Can Silverlight communicate with a MIDI instrument connected to the machine running the Silverlight application? In- or out-browser.
It appears that this is not possible in Silverlight. To communicate with a MIDI device, you would have to PInvoke methods in winmm.dll, and this (apparently) cannot be done in Silverlight. See:
http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/t/123673.aspx
This could be done easily in a WPF or WinForms application. It could also be done in a browser with XBAP, although you would need elevated permissions to access the winmm API, which would require a certificate. You can also still make ActiveX controls with .Net, but I think you would still need a certificate for this to get the proper permissions (although it might work with just a scary security confirmation dialog).
It's not possible to use .NET code directly in Silverlight because Silverlight has a different core.
All .NET classes that you want to reference in Silverlight need to be recompiled for Silverlight.
It's also not possible to access the underlying hardware directly, so i'm afraid you're stuck with a full-trust XBAP(you need to sign your app and the user will get an popup asking for permission). XBAP gives you all the .NET capabilities while running in the browser. XBAP will run on firefox/internet explorer on any >xp machine with .net 3.0 installed.
Hope this helps.
Silverlight 3 has an extensible multimedia pipeline for audio and video. You can procedurally create your own audio and play it. To implement what you want, you would have to write your own midi synthesizer.
Related
I have been using WPF for a while, and I keep on realizing again and again that Microsoft invests its efforst in Silverlight, not in WPF (RIA Services, default theme, controls and more).
I thought it might be a good idea to migrate to Silverlight (i.e. creating standalone desktop apps with Silverlight 4.0), the question is whether this is possible or not.
BTW, I think LightSwitch applications are generated with Silverlight as standalone desktop apps.
From MSDN:
Silverlight 3 applications are no longer restricted to running in a browser. They can be run in a browser or it they can be detached from the browser and run from the desktop. These out-of-browser applications allow you to bring the richness of Silverlight 3 applications directly to the desktop without the restriction of running within a browser.
Link: Building An Out-of-Browser Client With Silverlight 3
It is possible to create standalone desktop apps(Out of browser apps) with silverlight version 3.0 or higher and it works great. Now it is also possible to install the out of browser app even without opening a browser as shown at this blog post .Silverlight is awesome and silverlight apps even run on MACs and Linux(limited support)
However, it is not true that Microsoft is only investing in silverlight. Microsoft is investing in WPF too. Though it is possible to create out of browser applications with silverlight, they have lot of limitations when compared to a full blown WPF applications.Dont forget that silverlight is just a subset of WPF, for example, silverlight doesnt have ADO.NET, Hardware device access etc. So if your application is merely a business application and you dont have to access hardware devices or database directly then silverlight might be an option, however if your application accessing client machines hardware resources directly then you are better off with WPF.
My suggestion is, If you know before hand that it is going to be a desktop application then go with WPF(or may be even XBAP). In my experience, useful applications grow with time, new features are always requested time to time. If in future,a feature is requested that cannot be accomplished with silverlight and can only be accomplished with WPF, then you will be in a big trouble because you need to rewrite your app in WPF and it will be hard for you to convince your CFO to allocate more fund just to implement one feature. Silverlight is not designed to develop desktop applications, its main goal is multi-platform support.
Silverlight 3 supports Out-of-Browser functionality.
Quote from Wikipedia silverlight page :
Silverlight 3 supports Out-of-Browser experiences, i.e., Silverlight applications can be installed to the system for offline access (provided the application manifest is designed to allow local installation) where they run outside the browser.
Also here is a quick howto
Out of browser applications have the same security restrictions as in browser applications.
With Silverlight 4 you can create full trust applications which have full access to the computer.
More on Network Security Access Restrictions in Silverlight
If you mean Out of Browser apps, certainly. The Seesmic Desktop 2 app is an excellent example of one of these apps, with it's own updating mechanism. Seems a no brainer to use the XAP/MEF plug-in Model and Silverlight in this manner.
Seesmic Desktop 2
We're developing an OOB app along the same lines, one internet download and you're done. You're not going to get exactly the same APIs as you get in WPF, though.
As others have pointed out, Silverlight apps can be installed to run 'out-of-browser', but even with elevated trust they still have significant restrictions on what they can do and certainly don't have "full access to the computer".
Creating an app from scratch, you may want to consider parallel Silverlight & WPF builds. The code can more-or-less be shared by adding the .cs files from one project (e.g. WPF) to the other (Silverlight) using "Add As Link". The XAML files cannot be linked this way and need to be duplicated, but that may not involve much more than copying & pasting, depending on your structure. There're good examples of this on the web.
Developing both types in parallel would likely involve a lot less effort than having to abruptly switch types at some point and discovering incompatibilities/limitations too late.
How do I go about hosting a silverlight 3.0 application inside of a wpf application in which I can pass data between the two? It needs to run without internet connectivity.
I have a project I'm working on to do that. It's very experimental right now...Hell I really haven't even announced it yet.
http://silverlightviewport.codeplex.com
-Jer
There is no known control that can do this seamlessly out there as yet. To do something like this, you will need to host a web control and use javascript to communicate with the host for interop. Which by the way is not at all recommended.
Can I use Silverlight to build cross-platform desktop widgets?
Silverlight Vs WPF
First of all, WPF is not exactly Silverlight. They essentially require different run times. Silverlight Runtime is a subset of .NET, and needs to be installed by the client, to view your SL applications over a browser. Presently SL runtime is available for Windows and Mac. Moonlight is still not full fledged, and is evolving, for Linux.
WPF, on the other hand, is purely on top of .NET runtime, and is available only for Windows.
You can use XAML to develop user experiences in Silverlight and WPF, and as long as you stick to the Silverlight subset, you can compile your XAML in WPF as well.
Desktop Widgets
Now, your thought about building cross platform 'desktop' widgets - Do you want to host a Silverlight application in a desktop window? Silverlight 3.0 provides support for hosting silverlight controls out of the browser.
Otherwise, see my blog entry on hosting Silverlight using a browser shell. http://amazedsaint.blogspot.com/2008/12/thinking-outside-silverlight-sandbox.html.
This post is revolved around
Hosting the HTML Page with Silverlight
in a Winforms/Webkit desktop application
using a web browser control, and
communicate to and fro using HTML
DOM
Embedding a light weight web server
with in the Host application, and
handle requests to perform such
operations
But remember - it is not WPF. Hope this clarifies.
In Silverlight 2.0, you won't have any such luck.
In Silverlight 3.0 (currently in beta), however, support has been added for Out of Browser Capabilities, which means you can download and run Silverlight apps from your desktop.
The Silverlight platform in general is cross-platform, so external (desktop) aplications in Silverlight 3.0 will be exactly the same.
Quoted from the What’s New in Silverlight 3 Beta? section of the release page:
Out of Browser Capabilities. The new out of browser experience in
Silverlight 3 enables users to place
their favorite Silverlight
applications directly onto their PC
and Mac, with links on the desktop and
start menu—all without the need to
download an additional runtime or
browser plug-in. Further, the new
experience enables Silverlight
applications to work whether the
computer is connected to the Internet
or not—a radical improvement to the
traditional Web experience. Features
include:
Life outside the browser. Silverlight applications can now be
installed to and run from the desktop
as lightweight web companions. Thus,
users can take their favorite Web
applications with them, regardless of
whether they are connected to the
Internet or not.
Desktop shortcuts and start menu support. Silverlight applications can
be stored on any PC or Mac computer’s
desktop with links in the start menu
and applications folder, and so are
available with one-click access.
Safe and secure. Leveraging the security features of the .NET
Framework, Silverlight applications
run inside a secure sandbox with
persistent isolated storage. These
applications have most of the same
security restrictions as traditional
web apps and so can be trusted without
security warnings or prompts,
minimizing user interruptions.
Smooth installation. Because Silverlight applications are stored in
a local cache and do not require extra
privileges to run, the installation
process is quick and efficient.
Auto-update. Upon launch, Silverlight applications can check for
new versions on the server, and
automatically update if one is found.
Internet connectivity detection. Silverlight applications can now
detect whether they have Internet
connectivity and can react
intelligently including caching a
users’ data until their connection is
restored.
Are ActiveX applets as a technology supported by Microsoft dead?
What are the alternatives to ActiveX to create extremely rich internet applications using Microsoft Technologies? (Silverlight does not cut it for me, as it doesnt give me access to serial ports - or does it?)
You can of course still make ActiveX applications, but know that they will only work with Internet Explorer, unless users of other browsers install hosting plugins, that aren't all that good anyway.
In either case, a web application that requires access to a serial port? Are you sure you're not better off with a desktop application instead? A simple refresh and you've cut off that serial port.
Not all applications belong in the browser.
If you want to launch an application via a web browser that can access the serial ports, one option would be to use Java Web Start with JavaFX as the rich interface API, and Java Communications for the serial port access. You could end up with a cross-platform application at the end as well.
Or just write a native application using your favoured Windows toolkit if you absolutely are restricted to using Microsoft tools.
ActiveX as technology is very much alive, and will remain for many years to come. But its usage for Internet is dead. ActiveX is to be only used from within windows stand-alone applications.
ActiveX as of 2015 is a dead technology that even the maker is no longer interested in continuing to use it. Here is something to read.
No, Silverlight is designed from the ground up to be completely sandboxed, no way to bypasss that (thank god).
If you need that kind of access, but are looking for an easy deployment, I would suggest building a Clickonce application.
There are restrictions, because I think by default they are not full trust, but that's the best you will get.
It's also going to be the only easy route if you need printing (unless you are willing to round-trip to a server to generate a PDF file).
If you need direct access to some hardware (like for a POS software with cash drawer, receipt printer etc), you need to go "desktop". Clickonce can give you some deployment options, XBAPs can give you the "browser experience", but you are going to have to make compromises based on what your "hardware access needs" are.
EDIT:
I didn't notice the Silverlight exclusion in the original question. My comment it not really applicable. Sorry!
I don't know that I would call ActiveX dead just yet, but I would be cautious if you are planning to build an application based upon this technology. My recommendation would be to use Silverlight. This provides much of the functionality that is commonly desired in ActiveX controls, but uses the newer .NET technologies.
There is alot of talk about using Silverlight for media playback, but it has many powerful feature that can also be used to create Line-of-Business applications as well. In fact there is a great podcast episode on DotNetRocks that discusses this exact subject.
Here are a few more links that might point you in the right direction:
Microsoft Silverlight Getting Started
Silverlight 2 and a Glimpse of Silverlight 3 by Scott Guthrie
To the best of my knowledge, Silverlight 4 still doesn't give you direct access to serial ports, but it does give you access to any local web cam and microphones now. You could presumably also run Silverlight 4 out-of-browser, which gives you access to COM objects, and you could write a quick-and-dirty COM object which wrapped serial port access. That said, I also agree with what folks said above about not all applications belonging in the browser.
We are planning to build a new integration component that can provide us access to user's machine installed apps from our web site.
The first word that came to me was ActiveX, but our expertise with the technology was not the best in the past.
Thinkink a lit bit more, the work Silverlight also came to my head, but the full trust thing was one of the few things I remembered reading about the technology..
The question is: is there a way that Silverlight (2, 3, 4, whatever) can run as a full trusted application from within the browser?
Links are appreciated.
Filipe
Unfortunately, no. Full trust is a feature of Silverlight 4, currently in beta, and is restricted to out-of-browser applications.
Additionally, full trust SL4 applications do not have unrestricted access to the system (particularly file system), though this may change before before release (if I have anything to do with it).
Edit: If you are considering ActiveX (which is Windows/IE only), you might want to have a look at WPF, since it can run full trust from the browser (if it's in a trusted zone).
No, like Richard said, this is not at all possible inside the browser, even in SL4. There is a sandbox, and you live in it. You can talk to web services, other Silverlight applications or the browser.
By talking to the browser, I mean you can talk to the DOM and the Javascript engine. We needed to launch a Windows application and communicate to it via Silverlight. We accomplished this by putting a small ActiveX control in the web page. It is responsible for launching the WinForms application and handling inter-process communication to it.
This method has many drawbacks: It can only work in IE, and it only works in Windows. You might also run into permissions issues. The ActiveX component needs to be installed along with the desktop application, or as an additional download. The deployment story there is pretty awful, if you ask me.
In our case, the analysts were willing to deal with the restrictions for the re-usability of an existing application, and we consider it to be an optional feature.
Does it have to be a web application? sounds like you want a desktop app. It can be easiliy distributed with one Click deployment. Will work on windows only but since you were considering ActiveX sounds like that's what you need.
Well - if you're hosting the silverlight control from an ASP.NET application - Believe you have access to
Request.ServerVariables["AUTH_USER"];
...and you can pass that on to your control as a parameter.
D