I have just installed Windows 8.1 and then installed Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition.
I tried to create a Windows Phone app and found out that there are two ways of creating it (in fact 3 if you count Universal Apps if I am not wrong)
Windows Phone
Windows Phone Silverlight
Can someone please tell me what exactly is the difference between these two? I read a couple of articles but still don't understand and this whole thing is very confusing.
When I tried to create a Windows Phone Silverlight project then it asked me whether I want to target 8.0 or 8.1.
When I tried to create Windows Phone project then it asked me to get a Developer license and didn't ask about version 8.0 or 8.1.
What shall I chose if my aim is to create an application for mobile devices (tablet/phones) that will run on maximum devices running Windows Phone 8 version?
Windows Phone 8 Silverlight is the older UI on Windows Phone 8. WinRT XAML is used for Windows Store Apps(these are Universal Apps). Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight is a bit different as explained here.
Windows Phone Silverlight, although older, is better in some ways. If your aim is to develop an app that is targeted only for phones and that doesn't have any use getting ported to Win8/RT, go with Silverlight. Background Audio is a mess in WinRT. Speech Recognition with Cortana is worse.
The controls of WinRT XAML are buggy. For example, there is a clear performance degradation of MapControl in WinRT XAML, whereas, in Silverlight, this is smoother.
On the other hand, Windows Store Apps have .NET Native, which converts C# to native C++ code, resulting in performance gains.
For a beginner, I would advise starting with Windows Phone 8 Silverlight apps.
Windows Phone Silverlight is the "old" platform that WP8.0 apps are built on. It asked you to target 8.0 or 8.1 because WP8.1 has a hybrid mode that lets you build WP8.1 apps but still have access to the Sliverlight API if you had a whole lot of legacy code you didn't want to port over just yet.
Windows Phone is the (mostly) universal platform for WP8.1 that is based on Windows Runtime.
Related
I was reading about Windows Phone 8.1 Development, because I already work with Windows Phone 8 and I intend to start working with the new OS version.
Then I downloaded the Visual Studio for Windows with update 4, opened one project of mine (target to WP8) and clicked to "upgrade to 8.1".
I saw that my solution changed the name to "Windows Phone SilverLight 8.1".
Then I tried to create a new project targeting Windows Phone 8.1, and I saw the following options under Visual C# tree (as shows the image):
Universal Apps
Windows Apps
Windows Phones Apps
As my goal is to develop for phone devices with Windows Phone 8.1, I chose "Windows Phone Apps". But I saw that this project is kind different from the other (the one that I upgraded from WP8). It appears "Windows Phone 8.1" on the solution instead of "Windows Phone SilverLight 8.1". And codes are also very different.
So, I made a research about it, to understand the difference between "Windows Phone SilverLight 8.1" and "Windows Phone 8.1", read some posts like this:
Difference between Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 development
What is the difference between Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight
In windows phone 8.1 what is the differance between Windows phone project and silverlight project?
but I couldn't find anything that made me understand.
At some point, I found an answer saying that "Windows Phone 8.1" is for Universal Apps... but I disagree, if I wanted to create an Universal App, I would choose the "Universal App" instead of "Windows Phone Apps".
Does anyone knows exactly the difference between this two projects?
The main difference is that Windows Phone 8.1 Store Apps strictly use WinRT APIs which are not available under Silverlight.
Before you read on, this is the short version:
Windows Phone 8.1 Store App code runs on all Windows Phone 8.1+ and Windows 8+ machines, since it uses the unified WinRT API.
Windows Phone Silverlight App code runs on all Windows Phones 7+ but not on all Windows 8 machines (ARM machines do not support all features). That's why Windows Store apps are using different APIs (WinRT). You might want to check out this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj681690%28v=vs.105%29.aspx
Windows Phones were using Silverlight apps only up to version 8 while apps for Windows 8 (an up) offered the WinRT API as well - you may have noticed the Windows 8 RT versions for ARM CPUs..
So - to stop the endless parallelism of Silverlight and WinRT Microsoft decided to unify the development process. Starting from Windows Phone 8.1, Windows Phone also runs WinRT (rebranded as Windows Runtime, I think) apps.
The main advantage is that you can now easily port Windows Phone 8.1 code to a Windows 8.1 app and vice versa, since both are using the same APIs. Accessing files, storage, networking.. it's all the same across Windows Phone and for Windows Store Apps.
This is where Universal Apps come into play. Instead of porting your code later by creating a new project you can now easily create a universal project that contains shared code both for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1.
However, the downside is that your app won't run on Windows Phones < 8.1.
The difference is in the framework the app will use.
Silverlight is a plugin like Flash, so if you develop an app that use it, you have to use his library/syntax. It is an old way to develop web and phone applications.
Universal is the new framework that Microsoft develop for help developers to create apps that run both on Windows Phone or Windows Store.
So, what you find in internet is correct: Phone App is for Universal framework.
The voices that VS offers mean:
- Universal App: for any device (Phone/Tablet/PC)
- Phone App: only for Phone (pay attention! Can use any library developed for Universal App since Universal App can run on Phone)
- Windows App: only for Tablet/PC (no phone). You can use Universal App library like Phone App can do
I hope this could help
Silver Light project does have service reference facility while in window phone it is removed so you can use either azure provided services or rest services while developing for windows phone
I start developing Windows Phone 8 apps recently. I'm trying to do an app for a local radio. They use Shoutcast for internet broadcasting.
But I see that WP doesn't have native shoutcast support. So I searched for implementation for Shoutcast. I found http://shoutcastmss.codeplex.com/ and start working on it.
I succeeded to play shoutcast but I want to do a live tile that shows current song. But due to restrictions on Windows Phone 8, I need to upgrade my project to Windows Phone 8.1 to update live tiles more often.
My project is based on Windows Phone Silverlight 8.0. Thanks(!) to Microsoft, BackgroundAudioPlayer class is no more available for Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1.
So,
Is there a way to use BackgroundAudioPlayer in Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1?
Or
If I have to make it a Windows Phone 8.1 Runtime App, How can I do that?
Or
Can I keep it as a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.0 app, but update the live tile every minute? (User will have WP 8.1)
Thanks,
I don't think it'll work for WP Silverlight 8.1. As for working with BackgroundAudioPlayer is a limitation in Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1. Therefore you will have to write an app that targets WP8.0 Silverlight or WP8.1 WinRt app.
You could refer here for more:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c9275491-cfff-4078-bc6d-6debe5372790/backgroundaudioplayer-is-not-working-after-upgrading-windows-phone-8-apps-to-windows-phone?forum=wpdevelop
Hope it helps!
I am going mad with these questions. Hope someone could help me.
1. What is the difference between windows phone 8.0 and windows phone 8.0 silverlight (if any) applications?
2. After updating my windows phone 8.0 application (not a silverlight application) into windows phone 8.1 applications, it became silverlight application automatically. Both are same?
3. If both are same, then what does the Blank App (Windows phone) means in windows phone 8.1 templates?
Thanks in advance.
Windows Phone 8.0 Silverlight apps are Windows Phone 8.0 apps written using Silverlight framework. Meaning that you probably used XAML to define the UI of your app, and C# or VB.NET for the logic in your code-behind.
It is the same platform, yes, only now you have the latest Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight APIs, and possibly some breaking changes (APIs that were available in Silverlight 8.0 but are not available in Silverlight 8.1). The fact that it now explicitly says Silverlight in Visual Studio is because there are now two ways (platforms, models, however you wish to call it) to develop apps for Windows Phone 8.1 - based on Silverlight and WinRT. By upgrading a Windows Phone 8.0 app to Windows Phone 8.1, you keep using Silverlight as before, only now the Visual Studio is explicitly saying that it's Silverlight because the upgrade path goes only from Silverlight to Silverlight (can't automatically migrate from Silverlight to WinRT).
Blank App (Windows Phone) means a blank WinRT Windows Phone app. It's not a Silverlight app, and it's blank in the sense that there are no predefined controls or mock data in the project, just a bare minimum that you need to get started.
1). Windows Phone 8 apps are by default silverlight apps. So when it comes to windows phone 8 there is no difference between Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8 Silverlight apps. Both are essentially same.
2). Because WP8 apps are silverlight apps when it is converted to WP8.1 it is stil a silverlight app. Windows Phone 8.1 apps have 2 types i) Windows Phone silverlight apps ii) WinRT apps. You can create a Windows PHone 8 silverlight app and it will work on Windows Phone 8.1 device with out any issues. But windows Phone 8.1 WinRT apps are not backward compatible with Windows Phone 8.
3). Windows Phone blank app in Windows Phone 8.1 sdk is by default a WinRT app. Its not a silverlight app. But it also has Window Phone silverlight apps as a template.
** When you select a Windows Phone silverlight app and click ok you are presented with a dialog to select the platform either WP8.0 or WP8.1.
Hope this answers your question.
Windows Phone 8 apps are by default silverlight apps. So when it comes to windows phone 8 there is no difference between Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8 Silverlight apps. Both are essentially same.
I have to create an application with metro design on vs2010 and windows 7.
The application should work both on pc and device without internet.
Initially i though of wpf but i do not know if it works on Mobile.
Please let me know how i can develop once such standalone application for
both device and PC also
Unfortunately, there is not a single platform that targets both PC and Phone...although, the presumption is that Windows Phone and Windows Store applications are moving toward a unified foundation.
Windows Store applications unfortunately don't run on Windows 7. Only Windows 8 and above, but the advantage is they work with the desktop version as well as the tablet version of windows.
If you want to target windows 7 and say windows phone as well, your best bet is to use portable class libraries to create a common "core" for the application. And use WPF for the desktop which has a lot in common with XAML for Windows Phone.
If you want to target windows phone 8, you have to use Visual Studio 2012 or above.
Pretty old question, but in case anyone is still blindfolded, there is UWP.
Furthermore, if you want to have XAML and C# deployed as native apps in a variety of platforms (UWP, Droid, iOS, WinPhone), be sure to check out Xamarin, which now belongs to Microsoft, and follows the awesomeness of open-source MIT just as the entire .NET does now.
Can existing apps (both web and desktop apps) using Silverlight run on Windows 8? How about Windows RT?
If it's not possible, what would be the path of least resistance to make it work? (Viz., how to get it working on Windows 8/RT, not caring about whether it'll work on Windows 9 or not.)
Existing Silverlight applications can run in the Windows 8 Desktop, but cannot run as part of a Windows Store application. Only Windows Store applications can run on Windows RT (with exception of Office apps delivered by Microsoft).
Path of least resistance would be leveraging your assets - it's C#/VB and XAML still - within the Windows RT framework.
You might check out this Deep Fried Bytes episode, and there are other blog posts as well to give you some guidance. There's also an article on the Dev Center focused on Windows Phone 7 Silverlight to Windows 8, but much should be application to your scenario as well.
You WPF and Silverlight application work fine on Windows 8, but not in the Windows store, which needs only Metro Applications.
But you can more and less easily port your Silverlight app to Metro : you keep XAML files, and you change the code behind with new objects defined ine the Windows 8 libraries.