I have developed a Windows desktop gadget using Silverlight (MVVM pattern) and WCF.
I want to know whether it will work on Windows 8, since there is no option as sidebar in Windows 8.
If possible please tell what should I do to make it compatible with both Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Windows Desktop Gadgets are not supported on Win8: http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/microsoft-to-remove-desktop-gadgets-from-windows-8-1088122
You can try to reuse some parts of your code to make a Windows 8 'immersive app' with a Live Tile. The C#/XAML stack in Windows 8 is quite similar to Silverlight (but not the same). See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465136.aspx for a guide about the differences.
Related
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.
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.
How to apply windows 8 theme for windows forms ?
Note : What i want to achieve is clearly using the style so that any user [with\without] windows 8 installed can see my application with windows 8 style. {Just Like Any Other Style?]
Not sure why you would want to, because it makes your UI inconsistent with other applications in the OS - chances are users won't be happy. To help you convert the whole OS, there are 3rd party themes available on the internet. For Windows 7, there is one by deviantart. Or try Windows 8 Transformation pack, which supposedly can even work on XP.
If you want to style your particular app, there are 3rd party UI components you can use, but they are all paid (from what I know). Some vendors, for example, are Devexpress and Telerik.
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.
See also: Is there any way to write a WinRt (Metro) app that will also work on Windows 7 and Vista?
I am trying to understand how to target both Windows 8 on Arm and Windows 7, given that Windows 7 cannot run WinRT apps. And as I understand it, apps can only be installed on ARM version of Windows 8 from the App Store.
So can Windows 8 on the Arm run none WinRT apps?
The definitive answer is out now. There will be a desktop, but you will not be able to install desktop apps. "WOA does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps." All apps will come from the store and will have to abide by the Metro style app guidelines.
The only desktop apps appear to be Office (which seems to ship with the OS) and built-in apps like the control panel, Explorer, IE, etc. Everything else will be a new Metro-style app written against the Windows Runtime.
See this Building Windows 8 blog post for details.
"No legacy apps" is not the same as "no Desktop apps" though.
Nothing I've seen suggests that there won't be a regular Win32 with COM, IE, MSHTA, etc. on ARM along with an Explorer Desktop.
You may simply need to recompile C++ or .Net after some tweaking or "retargeting." Things like HTAs may even port with close to zero effort as long as they don't use any custom COM libraries. I'm surprised anyone ever expected any x86 code to run on ARM, even under some sort of WOW emulation. Microsoft has been pretty clear about that.
Whether it makes any sense to do much of this (desktop apps on ARM) is another matter, even if you can. The ARM-based devices are likely to be quite resource-constrained, which is the purpose in having them in the first place: cheap and portable.
Microsoft has made no statement about whether or not desktop apps will be supported on Arm processors. They have shown Microsoft Office running, but have not said whether that will be supported on the final platform.
For now the only statements have been about Metro style apps and those will be supported written in any language.