I have resources in separate assemblies to be used by multiple WPF apps and this is working fine. Now I am creating a Silverlight 3 app and am trying to use the same assembly to get the same resources. I get an error at the time of adding a reference, saying only Silverlight assemblies can be referenced.
What's the best way for me to do this? Must I have 2 separate sets of assemblies for resources - one for WPF and one for Silverlight? I would not like to maintain two distinct but identical resource assemblies...
Thanks
Note: "link-adding" a file resolved the issue of sharing the same xaml across multiple assemblies. However, to me, one major drawback is that this feature is not supported in Blend 3! Blend keeps trying to find the file locally in the project tree.
Unfortunately, .NET assemblies cannot be referenced from a Silverlight app.
For details and possible solutions, see http://www.pagebrooks.com/archive/2008/10/11/sharing-code-between-.net-and-silverlight-platforms.aspx.
Can you store the resources externally and then use a pre-build step to copy the files into a silverlight assembly that you reference in your project? That was you can avoid having duplicate assemblies and just change the resources in a single location.
Related
We are developing plugins to be added to a giant & awesome software. We often reuse the same WPF controls so we packaged them and created separate assemblies for each of them.
Sometimes, we need to load 2 different plugins within the same instance of the software. At that point, if the 2 plugins use the same reusable control but with different DLL versions, WPF doesn't seem to be able to choose the correct one. Both DLLs are correctly loaded (seen using Process Explorer).
What we already tried :
Binding redirects
Assembly redirects
Overridden assembly resolving
Is there any solution to indicate to WPF which version of the same DLL it needs to select for requested namespace in XAML ? Could we force the use of the latest in some way (this would work for us) ?
Look at my commit o SharpDevelop: https://github.com/icsharpcode/SharpDevelop/commit/b3ea4a0efb7e3b8e083f8be40ea6f7e03ff44604
I fixed this, by using a custom "InitializComponent" Call! ("SpecialInitializeComponent") and using special merged ResourceDictionarys: VersionedAssemblyResourceDictionary! Hope that helps you!
I have a simple Silverlight app that I want to run on Windows Phone 7 almost exactly as is. I've created a new Windows Phone 7 project and when I reference the Silverlight app I get a warning that says "Adding a reference to a Silverlight project might not work properly. Do you want to continue?".
If I continue and try to run anyway, the WP7 project never starts or sometimes I get "AG_E_PARSER_BAD_TYPE error" and it points to the line in the xaml I used a control from the Silverlight project .
The code between these two projects is about 99% the same. Is there another way to reuse code then what I am trying? Or how can I get this to work?
I'm not that familiar with the difference between the two platforms, but you can link the code files into a different project without duplicating them. Add existing item, and click on the down arrow next to the 'Add' or OK button. Choose Link.
The typical way of achieving this is by using a pattern like MVVM which will allow you to define a common model and viewmodel layer (perhaps in a separate project) the defining a different view layer that references that common project.
You said it yourself, you will only share MOST of the code, not all of it, so you will, at least at some time, need to create device/front-end specific logic and layout.
Rather than add a Silverlight [presumably class library] project to your WP7 app, try creating a WP7 class library and then link the files from the silverlight library. You will still only have one copy of each file but all your libraries will be built appropraitely for the platform they are running on.
This may also help you identify the cause of the problem. The error AG_E_PARSER_BAD_TYPE suggests that you have a type in the XAML in your Silverlight project which isn't supported on the phone.
When i added the silverlight dll in the wpf application , i got the following exception.
Could not load file or assembly "System.Core, Version=2.0.5.0". The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the
assembly reference.
This is happening only in VS 2010 professional Beta 2.
You cannot use Silverlight directly in a WPF application, as they do not use the same version of the .NET Framework, thus the error message
Could you give some more details on your scenario ?
If you have a WPF app, you have more than what Silverlight can give to you.
If you are building a solution with multiple products, and one is WPF for the desktop, one is Silverlight for the Web, you need to create 2 different projects in VS.
Take a look at the source tree here:
http://expressionblend.codeplex.com/
Specifically, the Expression.Samples.Interactivity.Design branch.
This shows a few examples of how to put in property editors for use with Blend. I'm not sure if the same concept is transportable to the Cider design surface, but heck, Blend is nicer for pure XAML editing anyways. :)
I have a PRISM based silverlight solution under source control. In regards to theming I have a project for each theme, for example 'Theme_Summer', 'Theme_Winter' projects. In reality there may be over 30 of these theme projects. Each theme project contains a selection of resource dictionaries to hold the styles etc along with the images, sounds etc that are required.
Each of these projects also has a Main.xaml merged resource dictionary that ties together all the resources in that theme project. My main application then just uses the Main.xaml resource dictionary from whatever theme project it needs to use.
The problem I have is I need these 30 or so themes in my solution so they remain under source control and manageable but they all get compiled into the XAP which is obviously not good as the app gets deployed somewhere and only requires 1 theme.
My question is really what do people think would be a suitable approach? Having a seperate solution for each theme so that it gets compiled into a seperate XAP and loaded dynamically seems like a lot of work. Is there a way to externally load these while they are part of the same solution?
Thanks for your time
Disclaimer: What I am recommending may not be the best for you. I only know a tiny bit about your project and know nothing about what you have told the customer (or boss) what you would deliver them.
If you are going to have x (where x is between 2 and 30-ish) themes. You will probably want to spend some time building a framework for supporting x themes. Since you won't want to change this framework every time you add a new theme, PRISM is perfect for you.
I would move everything out into x-ish silverlight class libraries. Obviously you could package similar themes together, like Seasons or Holidays, which would widdle down on the numbers of projects. Now don't forget that your Visual Studio Solution can have more than one project in it (Simply right click on the project and select Add->New Project).
Using PRISM is rather simple and there are a lot of resources to help you dynamically load xap files. It sounds like you may eventually want to rid yourself of problems associated with compiling in a bunch of similar logic.
Is there a way to externally load these while they are part of the same solution?
The answer is yes! You will have to compile your individual silverlight applications into XAP files and load them with PRISM.
It may seem like a lot of work, but when you've created the first few of them, it becomes second nature and really simple to add more XAP's to your list.
http://development-guides.silverbaylabs.org/Video/Silverlight-Prism
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd943055.aspx
http://www.sparklingclient.com/prism-silverlight/
Quick intro: I have some Silverlight 1 content that people have been editing and putting into HTML pages. Unfortunately, this means a lot of repetative creation of Storyboards, etc. We can use Silverlight 2, but not everyone here is familiar with C#/has Visual Studio. What I would like to do is create some custom controls in C#, output to a DLL, then reference the DLL in the XAML file (just as if it was part of a Silverlight project in VS).
I've tried adding this:
xmlns:mycontrol="clr-namespace:MyControl;assembly=../../content_GLOBAL/controls/MyControl/MyControl"
in the Grid tag that is my root. I know the path to MyControl.dll is correct. When I actually try and use it, though (I add <mycontrol:MyControl></mycontrol:MyControl> to the grid) and I get a parser error. It all seems OK if I don't add the control, even if I leave in the xmlns.
I suppose on some level, this makes sense--looking for an assembly is useful if you are going to build something, and since this XAML isn't in VS, it isn't actually building anything. Is there another way that I can reference, and use a custom control in SL2 in a stand-alone XAML file?
Let me first make sure that I understand you correctly: You have a Silverlight app that doesn't use any managed code and is not packaged in a .xap file. The <object> tag refers to a loose xaml file.
This is the Silverlight 1 app model and can still be used in SL 2, and such apps are referred to as "v1-style apps" (even though they target SL 2 and may use features not present in v1). When an application in this form is used, the Silverlight plugin does not load any of the managed components of the runtime (e.g. the CLR, etc.), so referencing a dll from a v1 style app is not going to work.
However, there might be work-arounds to the challenge you are facing here. One solution might be to use a v2 style app that is packed into a .xap and uses managed assemblies. One of the reasons you gave for not doing this is that other developers one the team are not familiar with C#. This should not be an issue as C# is not a requirement for building apps in SL, you can continue to program against it in JavaScript. And if you are just writing JavaScript code, Visual Studio is not a requirement, since there is nothing to compile. They can just edit the .html/.js files and use the .xap/.dll files that were already compiled. Does this make sense?