Post
Ask Question

Difference Between WPF and Silverlight and Advantages of WPF

Background

many times in interview one question commanly used that is Difference Between WPF and Silverlight and Advantages of WPF, so by considering above requirement i have decided to write this blog to help freshers and job seekers also who might be wants to know about it.

So let us see

Difference Between  WPF And SilverLight:
  1. WPF is based off of the desktop CLR which is the full version of the CLR.
  2. Silverlight is based on a much smaller and more compact CLR which provides a great experience but does not have the full breadth
    of CLR features. It also has a much smaller version of the BCL
  3. WPF you can create Windows App, Navigation app and XBAP (IE based) applicationWith Silverlight you can create only XAP (Browser based application.).
  4. WPF supports 3 types of routed events (direct, bubbling, and tunneling). Silverlight supports direct and bubbling only.
  5. Silveright does not support MultiBinding.
  6. Silverlight supports the XmlDataProvider but not the ObjectDataProvider. WPF supports both.

Advantage of WPF:

  • Broad Integration: Prior to WPF, it was very difficult to use 3D, Video, Speech, and rich document viewing in addition to normal 2D Graphics and controls would have to learn several independent technologies. WPF covers all these with consisting programming model as well as tight integration when each type of media gets composited and rendered.

  • Resolution Independence: WPF applications are device independent i.e., smart client applications. Like normal applications it dont get decrease the size as the resolution gets increase. This is possible because WPF emphasis on vector graphics.
  • Hardware Acceleration: WPF is built on top of Direct 3D, content in a WPF application whether 2D or 3D, Graphics or text is converted to 3D triangles, textures and other Direct 3D objects and then rendered by hardware. WPF applications can get the benefit of hardware acceleration for smoother graphics and all round better performance.

  • Declerative Programming: WPF takes the declarative programming to the next level with the introduction of Extensible Application Markup Language(XAML)
  • XAML is like HTML in web used for creating the interface, resulting graphical designers are empowered to contribute directly to the look and feel of applications.