways to make apps in Windows Phone 7.0. No code silverlight code could be used in a XNA project, nor XNA code could be shared in silverlight project in WP7.0 . Programmers of Windows Phone 7.0 had to know the meaning of each and when to use before choosing. The learn paths of silverlight and xna were too separate that you could learn one and totally ignore the other; in fact most programmers learnt only one of the two. You had to choose your path between the two before implementing a big app, as there is no way back :i.e, no way passing code between the two.
However, starting of Windows Phone Mango, Microsoft introduced Silverlight/XNA. Silverlight/XNA is a new application model for Windows phone Mango. It allows XNA inside Silvelight App. Migrating an XNA game to Silverlight/XNA is not an easy task, but would be rewardable.
Silverlight have UI controls as Textblock and Drop list and have layouts as Grid and stackpanel; so it is easy to make an app in silvelight that look like a form, while XNA is geared toward games , as it is a state based programming . it is very hard to implement a drop list in XNA for most developers.
Silverlight app was renamed to windows phone app to popularize it as a starting point, without having to do a deep thinking in a choice.
Silverlight is a stripped down version of Windows presentation foundation, removing the ability to define your own controls.And Silverlight for windows phone is an even more stripped down version , removing all controls that do not fit on mobile , and removing most of cryptography libraries.
This is the same way microsoft renamed metro-style apps to be windows 8 app, and windows apps to windows forms apps; and then windows forms and WPF were renamed later to Windows desktop apps.
Will applications working on wp7.5 work on wp8 also?
Yes, WP 7, WP 7.5 apps will continue to work on WP8, including apps using XNA framework. Although WP8 apps won't work on older platforms (which is expected).
Any of the existing WP devices will NOT receive the WP8 update. They will get the WP 7.8 update, which include the new start screen and 'user experience' but nothing else.
If you write an app targeting WP7.5, it will work on all devices.
UPDATE from BUILD 2012:
Windows Phone 8 SDK is now publicly available.
All your existing apps targeting WP 7 or WP 7.5 will 'just work'
You can update your apps to WP8 platform the same way you've used to upgrade WP 7 to WP 7.5, although this will make your app only work with WP8 devices. (AFAIK. can't confirm this.)
If you mark your app as a WP8 app, it will not work on WP7 or WP 7.5. Although you can mark the app as WP7.5 app, then you can use reflection to find the APIs you want, and call them (and degrade properly on a WP7.5 device where these APIs won't be available.)
In my opinion, reflection is messy, but you still have an option to support both using the same code, until WP 7.5 devices fade away. (You may have to take extra care when using reflection, because AFAIK there are some limitations to reflection on WinRT to avoid security and stability issues, which may be still true for WP8+)
Just as an additional information from my experiments with the currently available WP8 emulators and WP8 prototype devices. Not sure if the below will be changed in the final version:
Some UI controls for native Silverlight apps look different on the same WP8 emulator when app is compiled for 7.5 and 8. For example, check boxes look like WP7 when app is compiled to 7.5 and look more modern if app is compiled for WP8.
HTML5 apps and WebBrowser control. If your app is compiled for 7.5 it will continue to run old IE9 even on WP8. If you recompile it to WP8 the WebBrowser control will use IE10 with many improvements and optimizations. Confirmed by Microsoft WP IE team.
So there are some minor differences for WP7/8 apps run on WP8.
I want to develop an application for WP7 using HTML,CSS and Javascript something Similar to Nokia WRT(Web Widget) Will this Support in WP7? .Will the app require signing ? Can I use Metro style for WP7?
Windows Phone 7 (and 7.5) applications are written either using the XNA framework (for gaming style applications) or Silverlight (for "apps"). Windows Mobile 6.5 (and prior) have applications either using the compact edition of WinForms, or using embedded C++.
The current design guide for the Silverlight applications for Windows Mobile 7.x is virtually identical to that for Metro on Windows 8 (there are even a bunch of controls to help you out).
As for using a HTML/CSS/JS application; it may work in browser, but I'm not aware of any ways to (nor plans to allow) distribute apps of this type to Windows Mobile 7.x devices.
There's no support for widgets but you may be interested in PhoneGap as that now has beta support for WP7 and is similar to web widgets.
Would an application built using a siverlight 3 or silverlight 4 dll be allowed into the market place?
WP7 is built on Silverlight 3 with some inclusions/exclusions to suit the mobile platform.
You can pull DLLs in provided they make use only of features compatible with the platform.
For a guide to what is supported on the platform, refer to these documents.
Features Supported in Silverlight for Windows Phone
Differences Between Silverlight on Windows and Windows Phone
Class Library Support for Windows Phone
You will have to download the CTP version of the Windows Phone 7 tools (available Sept 16th) and compile your app with those for your WP7 app to be accepted into the marketplace.
It's not a matter of being "allowed", it is a matter of "will it work"? Read the details on what they expect of an app and how it works, and if they don't say you can't do what you suggest, then assuming it actually works, it should be acceptable in the marketplace.
Keep in mind that the version of Silverlight running on the release version of WP7 will not be the equivalent of SL v4. I would be surprised if a v4 DLL would work in WP7. A MS WP7 team member I heard on a podcast (Hanselminutes, I think) said that SL on WP7 is, like, SL v3.7 or so.