Can I run my .NET app offilne using the Silverlight UI?

Question

I'm working on an interface for an app that I run locally (this needs to be able to run offline), and I want to use Silverlight's UI. I use certain references (specifically, Microsoft.Win32) in my .NET app which are not supported by the Silverlight framework, however. I want to not only use these assemblies, but somehow put a Silverlight-compatable presentation layer on top of it.

It seems like an unreasonable request, but I've been reading recently about Silverlight 4 and access portability and it seems like something like this should be possible. Am I wrong, here? If not, how would I go about implementing this?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Yes, with silverlight 4 this is possible and quite straight forward. See http://justinangel.net/CuttingEdgeSilverlight4ComFeatures#BlogPost=CuttingEdgeSilverlight4ComFeatures

an excellent blog. See feature #14, this addresses your question

Answer 2

Although technically possible to do your own Silverlight hosting through COM/ActiveX APIs, or hosting a web browser controls, it's pretty involved as you would be recreating a lot of the application framework experience.

You'll find more information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc296246(VS.95).aspx

I would recommend not attempting this and trying to use WPF instead, since it will be quite similar for presentation and graphics.

Answer 3

Even if you ran your Silverlight 4 application out of browser or installed as full trust application, you still couldn't use classes and assemblies not supported by Silverlight as it's a completely different runtime environment.