OpenSilver – a plugin-free, open-source reimplementation of Silverlight(opensilver.net)
opensilver.net
OpenSilver – a plugin-free, open-source reimplementation of Silverlight
https://www.opensilver.net/
42 comments
> How widespread is adoption of Silverlight?
From Wikipedia:
> As of 2015, Silverlight was not available on Android or iOS, the most prevalent operating systems on the mobile market.
Fun fact: in 2008 it was announced that Silverlight would be available for Nokia's Series40 phones and Series60 (SymbianOS) smartphones.[0]
In 2010 (ten years ago from now!) it finally released for Symbian 9.x.[1,2]
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130615150307/http://blog.anta....
[1] http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Silverlight-for-Symbian-P...
[2] http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/11777_Silverlight_a...
From Wikipedia:
> As of 2015, Silverlight was not available on Android or iOS, the most prevalent operating systems on the mobile market.
Fun fact: in 2008 it was announced that Silverlight would be available for Nokia's Series40 phones and Series60 (SymbianOS) smartphones.[0]
In 2010 (ten years ago from now!) it finally released for Symbian 9.x.[1,2]
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130615150307/http://blog.anta....
[1] http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Silverlight-for-Symbian-P...
[2] http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/11777_Silverlight_a...
Wow, six years notice. If Silverlight was a Google product they had removed that from Chrome within two weeks.
That said, I don't think anyone would start a project using Silverlight these days.
That said, I don't think anyone would start a project using Silverlight these days.
[deleted]
If I recall correctly, not being able to do a plugin free version of Silverlight is one of the reasons Microsoft invented Blazor ( https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor ).
The devs listed it as one of their reasons for "why?" in a community chat.
The devs listed it as one of their reasons for "why?" in a community chat.
Blazor, while a good effort, is still an experiment. Microsoft Office etc. are React apps, and has one of the most maintained React libraries: https://github.com/OfficeDev/office-ui-fabric-react/
I will believe the Blazor effort if they start rewriting Fabric UI components with Blazor.
I will believe the Blazor effort if they start rewriting Fabric UI components with Blazor.
Office is React, because of C++.
Office and WinDev teams are the main reason why Longhorn failed, their collaboration with DevDiv wasn't particularly stellar.
They were pretty happy to redo Longhorn ideas using COM instead, then rejuvenating it into what is now UWP, naturally creating an incompatible .NET stack in the process, which might finally be done with when .NET 5 gets released.
Also Office team is so deep into C++ they even maintain their own VC++ branch.
You won't see those guys touching anything .NET beyond the absolutely necessary.
Office and WinDev teams are the main reason why Longhorn failed, their collaboration with DevDiv wasn't particularly stellar.
They were pretty happy to redo Longhorn ideas using COM instead, then rejuvenating it into what is now UWP, naturally creating an incompatible .NET stack in the process, which might finally be done with when .NET 5 gets released.
Also Office team is so deep into C++ they even maintain their own VC++ branch.
You won't see those guys touching anything .NET beyond the absolutely necessary.
Officially it is no longer an experiment.
Otherwise I agree. Blazor will never be what they imagine it will be. And why should the office team migrate to another tech stack. That is wasted money.
Otherwise I agree. Blazor will never be what they imagine it will be. And why should the office team migrate to another tech stack. That is wasted money.
When I see how absurdly complicated these front-end JS frameworks are it makes me really hope that Blazor can deliver. But for some reason it also feels similar to times in the past where a word for promising tech was never more than a word. But please work, I don’t need or want two routing implementations and an entire MVC stack to manage on the damn client...
I've now done two small client projects in blazor(server side) and it's amazing for small to medium sized cruddy apps with a small user base. I
On the fist project I was able to build out small apps almost twice as fast as react. And this was with 1 day of previous blazor experience before the first project.
On the fist project I was able to build out small apps almost twice as fast as react. And this was with 1 day of previous blazor experience before the first project.
Yeah blazor seems to be a re implementation of the same ideas with webassembly and a newer version of .net. I have a feeling it will have the same security holes eventually.
Since it runs in the Browser JS sandbox there will be a lower security footprint than the NPAPI Silverlight plugin. JS libraries can certainly still cause other web security issues but you shouldn’t be able to escape the browser just because you’re running this library.
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/npapi
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/npapi
Oh thats reassuring I just thought since its similar to native code my bad
Apparently OpenSilver uses Blazor (https://www.opensilver.net/announcements/introducing-opensil...)
WOW!!! although i despised silverlight, this is some accomplishment you guys have done. very impressive.
What is your complaint about silver light? From a user perspective, the only issue I had with it was that you had to install yet another software plugin. But if it’s invisible to end users, I don’t see an issue. Though maybe you developed in it?
I honestly don't know if that's a silverlight issue or implementation problem, but having to work with admin consoles implemented in silverlight in Microsoft product I can say they offer awful experience.
Loading time is terrible, movement between fields is clunky and if you use tab to pass fields your input will be deleted. Left clicks are not a thing. Moving back and forth lose state. Responsive design is not a thing.
I'm waiting so long for it to reach end of life already.
Loading time is terrible, movement between fields is clunky and if you use tab to pass fields your input will be deleted. Left clicks are not a thing. Moving back and forth lose state. Responsive design is not a thing.
I'm waiting so long for it to reach end of life already.
Most of those things happen regardless of UI tech, in HTML as well. That's less an argument against a particular framework, but rather an argument to not build shoddy UIs.
It is way worse than your average HTML. Again, I'm not sure if those defects are the framework faults or the UI implementation, but deleting input from field when pressing tab isn't something I encountered in any HTML interface. Loading time is also similar to a desktop 1st person shooter, not to HTML.
That's totally app's fault rather than Silverlight as a tech.
"the only issue I had with it was that you had to install yet another software plugin"
The spinning loading icon for 30s to 60s was fun (big silverlight sites).
Trust was my biggest objection to it... There was no reasonable/complete Linux implementation available, and at that point Microsoft had never supported a technology (other than office) outside of Windows for more than 2 releases that I could recall.
In general, I really liked the package model, it's close to what I'd hoped Flash would become after Adobe acquisition. I do like React a bit better than Silverlight, but the tech and usability wasn't really bad, just more of a risk aversion for myself.
If MS had created an open-source client implementation that was patent unencumbered that other browsers could have integrated, with open tooling, I think it would have gone better. Can't speak to this implementation. For the Blazor efforts, payload size just feels excessively huge to me, and server-side renders feel as laggy as the original ASP.Net lifecycle round trip.
I'd probably be more inclined to work towards tooling for other languages that have a lighter wasm target (Rust in particular) and either web canvas or something like yew. All of that said, I'm pretty happy with React these days.
In general, I really liked the package model, it's close to what I'd hoped Flash would become after Adobe acquisition. I do like React a bit better than Silverlight, but the tech and usability wasn't really bad, just more of a risk aversion for myself.
If MS had created an open-source client implementation that was patent unencumbered that other browsers could have integrated, with open tooling, I think it would have gone better. Can't speak to this implementation. For the Blazor efforts, payload size just feels excessively huge to me, and server-side renders feel as laggy as the original ASP.Net lifecycle round trip.
I'd probably be more inclined to work towards tooling for other languages that have a lighter wasm target (Rust in particular) and either web canvas or something like yew. All of that said, I'm pretty happy with React these days.
If the web kept going down that path, we’d end up with a dozen equivalents of Flash and Silverlight, dooming the web to become a closed hellscape.
Pandora box is already open, the only way back is to remove WebAssembly from the browsers.
https://www.qt.io/qt-examples-for-webassembly
https://platform.uno/showcases/
https://www.leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpj.html
https://www.qt.io/qt-examples-for-webassembly
https://platform.uno/showcases/
https://www.leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpj.html
At least you can sandbox and run webassembly everywhere with an open interpreter/JIT.
With plugins you have to trust and install some binary code on your system, no sandboxing, no idea what it does and what it can access, etc. Much worse.
JavaScript based exploits show how well it works.
> OpenSilver is maintained by Userware and is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Click download
> Please sign with your Microsoft account:
What gives?
Click download
> Please sign with your Microsoft account:
What gives?
It looks like it's a plugin for Visual Studio and from what I can tell Visual Studio requires a Microsoft account. There's a link to their Github repository and it has the project files for compiling OpenSilver in VS. I think the Microsoft account in required for installing plugins hosted by MS.
https://github.com/cshtml5/CSHTML5
https://github.com/cshtml5/CSHTML5
Why would you do this to us?
Silverlight had a nice API. For someone with C# and XAML skills, it can be way easier and faster to work with than HTML5 et al.
[deleted]
Wow, never thought I'd see Silverlight pop back into the mix.
edit: I actually have no problem with it since it's opensource.
Really cool project, great job!
edit: I actually have no problem with it since it's opensource.
Really cool project, great job!
Ditto. My first reaction was a nearly audible 'ew'
Some source code is available here: https://github.com/cshtml5/CSHTML5
... but why?
under "contact" it says:
For migrations-related inquiries (getting a quote,
analyzing the compatibility of your code,
discussing the technology, etc.), please write to: [...]
yup. I did a lot of WPF/Silverlight work 2008-2012 and I STILL get emails from recruiters (one this week even) asking if I want a job doing that kind of work.
Im really excited about this.
Wikipedia [1] says:
> In July of 2015 a Microsoft blog post finally clarified matters: "...we encourage companies that are using Silverlight for media to begin the transition to DASH/MSE/CENC/EME based designs". Microsoft plans to terminate Silverlight support on October 12, 2021.
How widespread is adoption of Silverlight? Could OpenSilver become someone's bread & butter by 12 Oct 2021?
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight