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Home Forums General Silverlight Getting Started Silverlight vs. Flash – An Analysis Report
81 replies. Latest Post by chaitanyavrk on September 9, 2009.
(6)
nirajswami
Member
34 points
16 Posts
07-25-2007 9:25 AM |
Silverlight
Request you to post your comments on above document.
Thanks and RegardsNiraj Swaminarayan
BenHayat
Participant
1033 points
600 Posts
07-25-2007 9:52 AM |
I think your points are valuable to keep things in prespective, however it's kind of comparing orange and apple due to age difference. I'm sure many of the negative issues of SL, won't last very long (or as long as it did, when flash came out). But it's a good thing for SL to catch up to industry std.
I hope a representative from MS will give some inputs on the missing parts.
Thank you for this compilation!
Bill Reiss
Contributor
4824 points
916 Posts
07-25-2007 9:53 AM |
Where do you get your statistics for the performance being nearly the same between Silverlight and Flash? I would assume that Silverlight 1.1 running managed code would beat Flash, but maybe I'm wrong.
mchlsync
Star
14606 points
2,730 Posts
07-29-2007 11:27 PM |
Nice post.. Thanks a lot for great report.
Silverlight doesn't even have support for things that should be considered a stock part of any library such as buttons, checkboxes, list boxes, list views, grids, etc. Probably in future release may Microsoft support it.
Oh. I think XAML has those tags (textbox, buttons, checkboxex or etc),isn't it?
snort
11 points
8 Posts
08-06-2007 1:53 PM |
FYI, Microsoft has confirmed that socket support and a rich control set will be added in a future release (likely 1.1)
Also, perhaps the most significant features of Silverlight are its databinding and UI component composition models. To be fair, you should at least mention those, given Flash's relative weakness in those areas.
Thanks.
VladF
216 points
87 Posts
08-06-2007 4:05 PM |
Can you please provide a source of this information?
j_progra...
24 points
08-07-2007 4:59 PM |
I'm glad I waited and did not use Flash to develop. I tried many times to justify integrating it with my MS stuff, but just never could quite get everything together. I've been waiting for years for Microsoft to come up with something like this that would fit in with their existing technology. I can't wait for it to mature.
jeep1024
30 points
17 Posts
08-16-2007 6:53 PM |
It's amazing how many of these comparison lists are put together by people who simply don't understand either technology. Most of the above points are regurgitated info taken out of context from other sites that miss the extra (and critical) details and exceptions. Additionally, (at least in terms of some of the Flash points), it appears that the author simply ignored the current feature-set of Flash9.
I'm not a zealot on either technology, as both have their benefits and weaknesses. I have admiration and distaste for both technologies on their stronger and weaker points. But making blanket statements like "Flash does not support Scalable full screen video" or "Right now not any support to play Silverlight object as Windows application." are ridiculously misleading and simply untrue.
In the future, if anyone plans on making another one of these feature comparison lists, how about a little research on every point to ensure that information is current, correct, and relevant. Working production knowledge is extremely important as well :)
08-16-2007 6:58 PM |
Bill Reiss: Where do you get your statistics for the performance being nearly the same between Silverlight and Flash? I would assume that Silverlight 1.1 running managed code would beat Flash, but maybe I'm wrong.
I think this is in reference to the performance metrics of Flash9/AS3. It's a night/day comparison of perf when matching Flash6/7/8 with AS1/AS2 to Flash9 with AS3. However, I haven't seen any true perf metrics done on identical apps optimized under both platforms (Flash9/AS3 vs SL 1.1/C#). It would be a good experiment :)
suyog kale
188 points
99 Posts
08-17-2007 12:26 AM |
my friend you will find on same site you are....means
http://silverlight.net/forums/t/3015.aspx
hit up
08-17-2007 12:35 AM |
yes today Silverlight has lots of drawbacks, but its only start
you find after SL1.0 RC , now SL1.1 Alpha has managed code ability means actual power of .net framework and that really make good snese
and as developer i am surly says that compare to Flash SL is defiantly same what i want.. it make me easy and fast development
and in small days Silverlight sure beat flash
so dont worry and start your work,dude we have microsoft support
FTeR
4 points
3 Posts
08-28-2007 8:27 AM |
"To deploy Silverlight to client browser more than one components ship. (1) XAML files (2) .dll if using C# (3) Silverlight.js (4) Custom JavaScript file. Images/videos/sounds also required deploy separately."
I think this is more like an advantage than a disadvantage compared to flash's binaries. It's works like HTML. You can easily modify and/or generate dynamic content on serverside, using php or other.
"Silverlight is missing Linux support"
The Mono team already working on it :) (u know, it's open...)
"Flash has rich set of control library."
http://www.netikatech.com/http://www.telerik.com/products/silverlight/overview.aspx#1456give it some time ;)
"While Silverlight is using XAML as description language in a non-compressed format size of Silverlight component is large.""Silverlight provides the ability to download content as a package, which is a collection of independent files containing XAML content, media assets, and other application data. The Zip file format is supported as a download package. [...] Once the package is successfully downloaded, you can use methods, such as GetResponseText, SetSource (Image), SetSource (MediaElement), and CreateFromXamlDownloader, to selectively retrieve a specific named part of the package. "http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232904.aspx
"The performance of Silverlight"
The CLR version seems to be very fast. Like 5 times faster (script running...).
naveenku...
52 points
28 Posts
10-22-2007 3:32 AM |
hello friends,
is it possible to have socket programming in silverlight ....
if not.. then is there any other way to communicate to server without using IIS...
thanx & Regards
Naveen Kushwaha
10-22-2007 8:48 AM |
I've read that socket support will be in a future release, not sure whether it will be in for 1.1 or sometime later.
10-22-2007 9:04 AM |
yeah Bill, thanks for replying..
that i've already read....
is there any other way to communicate to the server without using IIS
thanx
Software Engineer
Gameking India Pvt.Ltd.
Kastella...
2 points
1 Posts
11-07-2007 5:38 AM |
naveenkushwaha: is there any other way to communicate to the server without using IISthanx Naveen Kushwaha
Since the programing language of SL 1.0 is the browser's javascript, you can allways use XMLHTTPRequest or any other means the browser support.
SL 1.1 promise Web services support , which means object serialisation, fast and easy development in the server-size using the VS wizards, etc.
If you want Web services support right now, you can use a swf in the page to do it for you,or you can embed a C# control (in IE only) to do the same. Beware that C# controls have some silly security limitations, like no threads are allowed which leads to no async downoads/comunication, etc.
11-13-2007 1:03 AM |
i used webservice with silverlight
and it is working well
now the problem is that i linked my silverlight project to my asp.net website in which i have a login page(i.e. login.aspx)
now i have to maintain session(login info.) on the game page(page.xaml.cs)
but i am unable to access the session info. on the game page...
can u please help me how to maintain session in silverlight page..
thanks & regards
naveen kushwaha
Psychlis...
6040 points
973 Posts
11-13-2007 11:26 AM |
I'll be curious to see this updated once Silverlight 1.1 is released, or even track it against the next alpha/beta.
Pete
Cass
3157 points
654 Posts
11-13-2007 12:24 PM |
I dont know how many WPF features will be available in Silverlight 1.1b but I am kinda guessing data-binding will be (as they promised LINQ support in future releases).
What I dont understand is he went on to compare Flash 9 with alpha release of Silverlight, and another point he forgot to mention is Flash Professional CS3 costs around $600 where as if you care you can start building Silverlight in Notepad.
When I first heard about Silverlight I was excited, and I was a bit taken back by the features not available in 1.1a, and I thought Silverlight 1.1a is more CPT than alpha and they should have waited but I guess Mix'07 pushed them to release it as alpha. Silverlight by itself is a great concept and brilliantly done by MS. I am optimistic and I hope Silverlight 3.0 would have more features than what we have in WPF and that change internet for life and for good.
ccatto
10 points
5 Posts
12-13-2007 9:33 AM |
Hey Now Nira,
This was a very informative post.
Thx,
Catto
Waar
166 points
93 Posts
02-22-2008 5:12 AM |
Cass:and another point he forgot to mention is Flash Professional CS3 costs around $600 where as if you care you can start building Silverlight in Notepad.
There is a lot of free Flash editors, what about OpenLaszlo.org ? And Visual Studio also costs about 600 $, doesn't it ?
02-22-2008 6:04 AM |
Waar: Visual Studio also costs about 600 $, doesn't it ?
Yes. Blend also costs us.. :(
giuliani...
03-23-2008 10:22 PM |
Hi!
Where do you found this comparsion? I want to know the references about this comparsion
thanks!
03-24-2008 4:18 AM |
Just updating for Silverlight 2 beta1.
Silverlight is missing Linux support, so people using Linux machine cannot run it on their machines and will have to stick to Windows and MAC OS.
Edit: Now, we got moonlight for Linux user
Silverlight has no support for binding to models, binding to data, or even connecting to network resources to obtain data.
Edit: Now, we are able to read the data from web services (including RESTful service), XML from URL. Silverlight 2 supports Socket communication too.
Edit: The standard controls are included in Silverlight 2 beta1.
Once the accessibility features are provided with Silverlight versions, any existing test tools that support driving UI through Accessibility will be fully enabled to automate Silverlight applications
Edit: I'm not sure about this but I don't think that we can't automate the UI. I think Windows Hooking will do.
Socket programming is not possible.
Edit: Silverlight 2 supports Socket communication too.
Flash supports it.
Edit: I wonder how Flash access the microphone and webcam of user's machine.
To deploy Silverlight to client browser more than one components ship. (1) XAML files (2) .dll if using C# (3) Silverlight.js (4) Custom JavaScript file. Images/videos/sounds also required deploy separately.
Edit: We got .xap now. but there are a number of people who like to get XAML with managed code. (SL 1.1 Alpha style)
Right now not any support to play Silverlight object as Windows application.
Edit: XPF or XBAP is already there for that.
Silverlight lets you embed true type font information directly into your projects, and download that information with the downloader webclient object.
Edit: downloader is no longer available but we have webclient.
Rich set of development languages are available for Silverlight. Developer can use JavaScript as well as managed code VB.Net, C# for Silverlight development.
Edit: The dynamic languages (IronPython, IronRuby, and Managed JScript) are supported too.
Silverlight has XAML based presentation layer for SEO.
Edit: Now, we lost it. AFAIK, We have to use *.xap if we want to use managed code. .xap is just a zip but not plain text anyway.
03-24-2008 8:46 AM |
mchlSync:Silverlight 1.0 does not support GIF-file format. Even it doesn’t support BMP and other file format. It supports only JPG and PNG file format.
You missed one Michael,
According to Silverlight 2 Developer Reference , GIF is supported
03-24-2008 9:49 AM |
Hey Imran,
thanks, man.. Yes. I missed it.. GIF support is cool..
btw, you have the experiences in Flash, right? The original poster of this chart said that Flash supports microphone and webcam. but I can't find any reference for that. I was wondering how come Flash is able to access the client's microphone and webcam. (of course, if it's a trusted site then it's possible but might not work in normal zone.) Can you share some idea about that?
Benoteno
16 points
6 Posts
03-31-2008 7:40 AM |
Yeah you're right... Silverliglht does have some bad limitations, some later fixed in Silverlight 2. However, these may be fixed in Silverlight 3, 4, and maybe even 5. While Silverlight is still awful new we need no ranting against it. I wasn't an "internet man" (XD) when Adobe Flash started, but I bet it had alot of limitations. So lets compare, once Silverlight gets to Silverlight 7 or so, it will probably be as bug-free as Flash.
Here are my recommendations for future Silverlight updates:
Support for extensions: AVI, M4A, MP4
03-31-2008 8:51 AM |
Good points. Silverlight may have some feature limitations at this point, but Flash has some deeper technology issues that may be harder to fix in the long run. Until Flash offers an alternative to writing the code in ActionScript, I'll stick with my Silverlight development.
Want to help shape what features come in Silverlight 3 and beyond? Post some comments to this blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2008/03/31/silverlight-3-0-wish-lists-again.aspx
or drop him a note.
03-31-2008 9:13 AM |
thanks for the link, bill. I dropped a comment in his post.
1) More controls2) More Media Supports (SL should support all extensions what Flash supports)3) Loosely XAML with Managed Code. (.xap is good but we need other ways too. like we got with 1.1 Alpha)4) Webcam and Microphone supports.5) Allows to bind datagrid with anonymous type 6) Cool XAML designer is needed. (not just readonly) and also propertypad. 7) Don't crash the browser no matter what. ( I found two issues that crashes the browsers during short period of times. Yes. I'm talking about SL2 beta1 )
Krasshirsch
1032 points
300 Posts
04-21-2008 6:35 PM |
The performance of Silverlight and Flash will be nearly the same
Sure ?
I just found a website comparing CLR managed code to flash which shows the same animation displayed in Flash and in managed Silverlight.
The difference in framerates was astonishing, while flash did good with 64 fps, the managed Silverlight animation held steady at 600 fps on my machine.
Im not sure, but this hardly counts as equal performance.Check it yourself: http://bubblemark.com/
regards,
Alexander
04-21-2008 6:44 PM |
To be completely fair, if the test is computationally intensive, such as calculating collisions, Silverlight 2 will win hands down. This is the case with the bubblemark test. When it comes, however, to drawing a bunch of moving items where the calculations are trivial, Silverlight 2 Beta 1 still has some issues, hopefully the performance will be improved by the time Silverlight 2 is released.
04-22-2008 5:31 PM |
mchlSync: 1) More controls
1) More controls
Agreed, and you can also count on third parties for this.
2) More Media Supports (SL should support all extensions what Flash supports)
Within reason, I agree. Like I'd like to see .wav support for event sounds. Supporting .FLV seems unlikely, though, as that is a fairly well protected format.
3) Loosely XAML with Managed Code. (.xap is good but we need other ways too. like we got with 1.1 Alpha)
I have a hard time seeing any compelling reason for this. Do you have one? I actually really like the packaged model.
4) Webcam and Microphone supports.
Definitely would like to see that.
5) Allows to bind datagrid with anonymous type
I don't think this is worth the security infrastructure change required to allow binding against private types
6) Cool XAML designer is needed. (not just readonly) and also propertypad.
Blend?
7) Don't crash the browser no matter what. ( I found two issues that crashes the browsers during short period of times. Yes. I'm talking about SL2 beta1 )
A given. Also, folks have to make sure they handle all the exceptions in the app. Most of the crashes I've seen are due to exceptions bubbling all the way up and running into some bug that tears down the browser.
04-25-2008 12:13 AM |
Cass:According to Silverlight 2 Developer Reference , GIF is supported
Based on this link "Silverlight Roadmap Question", GIF is not supported
Psychlist1972:Supporting .FLV seems unlikely, though, as that is a fairly well protected format.
Yes. It's okay. but Expression Encoder should be able to convert .FLV to the supported formats. It would be great if we can do from code. We will be able to provide web service that can convert *.flv to the supported formats online or offline. :)
Psychlist1972:I have a hard time seeing any compelling reason for this. Do you have one? I actually really like the packaged model.
I don't like that much because ~
May I ask why you really like that packaged model? As it's zip-formatted, it may reduce the size. but is there any other advantages?
Psychlist1972:Blend?
Should we really use Blend + VS 2008 for Silverlight project? I don't mind if those tools are cheap but now, those are expensive. Is there any option that I can disable the "view-only" designer in VS 2008?
04-25-2008 11:11 AM |
GIF is not supported, correct.
Might be able to convert FLV. I think Silverlight streaming does this server side. Distributing code that does that may upset adobe, but I'm just guessing there.
On Xap:
VS2008 will catch up design-wise with Blend in some respects, but will likely never have quite the same experience (especially around animation). Look to WPF as an example. FWIW, if you have a MSDN license with Visual Studio, you can get blend (in most flavors), so it will be "free" to the majority of corporate developers. I know that leaves a group of people out. TBD what happens there.
IMHO, AJAX (or more correctly, the dynamic html+javascript UI that often gets incorrectly lumped into the acronym AJAX) is popular because it builds directly on current web skills (javascript, html, css), doesn't require a client-side plugin (even though the javascript can sometimes be an even larger download) is generally cross-platform, solved an immediate problem (async data) and for the most part, didn't provide the enormous flexibility that Flash or Silverlight do today. Developers could wrap their heads around it, and build apps without having to have a designer background :)
Flix
22 points
19 Posts
04-26-2008 5:07 AM |
Hi,
in fact I am working on something quite similar right now, I am comparing Flex an Silverlight. But my goal is to create two prototypes which both access the same Object Database. (Yeah it sounds like Black Magic to me, too) Unfortunately my work will be available only in german, but if I find the time (and there is anybody out there who wants to know) I will try to translate a few parts.
lisalk
05-15-2008 7:00 PM |
Some corrections to the Flash side of the comparison:
Flash ships in single component that is .swf. Images/video/sounds also incorporated in single .swf package.
This is not entirely true; Flash does deploy as a SWF, but most video and audio would be loaded as external files. This can also be done for images, if a dynamic application.
The animation model is frame based.
This is also not entirely true. Timeline animation (manually done in the Flash authoring environment) is frame based. With ActionScript-controlled animation, however, you can have either frame or time-based animation.
The debugging with flash is harder than Silverlight.
Support for this comparison?
There is not any such service provided by Flash to host the content and application with them. Because of the absence of any such service, building a video site based on Flash is not as cost effective as building a video content site using Silverlight. Moreover, because of the Silverlight Streaming service, the existing Video Content sites might be moving to Silverlight site.
This is not true; Adobe has a Flash Video Streaming Service program which can handle all of the hosting for you. http://www.adobe.com/go/fvss/ Progressively-delivered video needs no special hosting or servers, but standard CDNs can easily be utilized for scalable video delivery when needed.
Flash requires video codec to run .WMV videos.
Flash does not support WMV at all. It only supports FLV (Sorenson Spark or On2 VP6 codecs) and MPEG4 (H.264 codec).
Flash does not support scalable video formats from HD to mobile.
This is not true; Flash supports HD-quality video through mobile formats, and you can deliver the correct version to the correct screen.
Flash does not provide End-to-end server and application platform.
Unless I'm missing what you mean here... Adobe does have a robust end-to-end server and application platform (from editing in Premiere/AfterEffects through streaming delivery via Flash Media Server) there is a well-established workflow. There are also other tools, for live video encoding (Flash Media Encoder, free), etc.
Flash does not support Scalable full screen video.
Flash can support scalable full-screen video; streams of differing quality can be swapped seamlessly.
These are the most glaring of the corrections. I do admit that I don't know enough about silverlight yet to comment further with authority, so I'll save any further comments until I'm more familiar with where it is now.
05-15-2008 8:36 PM |
Hi Lisa
Keep in mind that you're replying to an analysis that is almost a year old. Much of that information was true at the time (for example, Flash did not have h.264 support at the time, as I recall), but it needs an update. The Silverlight information does not reflect the current version, and the Flash side almost certainly doesn't reflect additions to v9, forget the v10 beta just announced.
So, there probably isn't much of a point in doing a line-by-line eval on the original post, but your additions to it are certainly welcome.
05-15-2008 9:48 PM |
Thanks a lot for correcting. I did updates the comparison for Silverlight 2 on 03-24-2008 4:18 AM. but I don't have that much idea about Flash. I appreciate your correction.. I hope we will get more details and up-to-date comparisons in future.
abteenz
13 points
05-16-2008 3:33 PM |
thanks for the info but i think silverlight is far away from flash.
but i prefer it cuz it is new and maybe i would be able to master it.
sudheendra
0 points
06-12-2008 10:28 AM |
Great analysis Mr.Nirajswamy.
StargateFan
17 points
43 Posts
06-12-2008 2:47 PM |
Silverlight is great if you wnat to downlaod 3rd party controls for everything inlcuding rendeing text to the screen or simply allowing your text to scroll. Try formatting your TextBlock at runtime making just one word in the string bold.
myTextBlockControl.Text = "This word should be <b>bold</b>.";
Then try to get your textBlock to scroll once it fills its available area. It is hard to even compaire Silverlight to Flash when Silverlight is such an incomplete product. Oh is it at version 2 already? Hu...
Sorry I am just bitter becuase I am having to rewrite my app in Flash after comaing accorss a few basic things Sivlerlight is missing.
06-12-2008 3:00 PM |
Have you checked into Runs in the textblock? Also, there is an open source rich textbox control.
To make your textblock scroll, you need to put it into a scrolling panel. That makes sense, as more often than not, you wouldn't want a textblock to scroll, and carrying that extra baggage isn't really worth the hit.
Agreed that Silverlight is incomplete. It is in Beta 2 right now.
What was missing in Silverlight that required you to rewrite in Flash? There's probably a reasonable workaround or a totally different approach. You'll find that some things that are "missing" in Silverlight are simply because the approach is different. It's like saying a radio is missing a picture tube.
06-12-2008 3:01 PM |
Let us know how your flash rewrite goes. Seriously, please update us on that, I'm interested to see if you end up being happy you made the switch.
The things you mention as deal breakers really depend on what you're trying to do and I'm sorry to hear in your case it was enough for you to want to scrap the technology. Personally neither of those is going to kill me, and if it's a serious enough limitation, the community is going to come up with a solution if possible until it gets into the product.
Just thinking about your TextBlock making one word bold issue above, it seems like I could inherit from TextBlock and make it do that pretty easily, maybe I'll give that a shot and create a sample for it.
You make it sound like using a third party control is horrible, personally I love this about Silverlight, there are going to be a ton of free third party controls available, and it's because the Silverlight team focused on making it possible for the community and vendors to fill gaps.
kevindmccoy
06-12-2008 3:37 PM |
Sorry for the late reply, I'm a slow reader :-)
W/R/T:
I used Flash 8 to connect to multiple Web Services back in 2006, and it can also open raw sockets. In Flash this required some handwritten proxy code, but it did it. Flex has built-in support for Web Services, HTTPService and can also use Sockets. I'm back in a deep dive on Silverlight (which seems to have web service support in Beta 2 - http://blogs.msdn.com/silverlightws/) , and am glad to be back in C# for a while - I hope this matrix is updated for current features, I'd hate for anyone to be misled by out of date info in either column.
06-12-2008 3:51 PM |
Psychlist1972:Have you checked into Runs in the textblock? Also, there is an open source rich textbox control. To make your textblock scroll, you need to put it into a scrolling panel. That makes sense, as more often than not, you wouldn't want a textblock to scroll, and carrying that extra baggage isn't really worth the hit.
Thanks for the info. Yes, I have looked into Runs. That is done in the XAML itself, I need to do this at runtime by setting the Text property.
Yes I tried to add my TextBlock to a ScrollViewer contorl, and it still did not scroll. This is the code it generated in the XAML. Perhaps you can see something I am doing wrong. I didn't recieve any comments in the help forum so I assume no one in there saw anything either.
<ScrollViewer HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="125,48,16,72" VerticalAlignment="Stretch"> <TextBlock Text="Simon: Hello!" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="12" x:Name="TextblockChat" Height="104" Width="232"/> </ScrollViewer>
The things you mention as deal breakers really depend on what you're trying to do and I'm sorry to hear in your case it was enough for you to want to scrap the technology.
Bill, for Silverlight to not ship with a contol that lets you format text at runtime I think is a big deal. Instead of draggin and dropping a control on your canvis which takes about 10 seconds you have to write your own control which would take half an hour or more depending on how familiar you are with wriing your own controls. I want to easily set up my GUI and spend my coding time writing my app engine. We are not talking about a niche control that 1% of the devloerps are going to be using. We are talking about rendeing text to the screen.
06-12-2008 3:52 PM |
You can use runs at runtime...
textBlock.Inlines.Clear();
r.Text =
r2.Text =
textBlock.Inlines.Add(r);
textBlock.Inlines.Add(r2);
textBlock.Inlines.Add(r3);
06-12-2008 4:00 PM |
StargateFan: I tried to add my TextBlock to a ScrollViewer contorl, and it still did not scroll. This is the code it generated in the XAML. Perhaps you can see something I am doing wrong. I didn't recieve any comments in the help forum so I assume no one in there saw anything either. <ScrollViewer HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="125,48,16,72" VerticalAlignment="Stretch"> <TextBlock Text="Simon: Hello!" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="12" x:Name="TextblockChat" Height="104" Width="232"/> </ScrollViewer>
I tried to add my TextBlock to a ScrollViewer contorl, and it still did not scroll. This is the code it generated in the XAML. Perhaps you can see something I am doing wrong. I didn't recieve any comments in the help forum so I assume no one in there saw anything either.
When I take your sample an add a height to the ScrollViewer (Let's say 50, so that it's smaller than the TextBlock inside it) it scrolls, am I missing something?
06-12-2008 4:25 PM |
Thanks for the code sample on using Run at runtime. I will give it a try. Perhaps I spoke too soon about its features. I did find a nice HttpTextBlock control which would be ideal. Maybe one day that will be part of the original package.
As for the scrolling, are you suggesting for each line of wrapped text add additional height to the textBlock inside the ScrollViewer manually? I was hoping it would just grow as the textBlock grows and I would not have to track the height of the controls dynamically as more input is added or taken away.
Thanks for the input.
06-12-2008 5:11 PM |
I'm really not clear on what you're trying to accomplish with the scrolling text block, can you explain it more or provide a link to the original thread?
06-12-2008 5:35 PM |
It is pretty simple really. I have a TextBlock that will show the history of text submitted by the user. Every time new text is submitted by the user, the history in the TextBlock will grow. I will have no way to know how much data will be entered into the TextBlock because that will be different per user per session. If more text is entered than the allowed room for the TextBlock I want the TextBlock to scroll vertically just like an HTML <Textarea> would if its vertical scroll was set to auto.
06-12-2008 5:46 PM |
Sorry, still not following, I must be dense. Anyway it's off topic for this thread, why don't you post more details about how you want it to behave in the original thread and hopefully someone will be able to help. I think whatever you're trying to do is probably possible but I'm just not getting a feel for it.
If the text has each new entry separated on a new line like a chat app, you can use a restyled listbox with textblocks (with wrapping set to true) for each item.
Other options include stackpanels and itemscontrols.
The other thing you can use is a textbox (not textblock). that has built-in support for scrollbars, but not automatic scrolling as far as I know.
mikecham...
08-19-2008 11:43 PM |
@nirajswami
Thank you for the work in putting this together. I have a number of corrections and clarifications regarding some of the point of the Flash Player and Flash Content:
---------- Flash stores its shapes using binary shape records. In order to write shape definitions, you will need to either license a 3rd party Flash file format SDK, or build your own. It isn’t too difficult, but it does require a bit of a learning curve.----------The SWF 9 format spec is open, and does not require a license to view or use:http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/Also, you can create shapes a number of ways.1. Use a tool such as Flash CS3, Illustrator, etc...2. Use the ActionScript Drawing API3. Use one of the various ActionScript 3 community libraries (for example to do 3d, or render SVG)Most people do either 1 or 2. Few people need to leverage the SWF format to draw shapes.----------The debugging with flash is harder than Silverlight.----------I wouldn't say Flash debugging is harder, although I think you could definitely argue that Visual Studio has one of the best debuggers around. You can debug Flash based content using Flash CS3 or Flex Builder. The Flex Builder support is better than Flash CS3.I dont think either is hard. You set a break point, and debug.---------- Silverlight lets you embed true type font information directly into your projects, and download that information with the downloader object. Dealing with fonts is fairly complex with flash.----------In Flash content, you have choice of using device fonts, or embedding the fonts. I wouldnt consider embedding hard, as you either click a check box in Flash CS3, or you add a line of meta data to your Flex app.In both cases when embedding, you can specify which glyphs are actually embedded.Flash Player 10 has a completely new text rendering engine, which offers much more advanced support for fonts.You can find more on the new engine in this link (about halfway down):http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/jchurch_flashplayer10.html---------- XAML is declarative while ActionScript is imperative. Using imperative languages to build UIs goes back to the early days of DOS and Windows, when developers had to manage all of the API nuances when interacting with graphical panes. ActionScript is an imperative language, which brings itself the pitfalls of imperative languages when compared with declarative languages.----------It seems add to compare XAML to ActionScript. A more appropriate comparison would be:ActionScript to C#andXAML to Flex / MXMLAs far as language and markup, Silverlight and Flash app development are similar (although XAML is a little lower level than MXML / Flex right now).---------- Flash is not spread as across the vast majority of both desktops and mobiles platforms, as compared to Silverlight. Flash requires Flash Lite preinstalled on mobile devices.----------Flash 9 is installed on about 98% of computer worldwide.http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.htmlFlash Mobile is installed on 100's of millions of mobile devices, and has been available for years. This includes Windows mobile:http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/wm.htmlI don't believe Silverlight is shipping to end users on any mobile devices yet.---------- Silverlight supports scalable video formats from HD to mobile. Flash does not support scalable video formats from HD to mobile----------Again, im not sure what you mean by "scalable" video, but you can view Flash video pretty much anywhere there is a Flash Player, from mobile to HD.----------Silverlight supports Hardware-assisted editing and encoding solutions. Flash does not support Hardware-assisted editing and encoding solutions.----------There are quite a few solutions for realtime hardware assisted editing and encoding of Flash video (both FLV and H264 content),----------Silverlight has XAML based presentation layer for SEO. Flash does not have XAML based presentation layer for SEO. ----------Well, this is technically true, Flash does not have XAML. However, Google and a number of other seaarch engines both search and index Flash content.While theoretically XAML content would be easier for the search engines to search, I am not aware of any that actually do.----------Silverlight supports Scalable full screen video. Flash does not support Scalable full screen video.----------Again, Flash support full screen hardware accelerated video, and has for some time.----------Rich set of development languages are available for Silverlight. Developer can use JavaScript as well as managed code VB.Net, C# for Silverlight development----------This is more of an fyi, but Adobe has publicly shown c - abc (ActionScript byte code) running in the player. The demo they showed was the Quake 2 source compiled to abc and running in the player.Again, just an fyi.Thanks for taking the time to put this together.mike chambersmesh@adobe.comhttp://www.mikechambers.com
MisterFa...
37 points
21 Posts
11-11-2008 2:43 AM |
Hi ,
Its really a nice post. Silverlight even now supports Databinding eith controls.
Thanks
BlueAqua...
57 points
37 Posts
11-22-2008 9:08 AM |
Hello Niraj,
thanks for your comparison of Flash and Silverlight. I am at a decision point whether to use Silverlight or Flash. I am very familiar with Silverlight, but not at all with Flash. Would you be able to help me to understand whether Flash supports the following features:
(1) My application must dynamically load additional Assemblies (DLLs) from the server at runtime. I am planning to use the class WebClient to download the assembly and Assembly and AssemblyPart to do that. Question: Does Flash provide a similar mechanism?
I appreciate your help.
Andreas
aldie_lab
7 points
7 Posts
11-25-2008 2:32 PM |
@BlueAquarius
Just wanted to point out that the comparison here is a year-and-a-half old, and compares two outdated versions of the products, so I wouldn't go basing any development decisions on the content of this thread.
On the other hand, if anyone does have a comparison of Silverlight 2.0 and the latest version of Flash (& Flex), I would be interested.
shinedraw
42 points
9 Posts
12-23-2008 9:29 AM |
Is there any new comparison for Silverlight 2 and Flash 10?
aways987
12-23-2008 5:56 PM |
Hello, haven't you heard of Visual Studio Express? It's like Visual Studio with all the com and .net components same languages and it's free, from Microsoft! >> Search it man! Also developing for Flash is a rip off but Fireworks is great. It used to be so easy to get it for free, download the trial and search for the crack code, done!
www.toptech.org.uk
bluefire...
12-26-2008 3:33 PM |
Re: "It's amazing how many of these comparison lists are put together by people who simply don't understand either technology."
Yes, unfortunately this is too true!
I have been a multimedia developer for the last 18 years and am platform and technology agnostic; I use either the best tool for the job OR the tool that the customer insists on paying for. Having completed hundreds of corporate Flash and .Net projects I can honestly say that they are both good platforms; to say otherwise is akin to saying, "I use Johnson outboards, so you can't move your boat to the other side of the lake with an Evenrude".
I therefore feel safe is saying that the above comparison is RIFE with misinformation. Sorry, but I could easily refute *almost all* of your Flash points (and would be happy to do so at any Seattle-area pub). So a word of warning to the reader, beware: there is a lot on the line in the RIA world for the software companies involved (hi Redmond, San Jose and Santa Clara) and I have YET to see a reasonable and informed comparison of Silverlight and Flash -the above is no exception.
The points above regarding Flash video, data binding, decalrative xml markup, debugging (in Eclipse), fonts, animation model, codecs, virtual machine, hardware acceleration, etc, etc. etc. are all wrong. Untrue. Gobbeldegook. BS. Clearly the author has never looked at Flex or the classes in the mx. namespace Your table looks so nice though...
greenboi
239 points
81 Posts
12-28-2008 11:35 AM |
i find it funny that the first table is totaly pro flash, while the second one is pro silverlight. this is not at all a comparison of features - it is complete rubbish (which might have something to do that the post is from 2007).
Almost all the "silverlight limitations" have been removed since then.
slbr
01-08-2009 12:31 PM |
SL and Flash are two great technology, a more integrated windows to the world and development tools from Microsoft and another for the world Linux and Java.
sree_prem
2 Posts
05-05-2009 2:33 AM |
Can we conclude the differences between silverlight3 and flash10?
castor
5 points
12 Posts
05-05-2009 7:20 AM |
From a designer's perspective, let me add this:
If you are a designer all I can recommend is: avoid Blend.
Blend has been developed for programmers by programmers. So if you don't have a total numbers and maths brain you'll find it hard. Simple as that.
Blend totally lacks everything a designer would expect from usual design software. Blend is real clunky and counter intuitive. Almost robotic, like assembling components without any feeling to it.
Not having a good time with it, and only using because I have to at work.
It is a struggle.
Flash is much more intuitive and creative!
I want out. I really have not one positive thing to say about Blend.
Tim Acheson
41 points
05-12-2009 4:35 AM |
The information in this table is inaccurate on several counts and the conclusions are severely misleading.
Information based on this table has also been posted on other web sites, where some of the inaccuracies have been corrected and many people have commented to point out the errors:.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/09/flash-vs-silverlight-what-suits-your-needs-best/#comment-348378
This is article contains some useful information, BUT:
This article requires further corrections and clarifications. In particular, key aspects and capabilities of Silverlight 2 and the.NET framework have been downplayed or overlooked. (I appreciate that the authors may not yet have reviewed Silverlight 3 which provides very many more features including additional media formats.)
I trust that the author will at least correct the following points here and anywhere else where the incorrect information has been posted:
E.g. “To deploy Silverlight to client browser more than one components ship. (1) XAML files (2) .dll if using C# (3) Silverlight.js (4) Custom JavaScript file. Images/videos/sounds also required deploy separately”This is incorrect. Even using the default deployment settings, a Silverlight solution deploys to a single XAP file which is directly equivalent to the SWF file created for Flash. In fact, the XAP file is simpler and offers more flexibility than Flash! The XAP file is simply a Zip file containing a highly compressed compiled DLL and potentially an XML file! Therefore, unlike a SWF file, the developer can create and extract an XAP file using standard Zip software and manually optimise the file size before deployment. JavaScript is not required by Silverlight, and the Silverlight.js library is an optional extra which has some really useful stuff in it. And by default Flash CS3 deploys with a JavaScript file, AC_RunActiveContent.js. With either Flash or Silverlight, it may be best to store additional assets separately.
E.g. “While Silverlight is using XAML as description language in a non-compressed format size of Silverlight component is large.In practical implementation of similar component in Flash and Silverlight it has found that size of Silverlight component is approximately 10-20 times larger than Flash component.”
This is both misleading and inaccurate. The non-compressed size of Silverlight data has no meaning because it does get compressed. The 10-20 figure is presumably a guess, and it is simply incorrect. The XAML in a Silverlight application is compressed within the finished XAP file which is in fact just a Zip file. You won’t find a more efficient and well-supported compression algorithm for the web.
E.g. “Right now not any support to play Silverlight object as Windows application.”
This is incorrect, and actually misunderstands .NET and misrepresents how Silverlight 2 fits into the .NET framework. It also misrepresents the way Flash works and the differences between Flash/Flex/Air etc. Silverlight is a type of .NET project for building rich client applications for the web. Developers can use the same .NET framework and the same development tools to create equivalent desktop applications, but the type of project is called WPF which has the same features as Silverlight plus much more since it’s a full-blown desktop application.
05-12-2009 8:55 AM |
Thanks Tim for the post. Really very nice.
I made corrections based on the above link.
Please suggest me if any thing is need to be corrected.
05-12-2009 9:29 AM |
Good work - with some of these ammendments and now brought up to date with Silverlight 2, this table is a useful resource for developers right now.
05-12-2009 10:03 AM |
I applaud the continued effort to come up with a comparison, but it is still lacking.
That article was wrong on so many points; I wouldn't recommend using it as an information source. This updated table also has some errors:
Silverlight 2 and 3 do not support Mac PowerPC
Silverlight does not currently support Windows Mobile in any flavor. When it does support mobile, it will support some version of Windows Mobile as well as Nokia Symbian.
The NBL? No idea that that bit is about
Ok, I stopped lest I just get angry. This table is just a mess and simply adds to the misinformation problem. I'm on the way to a meeting and don't have time to fix it right now.
djeddiej
05-29-2009 12:04 AM |
All the tables, as said, are pretty, but are also pretty much out of date or full of misinformation.
I am about to do a comparison presentation for a major department within the Canadian Federal Government between Silverlight and Adobe Flex/Flash, and my opinion will influence potentially what will be deployed on a large number of the Canadian government's websites.
Having used Macromedia/Adobe Flash for years and then Silverlight with its recent induction a few years ago, I can say that Microsoft has a lot to catch up upon, and is doing so with reasonable speed. However, Flash/Flex's entrenchment in the web development / design community as well as its widespread availability, support, and distribution is going to make it quite a challenge for Microsoft.
I doubt that many people actually recall that Microsoft acquired a similar "Flash Killer" tool well over a decade ago - it was called Liquid Motion Pro. Look it up. It was comparable to Flash 3 at the time. Once it was acquired, it quickly disappeared. Not a good move. One wonders what would have occured in the RIA landscape if Microsoft continued supporting Liquid Motion Pro.
Anyway, with regards to the table, Mike Chambers above mentioned most of the points that I wanted to correct regarding what the table said about Flash. I am supposing that if he wrote it in a prettier table then perhaps it would be more eye-catching to the readers of this thread.
In short - what needs to be changed in the table that irks me the most is
It just irks me that misinformation can lead to misinformed decisions.
thanks for reading!
Edward
bartczer...
4056 points
717 Posts
06-01-2009 8:55 PM |
Did you look when the article was written...2007. It sucks that this page still comes up high in the rankings, because like you mention it is misinformation.
alvirtuoso
07-13-2009 5:36 PM |
One BIG difference is:
msn.com uses flash instead of their own silverlight.
07-14-2009 2:01 AM |
alvirtuoso: One BIG difference is: msn.com uses flash instead of their own silverlight.
*yawn*
Troll elsewhere, please.
07-14-2009 6:13 AM |
Until recently the Xbox web site also only used Flash. It takes time for legacy products to be updated to use a new technology. Be patient. To take another case study, most media content on Xbox.com is now migrated to Silverlight. Although this may only be apparent to more experienced developers and system architects, there is more to the migration than web pages. There are considerations for the server architecture and many other factors too, like the ad service provider for sponsored sites many of which have themselves not yet completed the migration process.
On a much more interesting note, Silverlight 3 is now released, check out the new features!
http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/jul/silverlight_3_released
AlexE
07-22-2009 10:23 AM |
You can now convert Flash code into Silverlight at www.silverx.com
Alex
07-22-2009 10:59 AM |
I believe the correct URL for this third-party Flash-to-Silverlight conversion wizard is:-
http://www.silverx.net/
I wrote a brief review of SilverX and a summary of why a Flash-to-Silverlight conversion wizard is so useful.
07-22-2009 9:14 PM |
Thank you Tim for the correction.
Yes, www.silverx.net is the Flash to Silverlight conversion tool I had in mind.
Ade_William
20 points
07-22-2009 10:27 PM |
Hi Guys,
thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.
I was using Flash up to the release of MX 2004. I think as a developer, the biggest pain in the ass in using Flash was debugging. I have not been keeping up to date with Flash now, but back then you could embed actionscript in any of the object. that means if you have an object inside an object inside another object, chances are it'll dirve you crazy finding the script that you need to debug. I think the Development tool like VS is a lot more intuitive for me. In my opinion Flash was primarily designed for designers, not hardcore programmers, while Silverlight seems to be geared for programmers, and designers can utilize Blend.
True enough Flash has been around for a while and certainly has resolved a lot more issues than the young Silverlight, but with Silverlight Toolkit, I think Silverlight kept getting more interesting. This way the community can directly contribute as to which tool might be considered usefull and add it to the SIlverlight development process. As far as I know, Adobe has not adopted such method so the best way would probably spam them with email requesting such feature in the next version.
CMIIW
mike.cha...
07-23-2009 11:23 AM |
If you dont like the Flash Authoring workflow (which is primarily designer / animator focused), then you can use Flex Builder, and have the same if not similar type of workflow that you have in Visual Studio.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
07-24-2009 5:30 AM |
True, that the Flex Builder improved flash development, but compared to visual studio and blend it is still nothing but a toy.
But .. do not fear Visual Studio is here http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Adobe-Flex-Development-in-Visual
And the really good part, it's free, the VS Express edition performs nicely ;)
ConVid
28 points
08-22-2009 4:56 PM |
Flash to Silverlight conversion here also: SilverBoom
08-24-2009 4:23 AM |
For completeness I've added a comment about SilverBoom to my blog post on Flash to Silverlight/WPF converters:-
http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/jul/convert_flash_apps_to_silverlight
I'm particularly interested in media, for example converting Flash's FLVPlayback component to Silverlight's MediaElement control and how this is handled in the conversion process. Flash's media components are so clunky, buggy, and hard to work with -- the quicker we can migrate everything to Silverlight the better. I'm bored with Flash idiosyncrasies like embedding two different Flash players on the same page and finding that for example muting one player also affects the other completely different player on the same page. When you embed a player made with Silverlight on a web page, no matter how many players you have on the same page each one is truly independent because Silverlight does it properly while Flash seems to work through a series of flimsy bolt-ons and workarounds.
srigger
09-08-2009 5:56 PM |
Hi
It is a nice table you have done here, but do you have an update to the table for Silverlight 3because I need at good comparison between Silverlight 3 and Flash for my bachelor projectin Software Engineering ?
Kind regardsKenneth Rasmussen
chaitany...
252 points
57 Posts
09-09-2009 5:10 AM |
Nice comparision. Anyone going to update this for the latest releases?
Silverlight vs. Flash – An Analysis Report