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I currently develop a handful of Silverlight Applications that are hosted on the company intranet. It is my understanding that Silverlight is basically dead, so I was wondering if anyone knew of a good alternative to use for future applications. I have done some research, and I see that Microsoft is recommending to move to WinRT stuff for desktop applications , but I can't find anything about apps that are supposed to be hosted in a browser, like I am doing with Silverlight now. Should I just switch over to using ASP.NET / HTML / CSS ?

A.R.
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  • The way I understand it is that for web stuff you're supposed to use HTML5. – LukeP Aug 13 '12 at 16:03
  • Microsoft's View: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlight/archive/2011/04/04/standards-based-web-plug-ins-and-silverlight.aspx – dmck Aug 13 '12 at 16:05
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    @dmck You have to admit that is a really broad view. What I am most concerned about is Silverlight disappearing completely down the road, and I then have a whole bunch of apps to port. – A.R. Aug 13 '12 at 16:11

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The recommended approach would be to use HTML5. The Metro version of IE 10 doesn't support plugins, so Silverlight will not work there. However, the desktop version of IE 10 still has plugin support, so your Silverlight apps are still supported in Windows 8 to a certain degree.

Silverlight is no longer being advanced by Microsoft, but will still be around for a while (i.e. all browsers will not drop support in the near future). Given that you are working on intranet apps, you probably have an opportunity to control the environment to a degree so that the Silverlight apps are still accessible. However, it is probably wise to move to HTML5 for new development and also think about a long-term migration strategy for existing apps if needed.

Gambit
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I've talked to some folks around the office, and it seems that their approach is to just convert their Silverlight apps into WPF apps and use ClickOnce for the deployment. The advantage here is a relatively easy and clean port (compared to HTML/CSS/javaScript) and we still get the benefit of existing code / look / feel.

These apps are all internal as well, so we don't have platform problems or browser issues to worry about.

A.R.
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  • It sounds like your company is not opposed to having installed apps which does provide you with a good migration approach. My only comment would be that Silverlight and WPF are both confined to the "desktop" side of Windows 8, in case there is any consideration for Metro. For example, maybe you would like someone to be able to run your apps on a WinRT tablet as well. Were there any specific reasons a Silverlight/web approach was taken in the first place that you will be losing in this migration? – Gambit Aug 20 '12 at 18:57
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    Ease of deployment was the main reason for the Silverlight approach. ClickOnce is a bit more difficult, but not much. Meanwhile, even a port to Metro would be worlds easier than trying to do a conversion to HTML/js as the code + XAML can still be recycled (for the most part) And let's face it, SL to HTML/js is a huge step backwards. – A.R. Aug 21 '12 at 17:47