Tools to convert html layouts to Silverlight 3.0

Question

I have a couple of applications for clients that were dragged into the web kicking and screaming. I'd like to take a crack at moving some to Silverlight 3.0 if even just as a proof of concept exercise. I'd like to see if I could make them full apps, layout and all. I think the layout of the web app along w/ the graphics is good and don't want to lose that aspect.

Which leads to my question, are there tools to convert existing HTML/graphics to Xaml? I'd rather use SL 3.0 navigation and not embed Silverlight xaps on every page as I would have to do w/ an ASP.NET MVC / Silverlight type solution.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I asked a related in spirit question after doing some research I can pretty confidently say no. There are some tools for Silverlight 1.0 and 2.0 you can find with a simple google search ( terms: html to xaml converter) but nothing specifically for Silverlight 3.0

The xaml exporter for Infragistics may be helpful if you've used Fireworks to design your sites, if not you may be out of luck.

Answer 2

Having just gone through this (existing ASP.NET to Silverlight 3), I’d recommend against any attempt to automatically convert the layouts. With Silverlight having a very discrete set of controls and layout mechanisms compared to ASP.NET I’d be very surprised is any tool did a neat translation. Tools for auto-generating code (be it XAML or HTML) tend to create pretty sub-optimal syntax (Expression Design -> XAML comes to mind). If you were successful, you’d still need to consider the entire data access pattern which will also drive the structure of your XAML.