Converting WPF application to Silverlight with use of Access database

Question

I was wondering if it is possible to convert a wpf application to silverlight without days of work.

Yes, i know there's a similar post, but dates from 2008, so outdated according to me because of the fast progress in silverlight.

i have a wpf application that uses a 2003 access database (orders :)) and my client wants a silverlight version as well.

Any ideas on time and effort? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Thanks to all responses. I had a project needed to be done in wpf. I've spent about 3 weeks working on it, and it was finished. Every week, i needed to show my progress. When at consult 3 days for deadline and presentation, i said i was about done except for the small bug fixes. My teacher at college gave me the chance to earn some extra points. So he asked me if i could convert my wpf-application to silverlight. I had 2 days to do this.

When i showed my wpf project durign presentation, he was satisfied with the result. Then he asked me about the silverlight. I came with some arguments you guys posted, and he totally agreed. The little bugger knew it wasn't really going to happen (at least not in 2 days).

So thanks for posting and not let me work my ass of for those 2 days.

Answer 2

You will be able to use Silverlight RIA services and can connect to Access DB, It will be relatively easy port unless you used plenty of non portable WPF features.

Answer 3

Unless you're not using any significant WPF visual features, I don't think you can avoid significant effort. Even just Triggers and Actions are significantly less featured. Even under Silverlight 4 there are still huge differences in what the XAML can support, and you'd still be looking at a server side data source (probably over WCF) so you'd have to build out the set of services and such.

Using something like WCF Data Services may make the back end transition easier, but even just the differences in control set are going to create a lot of work on the UI.

While it is possible to limit yourself to a subset and get some functionality (mostly if you use one of the cross platform toolkits for your controls), retrofitting it onto a complete application is likely as difficult as redeveloping it in Silverlight.