.NET / WPF Alternative

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.NET / WPF Alternative

I know the .NET framework and WPF pretty well, but I think the whole thing has gotten too blown up, especially for small apps as the whole .NET framework 3.5 weighs 197 MB by now.

I am looking for a language/framework/library that provides functionality similar to that of WPF (animations, gradients, a.s.o.) and the .NET framework (of course not everything, but the basic features) and which is faster and more lightweight than the .NET framework and creates smaller and faster applications than the ones using .NET.

Do you have any suggestions?

+5 A:

How about Silverlight?

Josh Einstein 2010-03-06 22:12:31

I should also mention that .NET 4.0 client applications have a runtime that's about 30 MB and WPF has gotten so whipped into shape that it's probably got better startup time than Windows Forms by now. http://bit.ly/9FeJ6c

Josh Einstein 2010-03-06 22:18:14

I'm not saying Win Forms was faster than WPF. I'm talking about the whole .NET framework. To the reply: Can't silverlight be used in browsers only?

eWolf 2010-03-06 22:23:40

No, not necessarily. Aside from getting support for "out of browser" applications in Silverlight 3.0 (they still must be installed from a browser) you can if you want host Silverlight in any application capable of hosting an ActiveX control.

Josh Einstein 2010-03-06 22:26:55

@eWolf - Silverlight 3 and later apps can be run out of browser as well as in browser.

Randy Minder 2010-03-06 22:28:12

It seems you want to develop desktop application for windows platform. As everybody points out Silverlight is one option which has great Out of browser support coming in SL 4.0 and hopefully more support on Mac and Linux later, as well as based on rumors Windows Phone 7 is also going to support Silverlight as its preferred developer platform.

But I dont really see any big issue with WPF/.NET3.5+ platform with client profile support. Specifically considering the large install base of Vista and Win7 your application installer will be fewer MBs with out the client profile. And Clickonce deployment also will take care of lot of this platform issues for you for free. So the client profile (~25MB) is the extra weight you might need for the customers of some Widnows XP users.

All about client profile is here - http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/08/20/client-profile-explained.aspx

Jobi Joy 2010-03-07 01:20:14

When I read your first sentence, the phrase "You should totally drop that and try jQuery" popped into my head.

Robert Harvey 2010-10-31 15:15:49

ansaurus

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