C#/XAML for HTML5

[Michael]

Hello,

We have been developing a Silverlight business application over the last 5 years.  It seems that Silverlight is dying, if not dead yet.  In fact Safari is not supporting Silverlight anymore.

Everyone is talking about HTML5 being the future, but there is going to be a lot of work to convert existing Silverlight application to new HTML5/JS.  Also there is a learning curve involved for developers.

I have come across this new extension that is being developed by Userware: C#/XAML for HTML5 (http://www.cshtml5.com/).  With this tool, you can develop HTML5 single page application using XAML.  My idea is to take our existing Silverlight code and with minimum modifications create an HTML5 application.  First, you do not need to learn JQuery or similar.  Second, you do not have to modify your program much.

If you look at their table with what is supported and what is going to be supported soon, you will see, under "NET Types and Framework Classes(30% supported)" row, "- Referencing compiled external .NET or third-party libraries (Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne, Syncfusion, etc.) is not supported - alternatives will be available in the future." 

This is particularly exciting that we can reuse UI that we have developed with Telerik libraries.  I am sure that Telerik is aware of the new upcoming extension and I would like to ask someone to comment on the future of Telerik with this C#/XAML for HTML extension .  Few of my questions are:

1. Do you think this might be the future for quick and easy migration from Silverlight to HTML5?  Would you recommend going in this direction or you suggest something different.
2. Will we use Silverlight or WPF libraries, or there is going to be a new set of libraries to be used in this C#/XAML to HTML project?
3. As per this post, http://forums.cshtml5.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=39&p=64&hilit=telerik#p64, they are saying that some control will be easy to map, and other not so much.  "The general approach is this: If the control has an easy-to-implement equivalent in HTML/JS, we will do the same as for the chart controls, that is we will map them to existing controls so that developers can compiler legacy XAML code without making any changes. Otherwise, if the controls are missing and they cannot be easily mapped to standard controls, developers have the option to either create the missing controls from scratch by manually writing HTML and JavaScript code, or ask us to create the control for them (either vote on cshtml5.uservoice.com or request a professional service)."
Can you comment on which controls will be supported?  Will Telerik be involved with Userware to make all or most of their controls mappable?

Does anyone has any suggestions or thoughts on this topic?

Michael 
Midex Software

[Kalin]

Hello Michael,

Thank for pointing us to this interesting topic.

We are already aware of this interesting project, which could open possibilities for sharing code or porting existing Silverlight applications to HTML5/JavaScript, though it currently does not support third party controls:
"Referencing compiled external .NET or third-party libraries (Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne, Syncfusion, etc.) is not supported - alternatives will be available in the future."

We will definitely research similar solutions - using JSIL or other transpilers (even in-house, who knows) - from which our clients could benefit. For now we do not have any plans to integrate Telerik libraries to this project. However we will be glad to hear any comments from the community regarding this matter.

If you still decide to built your new projects with HTML5 and use our products, we will be glad to assist you in case of any questions and concerns in the further implementation.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Kalin
Telerik

 

 

[Nathaniel]

I could benefit from Telerik libraries working with cshtml5

[Roger]

Is there any update regarding C#/XAML to HTML5 and Telerik Silverlight component support yet? Is Telerik going to support this development path? My company has invested heavily in Silverlight and this seems to be the best strategy to migrate off the Silverlight platform while keeping all the code developed. Please let us know.

[Yana]

Hello Roger,

Our research showed decreased interest among our customers in such projects for porting existing Silverlight applications, so I am afraid currently we do not have plans to invest in this direction.

Still, I'd ask you to give us more details on your application - what Silverlight controls you're utilizing and how are they used?

Additionally,  you could take a look at the demos of our ASP.NET MVC and  Kendo UI suites. Both contain a large set of components that you can adopt and if you have questions about any of them, the team will be happy to help.

Regards,
Yana
Telerik

[Roger]

Thank you Yana for the reply. My Silverlight application uses mostly the RadGridView, RadUploader, RadChart and Bing Map Silverlight component. I did some research on C#/XAML to HTML5 and thought initially that it could be easier for me to migrate off Silverlight using this approach. But this would mean that it's not mainstream anymore creating support issues down the track. So I am going to do what everyone else is doing and bite the bullet, so MVC .net + bootstrap, with Web API backend, and may be knockout in the middle. I did take a look at Kendo UI by the way, but I already have AnyChart licence so I might try that first since that seems a little bit less complicated than Kendo. Please let me know your thoughts, thanks.

[Kalin]

Hello Roger,

Thanks for sharing further details - this seems a good choice. You can find below links for the ASP.NET MVC help documentation and forums where you can find additional information:

http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/aspnet-mvc/introduction
http://www.telerik.com/forums/aspnet-mvc

If you have any further questions regarding the exact MVC implementation, you can let us know in the ASP.NET MVC forums. We would highly appreciate if you share your experience with us at the end of the migration - it would be helpful for other customers going through the same process.

Regards,
Kalin
Telerik

[Billy]

Interesting commentary.

We've ported our LOB Silverlight client to a HTML5 SPA client. In fact, both clients will be in use for a considerable time to come (some customers are still on IE7/XP will be using the Silverlight version while others are on tablets/mobile devices using the HML5 variant).

Porting from C#.NET/XAML was accomplished by replacing the C#.NET component with Typescript (such an ease to work with and migration was very natural for our existing development team because C# and Typescript are so similar). We've scaffolded with some of the framework migration also, e.g. collections, lists, etc.

We use Kendo UI in place of XAML and Silverlight UI components.

We retained the same server-side layer (connected via web services).

Future steps will be to wrap the HTML5 variant into native Apps.

Overall, a reasonable smooth migration.

[Oliver]

Just a quick response, but it may be helpful.

We are looking closely at NeosisGUI.

It's full cream XAML, C++ and C#. They are looking at WASM support also. It cross platform already.

Built for games mainly so it's fast!!! They are keen to move further into business apps.

If Telerik were to offer their Silverlight controls on this platform in the future that would be great.

CSHTML5 looks promising also, but you kind of go backwards a little.