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I have opted to use silverlight for a website. This runs in all major browsers. The application could be highly graphically intensive. What have I missed?

Edit:

It runs on Android and other mobile platforms?

I have since written about this here: http://carnotaurus.tumblr.com/post/4921541502/old-school-game-to-be-written-in-silverlight

Phil C
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2 Answers2

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The only thing you haven't mentioned is that Unix/Linux requires Moonlight to be installed in order to run Silverlight websites.

Silverlight runs on MAC OSX natively so you shouldn't have a problem there.

You can (and probably should) enable GPU acceleration - see this blog post for full instructions, but basically you need to include the line:

<param name="EnableGPUAcceleration" value="true" />

if using HTML and for ASP.NET add the attribute as follows:

<asp:Silverlight ID="Silverlight1" EnableGPUAcceleration="true" runat="server"
                 Source="~/ClientBin/MyApp.xap" MinimumVersion="3.0.40307.0"
                 Width="100%" Height="100%" />

Update

Windows phone 7 runs Silverlight applications so you can use the same code base - though you need to compile for it specifically.

It won't run on iOS at the moment - but Silverlight 5 is slated to run on iPhone and iPad. Source

I've just seen this post that claims that Mono (who do Moonlight) are bringing Silverlight to Android.

ChrisF
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  • I did not know that Linux had additional dependencies. So, take an upvote. – Phil C Apr 24 '11 at 17:24
  • I have since written about this here: http://carnotaurus.tumblr.com/post/4921541502/old-school-game-to-be-written-in-silverlight – Phil C Apr 25 '11 at 07:50
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Before creating a website in Silverlight I would consider how it compares to HTML-5.

With most new browsers using fast, compiled Javascript the speed advantage of .NET is less than it used to be. HTML-5 provides Canvas for graphic manipulation.

Now I admit that the HTML-5 development tools are nowhere close to what Microsoft provides for Silverlight so that is a downside. On the other hand, the compatibility benefits of HTML-5 are high.

Zan Lynx
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  • You could be right at some point in the future: One issue (amongst many) is that many browsers still in use do not support Html 5. For example, IE8 only partly supports Html 5 and IE9 is not even available on most Microsoft Platforms. In this scenario, users are forced to use IE8 or switch to another browser (assuming that they know of a one that supports Html 5). – Phil C Apr 26 '11 at 11:55