[Mono-dev] Silverlight/Moonlight questions

[Jeffrey Stedfast]

On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 17:12 +0200, "Andrés G. Aragoneses [ knocte ]"
wrote:
> Miguel de Icaza escribió:
> >> Is MS Silverlight also a native library like Moonlight? Doesn't it have 
> >> a managed API to be consumed by managed programs in order to use it 
> >> outside of a browser?
> > 
> > It is a COM component, and Microsoft has stated that they do not plan on
> > supporting that API and reserve the right to break it as needed.
> 
> Ok! All is clear now. I confess that I couldn't have thought of using 
> COM nowadays...
> 
> Then, if one wants to make a cross-platform gadget, the only way is 
> depending on the browser component, right?

correct

>  Or creating a compatibility 
> layer library which would call to COM in Windows and deal with Moonlight 
> API library in Linux.. But that seems too complex for me. Would it be 
> feasible to create it?

I'm personally not sure about this...

> 
> But now I am thinking of another solution: Silverlight is a subset of 
> WPF right?

yes and no. The API is a stripped down and slightly modified version of
WPF, it's not actually compatible w/ WPF.

>  Then, in order to make moonlight work, this small subset of 
> libraries must be already developed on olive, right?

They are in Olive, but not as part of the WPF implementation.

>  Then, I suppose 
> that if one creates a .NET application that uses WPF3.0 libraries 
> without accessing non-Silverlight parts, this application should be 
> crossplatform I guess?

I don't think so, no.


Jeff