Silverlight VS WPF

User32: This provides the Windows look and feel for buttons and textboxes and other UI elements. User32 lacked drawing capabilities.

GDI (Graphics Device Interface): Microsoft introduced GDI to provide drawing capabilities. GDI not only provides drawing capabilities but also a high level of abstraction on hardware display. In other words, it encapsulates all complexities of hardware in the GDI API.

GDI+: GDI+ was introduced which basically extends GDI and provides extra functionalities like JPG and PNG support, gradient shading, and anti-aliasing. The biggest issue with the GDI API was it did not use hardware acceleration and did not have animation and 3D support.

Note: Hardware acceleration is a process in which we use hardware to perform some functions rather than performing those functions using software running in the CPU.

DirectX: The biggest issues with GDI and its extension GDI+ are hardware acceleration and animation support. This came as a big disadvantage for game developers. To answer and serve game developers, Microsoft developed DirectX. DirectX exploited hardware acceleration, had support for 3D, full color graphics, media streaming facility, and lots more. This API did not mature in the gaming industry.

WPF: DirectX had this excellent feature of using hardware acceleration. Microsoft wanted to develop UI elements like textboxes, buttons, grids, etc., using the DirectX technology by which they could exploit the hardware acceleration feature. As WPF stands on top of DirectX, you can not only build simple UI elements but also go one step further and develop special UI elements like Grid, FlowDocument, and Ellipse. Oh yes, you can go one step further and build animations. WPF is not meant for game development. DirectX still will lead in that scenario. In case you are looking for light animation (not game programming), WPF will be a good choice. You can also express WPF using XML which is also called as XAML. In other words, WPF is a wrapper built over DirectX. Let’s now define WPF.

WPF is a collection of classes that simplifies building dynamic user interfaces. Those classes include a new set of controls, some of which mimic old UI elements (such as Label, TextBox, Button), and some that are new (such as Grid, FlowDocument, and Ellipse).

 XAML: XAML (pronounced as Zammel) is a declarative XML-based language by which you can define objects and properties in XML. A XAML document is loaded by a XAML parser. The XAML parser instantiates objects and sets their properties. XAML describes objects, properties, and the relations between them. Using XAML, you can create any kind of objects, graphical or non-graphical. WPF parses the XAML document and instantiates the objects and creates the relations defined by the XAML. So XAML is an XML document which defines objects and properties and WPF loads this document in actual memory.

WPF XAML is used to describe WPF content, such as WPF objects, controls, and documents. In WPF XAML, we also have XPS XAML which defines an XML representation of electronic documents.

Silverlight XAML is a subset of WPF XAML meant for Silverlight applications. Silverlight is a cross-platform browser plug-in which helps us create rich web content with two-dimensional graphics, animation, and audio and video.

WWF XAML helps us describe Windows Workflow Foundation content. The WWF engine then uses this XAML and invokes the workflow accordingly

Silverlight is a web browser plug-in by which we can enable animations, graphics, and audio/video. You can compare Silverlight with Flash. We can view animations with Flash and it’s installed as a plug-in in the browser.

Yes, animations made in Silverlight can run in other platforms other than Windows. In whatever platform you want to run, you just need the Silverlight plug-in.

Yes, there is something called as a WPF browser application which can run WPF in the browser. For a WPF browser application, you need the .NET Framework to be installed in the client location while for Silverlight, you need only the plug-in. So in other words, WPF browser applications are OS dependent while Silverlight is not. A Silverlight plug-in can run in OSs other than Windows while we all know the .NET Framework only runs in Windows.

CONCLUSION

XAML is an XML file which defines UI elements. This XML file can be read by the WPF framework or Silverlight framework for rendering. Microsoft first developed WPF and they used XAML files to describe UI elements to the WPF framework. Microsoft then extended WPF and made WPF/e which helped to render the UI in the browser. WPF/e was the code name for Silverlight. Later Microsoft launched Silverlight officially. So the XAML just defines the XML structure to represent UI elements. Both the frameworks, i.e., WPF and Silverlight, then read the UI elements and render the UI elements in the respective platform.