Is it possible to make real cross platform applications with Silverlight?

Question

I really wanna do cross platform applications. I have great experience in .NET, so the only option is Silverlight. But it's not as powerful as WPF (yet).

Is it possible to use WPF's controls like Menu & ToolBar?

Is it possible to make real installers for Silverlight apps? (Not just out of browser install.)

Is it really worth it, or should I just use Qt?

Thank you

Answer 1

If you want to do the whole write-once-deploy-everywhere deal, STOP. I can't think of a single application that looks natively-written that was done in any cross-platform environment (Java being the canonical example). There are enough differences in the idioms among Windows, OSX, and the myriad window managers for *nix that trying to write one application that can look acceptable on all of them is a fool's errand, IMO.

Learn to use the tools for your platform; if you partition your application correctly, your business logic should be fairly portable.

Answer 2

At this point, a Silverlight application is as "cross-platform" as any other web based technology. You can build an application in Silverlight that will work on different platforms ONLY if the Silverlight plug-In is implemented for the platform's slew of browsers. The cross-platform magic of Silverlight is just it being accessible on the web.

Editorial: Remember that Silverlight is just a response from Microsoft to Flash. They are trying to leverage the skills of existing .NET developers and give them the ability to deliver a much more rich user experience that was routinely delivered using Flash. Silverlight is a subset of WPF which "makes it less powerful" but WPF is specifically a Windows technology anyway that is simply exposed in web apps through Silverlight's implementation.

Answer 3

Silverlight is a great option for a number of reasons:

• Cross browser
• Cross platform
• Small plugin download required
• More extensive toolkit than WPF + third party controls
• Lots of activity online (demos, tutorials, training) as well as a good selection of books available

Also, you can find a good reference example of creating an installer for Silverlight here:

http://amazedsaint.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-to-create-offline-installer-no.html

Just keep in mind some things will break cross-platform, like using com interop, but as long as you avoid those you should be able to accomplish what you're looking for with Silverlight.