I have been looking for a list of languages supporting the DLR in silverlight. All I can find at the moment are IronRuby and IronPython.
I have also seen CSScript which is a C# scripting engine, but not sure if it works from within Silverlight (http://www.csscript.net).
Basically, I would like to introduce scripting capabilities to one of my silverlight apps, and I would like to know what options I have of language.
Can anyone suggest other alternatives?
Thanks,
Shane.
Related
Recently I'm working on a game project, and we need to develop some editors for designers to use. While other programmers are all working on Windows, I'm working on Mac OS X. I'm familiar with WPF and Windows Forms development and I'm looking for some GUI frameworks that support data bindings similar to WPF or Windows Forms development.
The GUI framework should satisfy these:
Cross platform
Support data bindings to object (like WPF or Windows Forms)
It's best that it support XML serialization because XML is our data format
By the way, I don't care about the programming language, GUI frameworks based on any programming language are all welcome.
Silverlight runs on MacOS.
It also runs out of browser so you can create an application that doesn't require the browser to be run and hence looks like a regular desktop application.
Depends on the platforms that you want to support, but you could have a look at Moonlight the mono port of silverlight. Have a look at the alternative section of this page:
http://www.mono-project.com/WPF
Knockout.js is said to be good. My colleagues prefer it over Wpf and Silverlight bindings. For instance if you have a fullname prop, which is a result of firstname and lastname, you have to hassle in Wpf with propertychanged, in Knockout.js you define it observable and the runtime makes it correctly notify its observers. It also supports validation.
Although it doesn't have data binding like WPF or Windows Forms, Real Studio does works wonderfully for creating cross-platform applications. And XML is supported, of course.
Try JavaFx, it supports binding better than Java Swing. Also styling is based on CSS instead of Microsoft proprietary style logic.
Both WPF and JavaFX will target the GPU for extra fast rendering; they are comparable and competitor technologies. But JavaFX is cross platform and less likely to be abandoned given Microsoft's track record.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/overview/javafx-overview-2158620.html
Also, other answers here say Silverlight but Microsoft has abandoned this.
I'm evaluating Silverlight for a RIA right now. A large amount of the Gui is to be designed by people without programming skills. Visually the application should be very appealing, animations, smooth transitions and so on are a big plus for us. Blend and Silverlight seem to be tailored very well to fit this requirement. However it does need the runtime which is somewhat acceptable for us but also a little disadvantage.
So, do you know an mature Ria-like alternatives (similar ease of development, all-in-one-happy-package without runtime) outside of this ecosystem? I had a look at Qt and the designer but I'm not sure what to make of it in the moment with all the buzz about it and if it is fitting to our needs.
Are there other alternatives you can recommend?
Thanks in advance.
If you're familiar with .NET technologies and looking at Silverlight from that perspective, its may be the way to go in that you will be using the same tools. Silverlight is also cross-platform on desktops.
Adobe Air as far as I can tell can be many things, one or more combininations of flash, flex, javascript, html. This is also cross platform in terms of desktop machines.
Html/jQuery/Javascript is another option, this also enables usage on mobile devices.
There are 3rd party plugins/add-ons and components for most of these technologies that help with both features and the visual aspect of the interface.
There is Adobe AIR, but I'm not familiar with it.
Just so I understand, here is what I hear you saying: you want designers to design the UI and developers to develop the code.
Your problem is that developing for Silverlight requires the Silverlight runtime? I'm not sure I get this, but here are some thoughts:
1) If your designers are running Windows you can install just Expression Studio and Blend should include all you need for them to do their work in Blend.
2) If your designers are NOT running Windows, they can't use Blend. They can still do their design work in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop because those assets can then be imported into Blend. Of course, whoever does the import will need a Windows machine with at least Blend installed: in that sort of scenario we call that person an "integrator", and there are folks out there who specialize in that sort of work.
3) If your developers are going to create Silverlight applications, they will need Windows and .NET developers tools (preferably Visual Studio). To paraphrase what AnthonyWJones said earlier: how can you develop for a platform without having the platform?
In my mind, having Visual Studio and Blend is the "all-in-one happy package", but that's just me. :)
I am a 6-years .Net Developer, and want to know which is better to start learning first, Silverlight or WPF.
I know this question seems a little-bit argumentative but since Silverlight is a mini-version of WPF. I think this takes away the argumentation.
So in the light of that, if I considered start learning:
Silverlight First: Because it would be easier to learn than its big brother.
WPF First: Because it would be easier to know the basic concepts and event-model of WPF before moving to SL.
Learn Silverlight first so you won't be annoyed that you cannot use useful things like RelativeSource and x:Static in Silverlight :P
Silverlight will be fused with WPF in a couple of years.
Study Silverlight first, i recommend the book Pro Silverlight 4 in C# from Apress, the unique that have color pages.
If in future you'll need some extra Windows functions, go to the much complete WPF.
With Silverlight you can also develop Windows phone 7 applications, and Xbox 360 (rumored). In windows 8 will be a Silverlight Marketplace (valid rumor), and you can create very rich applications / part of website / full websites instead of using the slow, crappy and "browser inconstistent" JQuery+Canvas that have no tools at all for design (and when it will have, Silvelight 5 will have real 3D and better tools).
Also the fact to use the same language for client and server is priceless.
Well Silverlight and WPF is "pretty much" the same actually. As you said Silverlight has only a subset of the .NET framework but it doesn't make it "simpler" than WPF.
The biggest leap you will have to make in order to learn those languages is learning XAML, which is the same in both.
It all depends on what you need to do. Do you want to publish your project to the web, then go with silverlight (you can do a XBAP project in WPF to publish it to the web, but clients will need Full .NET Framework). If you need advanced .NET functionnality, then use WPF.
Silverlight first. It is easier to add the extra WPF features than to unlearn things when doing WPF first.
Having said that, it doesn't matter that much. There is more on Silverlight on the web these days.
What kind of applications do you want to write ? Desktop applications that need local access or web based applications ?
If it is a matter of learning, I would learn both in parallel. Keeping your application consistent to run in both run times will force you to learn all of the little differences. Once you get past the main SilverLight features, shift into the features only provided by WPF (though I would start with the libraries likely to be included with SL5, first, such as 3D).
Go with Silverlight first, although it is not as feature rich as WPF it is simpler. Also Microsoft are actively evolving the platform. Silverlight is not a true subset of WPF as it had things like a DataGrid control first.
Good learning resource: http://www.silverlight.net/learn/ together with the Pro Silverlight book which you already have.
The further advantage of starting with Silverlight is that it will be easier to develop for the new Windows phone (broadly it uses an older version of Silverlight).
Learn both at the same time! Not one or the other, but both. There's plenty of overlap between the two technologies which should make it more practical to focus on both at once.
We've developed a WinForms application (targeting .NET 2.0 with VS2008), we've just found out that we need to localize it for use in another language (other than english) :( What are the guidelines for developing multi-lingual languages in .NET?
Another application borrows Paint.NET's idea of globalization (using resources) but I was wondering if there are tools out there than can automate this for us - free would be nice but commercial is OK too.
Any ideas?
How do people normally work on projects that require multi-lingual interfaces? We're talking WiNForms apps. Do you just use IsLocalized = true and let .NET handle it?
You should create assemblies for each language. This article is a good point to start from.
To automate localization process you could use 3rd-party tools, like ResX Localization Studio.
Is it possible to build a good medium to full sized application using just silverlight as a host?
A few things that would be needed:
- dynamic pages (one silverlight "screen" can switch between screens, like a normal app.
- similar to a java applet which launches from the browser
I see that Telerik sells RadControls for WPF...but this is only useful (to me) if Silverlight can be a rich client platform through the web.
Although still a somewhat immature platform, Silverlight 2.0 supports many of the features that I would expect from a platform needed to create full sized applications.
Data access through web services and local data/object query support with Linq
Many feature rich controls such as datagrid, treeview, etc
A very usable subset of the CLR (common language runtime)
Access to restricted local storage on the client machine
It is cross platform
There are already some great add-ons, like Telerik and the Silverlight Control Toolkit
For your specific scenario, Microsoft has published a tutorial on Multi-page Applications
Absolutely. I've been looking into this and believe that it's as easy to do in Silverlight as it is in any other language. Remember that Silverlight 2 uses C# 3.0 and from that you can build anything that's not included in the Silverlight version of the CLR. Also, the fact that Microsoft gives you access to the .NET source code means that you can compile the missing parts of the .NET libraries with your application. (No idea about the licensing issues with that though.)
I've seen a presentation of a full featured CRM application two days ago. Although it's still alpha: It looks and feels like any office application. I don't know details but for me it's a proof of concept.