UI for WPF and UI for Silverlight

[crazy05]

Hello,

 I am new to WPF. I am trying to understand the differences between UI for WPF and UI for Silverlight.

How silverlight works with WPF ?

[Martin Ivanov]

Hi Ram,

Let me try to explain what are the WPF and Silverlight frameworks in few short lines. The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a graphical framework used for rendering Windows OS based applications. The framework provides a programming model for creating rich windows applications. On the other hand the Silverlight framework provides functionality that is mostly a subset of WPF which can be used to create embedded web controls similar to Adobe Flash. In general the WPF is used for creating applications for windows devices (mostly desktop), while Silverlight covers most of the WPF functionality but its applications are deployed on the web in a browser plugin (the Silverlight plugin). 

Since Silverlight is a cross-platform implementation of WPF, our UI for WPF and Silverlight suites shares the same functionality. However, there are some differences between the frameworks which could lead to small differences in the functionalities of some of the control's features. Choosing which framework to use depends on the environment where you want to deploy your application and your scenario in general. You can take a look at the Contrasting Silverlight and WPF MSDN article for more information about the differences between WPF and SL.

You can also see the Introduction to WPF and Silverlight Overview MSDN articles.

Regards,
Martin
Telerik

[crazy05]

Still, its confusing for me. I am developing windows application using WPF, XAML and MVVM.

Now, I am using RadGridView and other telerik controls.

So, am I using Telerik UI for WPF or Telerik UI for Silverlight ?

 I am following these links

http://demos.telerik.com/silverlight/#Home

http://docs.telerik.com/devtools/silverlight/controls/radgridview/overview2

So, I am using UI for Silverlight but I am not deploying my applications on the web. How can we deploy WPF application on the web ?

 

 

[Martin Ivanov]

Hi Ram,

If you are using WPF for developing a windows application as you mentioned in your last reply you should use the Telerik UI for WPF suite. The resources (demos and documentation) in the links that you are following are for Silverlight but they share most of their content with the WPF version. However, if you are using WPF I recommend you to check the WPF demos and help documentation.

If you are developing a web application that should be displayed in a web browser you can consider using Silverlight (and UI for Silverlight) over WPF, however, keep in mind that Microsoft plans to end the support for the Silverlight framework in few years. This is why you might think of another web technology to create you web application. For example ASP.NET AJAX or ASP.NET MVC. 

About deploying a WPF application on the web you can take a look at the Create a New WPF Browser Application Project MSDN post. Basically, rendering XBAP applications will work out of the box in Internet Explorer but it might need additional plug-ins installed on other browser to run. Also, some browser might not support it at all. This is why I recommend you to consider another technology like HTML5 or ASP.NET for creating a web application.

I hope this information is helpful.

Regards,
Martin
Telerik