Silverlight would improve the Administrative section of NopCommerce by offering a more intuitive user-interface for users and by offering a platform to developers that is specialized in quick, easy, and extensible data-binding. By implementing Silverlight as the Administrative platform, you are ensuring that users of the Administrative interface have an application that is extremely easy to use, fun to use, easy to extend, and cost-effective to develop since development time of Silverlight is cut in almost half of what development time of ASP.NET takes. When developing Silverlight, there is no need for developers to script HTML, or FLASH, or JavaScript, or jQuery, or CSS, or ASP.NET, or special graphics. With Silverlight, all developers have to know how to do is write C# and have knowledge of the .NET framework. Silverlight makes development of Internet applications so much easier. It is clearly the best option for the Administrative section of NopCommerce.
I have volunteered to take the lead position in developing the Administrative section of NopCommerce but I wanted the confidence of the NopCommerce community behind my efforts before I begin on this large task. I want to make sure that my efforts do not go unnoticed or users are unaware of the efforts being made. If you agree with my analysis of the benefits to implementing Silverlight into NopCommerce, please voice your opinion. If you feel that I would do a good job in leading the development of the challenging project of converting the Administrative section of NopCommerce into Silverlight, and then please let that be known as well on this forum.
I would love to lead this project but I need to the confidence of the community and the promise from Andrei that if I begin development that I will be the lead technical developer and that the other developers that join my team for this project will act as developers accordingly.
Thanks. Have an awesome day! And here's the original email I sent Andrei:
Quoted Text From Me: "
This email was sent to Andrei but I wanted to get feedback from the NopCommerce community to see what all of you thought about Re-Designing the Administrative section of NopCommerce to utilize Silverlight as its development platform. Please read through this message and pick out what you think is relevant to NopCommerce development and what you think may or may not be good ideas of switching the Administrative section to Silverlight. I appreciate your opinion in this matter and I believe that turning the Administrative section into a Silverlight based application will benefit both developers and end-users.
Sorry for the delay in a response from my behalf. I appreciate your consideration that I may be a benefit to the NopCommerce project. I have looked at the current projects that are in development at this moment and the one that interests me the most is the proposal for the administrative section of NopCommerce to move to Silverlight. I would like to head this particular project and be the lead technical developer for this. I have a lot of experience in Silverlight, Data Binding, Entity Framework, and LINQ, and I think that I am perfect to bring this project forward and make it a reality.
I currently work in Olympia, Washington, USA for a company called CodeSmart Inc. and we specialize in .NET, Entity Framework, Silverlight, LINQ, and RIA Services for State Agencies like the Department of Licensing, Department of Social Health and Services, Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Administrative Office of the Courts.
I personally have developed independently outside of my employer. I am currently working independently for a public college in Centralia called Centralia Community College. I went to school there a couple years ago and developed an Internet application that facilitated dynamic data storage and functionality for not only administrative needs but also for student and public needs as well. Centralia Community College is currently consulting with me independently to setup a production environment for their data and they have given me complete freedom over architecture and design choices so that I may offer them the best solution available to them.
Since Centralia College has given me complete freedom to advise them in the best direction for their IT resolutions, I recommended that their front-end application that will be used by students and the public be developed in ASP.NET MVC. I chose this direction because I think it will provide for the best use of resources and future maintenance costs.
Since their administrative section of the application will be used explicitly by staff and faculty and will not be accessible to the public, I strongly recommended that they use Silverlight as their front-end to their administrative section. I recommended this because Silverlight offers powerful user interface architecture while allowing developers to bind data to user input fields with fast and efficient strategies during development. Silverlight is definitely the wisest decision when considering which platform to develop an internet application that will interact with a database on a small-to-large scale CRUD environment.
Please consider using Silverlight as your administrative back-end. Anyone using the Administrative section will be easily kept up-to-date on browser and Silverlight updates. You would not have to worry about users of NopCommerce having the tools necessary to run Silverlight since the Administrative section would only require those using it to have Silverlight compatible browsers to view it.
Again, the public users of NopCommerce, (the shoppers), would not see the Silverlight side of the application because they would be viewing a totally different section of NopCommerce. The Web project that uses MVC would be the only thing that the end-users would see. Only the store owners would have to worry about the Silverlight-Administrative section.
Please think through what I have tried to explain. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I would develop the Silverlight-Administrative section free of charge to you and NopSolutions. All I would ask in return is that if you like my work ethic and commitment to a good product that you refer me to user of NopCommerce who are looking for custom development.
Again, thank you for your time and attention to this email. Have a great day.
"
End of Quoted Text From Me.
Silverlight as Administrative Platform
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- 2
- 45
- 341
- 4/2/2010
- United Kingdom
Hi Derek,
An interesting post, although I wouldn't entirely agree with a few of the statements made!
I think a Silverlight option would be interesting, however I would disagree with you about Silverlight being "clearly the best option for the Administrative section of NopCommerce". The main thing about an HTML/JavaScript based website is that it is accessible by anyone with a web browser, Silverlight would (in my opinion) limit this.
The other advantage to the HTML based option is that anyone with a working knowledge of HTML and/or CSS can edit it, customise it and make it look how they want it to. Silverlight, I think, would limit this (or at least steepen the learning curve for beginners).
With the current set up, if a client phones me with a problem I can look into it immediately using my phone/android tablet/iPod touch etc from anywhere in the world, make any changes needed to resolve the problem and call the client back.
Silverlight is not supported on IOS, Android, Windows Phone or Linux*, and on a P.C. based device, it would involve the installation of a plug in and also the download of the 'applet' before you could do anything. This may cause problems for those in parts of the world with a lower bandwidth.
From what I understand and read, Microsoft themselves are pushing HTML5 over Silverlight for applications such as this (of course there are no set rules over which technologies you should use to develop a project as it depends on the requirements specific to that particular project). As I recall, HTML5 is not set to be an official standard until 2013 so development in HTML5 may not be the best idea (as the spec may change and due to browser support) but I think in the long term its going to be the way to go.
I do agree that Silverlight offers a great platform for developing administrative UI's, as the Windows Azure control panel proves, and it would be interesting to see how it would work with nopCommerce as maybe an option in addition to the HTML based admin panel.
If you were to develop the Silverlight admin module, would it be open sourced to the community?
Kind regards,
Chris
* I'm aware that there is the Moonlight project, but this is not an official Microsoft implementation.
An interesting post, although I wouldn't entirely agree with a few of the statements made!
I think a Silverlight option would be interesting, however I would disagree with you about Silverlight being "clearly the best option for the Administrative section of NopCommerce". The main thing about an HTML/JavaScript based website is that it is accessible by anyone with a web browser, Silverlight would (in my opinion) limit this.
The other advantage to the HTML based option is that anyone with a working knowledge of HTML and/or CSS can edit it, customise it and make it look how they want it to. Silverlight, I think, would limit this (or at least steepen the learning curve for beginners).
With the current set up, if a client phones me with a problem I can look into it immediately using my phone/android tablet/iPod touch etc from anywhere in the world, make any changes needed to resolve the problem and call the client back.
Silverlight is not supported on IOS, Android, Windows Phone or Linux*, and on a P.C. based device, it would involve the installation of a plug in and also the download of the 'applet' before you could do anything. This may cause problems for those in parts of the world with a lower bandwidth.
From what I understand and read, Microsoft themselves are pushing HTML5 over Silverlight for applications such as this (of course there are no set rules over which technologies you should use to develop a project as it depends on the requirements specific to that particular project). As I recall, HTML5 is not set to be an official standard until 2013 so development in HTML5 may not be the best idea (as the spec may change and due to browser support) but I think in the long term its going to be the way to go.
I do agree that Silverlight offers a great platform for developing administrative UI's, as the Windows Azure control panel proves, and it would be interesting to see how it would work with nopCommerce as maybe an option in addition to the HTML based admin panel.
If you were to develop the Silverlight admin module, would it be open sourced to the community?
Kind regards,
Chris
* I'm aware that there is the Moonlight project, but this is not an official Microsoft implementation.
- 6
- 40
- 7/25/2011
- South Africa
deccks wrote:
Although Silverlight is pretty, cross browser and html sucks - I really would like to be able to access admin via my iPad. I too wanted to run all my admin for clients in Silverlight, but need iPad access...
Silverlight would improve the Administrative section of NopCommerce by offering a more intuitive user-interface for users and by offering a platform to developers that is specialized in quick, easy, and extensible data-binding. By implementing Silverlight as the Administrative platform, you are ensuring that users of the Administrative interface have an application that is extremely easy to use, fun to use, easy to extend, and cost-effective to develop since development time of Silverlight is cut in almost half of what development time of ASP.NET takes. When developing Silverlight, there is no need for developers to script HTML, or FLASH, or JavaScript, or jQuery, or CSS, or ASP.NET, or special graphics. With Silverlight, all developers have to know how to do is write C# and have knowledge of the .NET framework. Silverlight makes development of Internet applications so much easier. It is clearly the best option for the Administrative section of NopCommerce.
I have volunteered to take the lead position in developing the Administrative section of NopCommerce but I wanted the confidence of the NopCommerce community behind my efforts before I begin on this large task. I want to make sure that my efforts do not go unnoticed or users are unaware of the efforts being made. If you agree with my analysis of the benefits to implementing Silverlight into NopCommerce, please voice your opinion. If you feel that I would do a good job in leading the development of the challenging project of converting the Administrative section of NopCommerce into Silverlight, and then please let that be known as well on this forum.
I would love to lead this project but I need to the confidence of the community and the promise from Andrei that if I begin development that I will be the lead technical developer and that the other developers that join my team for this project will act as developers accordingly.
Thanks. Have an awesome day! And here's the original email I sent Andrei:
Quoted Text From Me: "
This email was sent to Andrei but I wanted to get feedback from the NopCommerce community to see what all of you thought about Re-Designing the Administrative section of NopCommerce to utilize Silverlight as its development platform. Please read through this message and pick out what you think is relevant to NopCommerce development and what you think may or may not be good ideas of switching the Administrative section to Silverlight. I appreciate your opinion in this matter and I believe that turning the Administrative section into a Silverlight based application will benefit both developers and end-users.
Sorry for the delay in a response from my behalf. I appreciate your consideration that I may be a benefit to the NopCommerce project. I have looked at the current projects that are in development at this moment and the one that interests me the most is the proposal for the administrative section of NopCommerce to move to Silverlight. I would like to head this particular project and be the lead technical developer for this. I have a lot of experience in Silverlight, Data Binding, Entity Framework, and LINQ, and I think that I am perfect to bring this project forward and make it a reality.
I currently work in Olympia, Washington, USA for a company called CodeSmart Inc. and we specialize in .NET, Entity Framework, Silverlight, LINQ, and RIA Services for State Agencies like the Department of Licensing, Department of Social Health and Services, Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Administrative Office of the Courts.
I personally have developed independently outside of my employer. I am currently working independently for a public college in Centralia called Centralia Community College. I went to school there a couple years ago and developed an Internet application that facilitated dynamic data storage and functionality for not only administrative needs but also for student and public needs as well. Centralia Community College is currently consulting with me independently to setup a production environment for their data and they have given me complete freedom over architecture and design choices so that I may offer them the best solution available to them.
Since Centralia College has given me complete freedom to advise them in the best direction for their IT resolutions, I recommended that their front-end application that will be used by students and the public be developed in ASP.NET MVC. I chose this direction because I think it will provide for the best use of resources and future maintenance costs.
Since their administrative section of the application will be used explicitly by staff and faculty and will not be accessible to the public, I strongly recommended that they use Silverlight as their front-end to their administrative section. I recommended this because Silverlight offers powerful user interface architecture while allowing developers to bind data to user input fields with fast and efficient strategies during development. Silverlight is definitely the wisest decision when considering which platform to develop an internet application that will interact with a database on a small-to-large scale CRUD environment.
Please consider using Silverlight as your administrative back-end. Anyone using the Administrative section will be easily kept up-to-date on browser and Silverlight updates. You would not have to worry about users of NopCommerce having the tools necessary to run Silverlight since the Administrative section would only require those using it to have Silverlight compatible browsers to view it.
Again, the public users of NopCommerce, (the shoppers), would not see the Silverlight side of the application because they would be viewing a totally different section of NopCommerce. The Web project that uses MVC would be the only thing that the end-users would see. Only the store owners would have to worry about the Silverlight-Administrative section.
Please think through what I have tried to explain. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I would develop the Silverlight-Administrative section free of charge to you and NopSolutions. All I would ask in return is that if you like my work ethic and commitment to a good product that you refer me to user of NopCommerce who are looking for custom development.
Again, thank you for your time and attention to this email. Have a great day.
"
End of Quoted Text From Me.
I have volunteered to take the lead position in developing the Administrative section of NopCommerce but I wanted the confidence of the NopCommerce community behind my efforts before I begin on this large task. I want to make sure that my efforts do not go unnoticed or users are unaware of the efforts being made. If you agree with my analysis of the benefits to implementing Silverlight into NopCommerce, please voice your opinion. If you feel that I would do a good job in leading the development of the challenging project of converting the Administrative section of NopCommerce into Silverlight, and then please let that be known as well on this forum.
I would love to lead this project but I need to the confidence of the community and the promise from Andrei that if I begin development that I will be the lead technical developer and that the other developers that join my team for this project will act as developers accordingly.
Thanks. Have an awesome day! And here's the original email I sent Andrei:
Quoted Text From Me: "
This email was sent to Andrei but I wanted to get feedback from the NopCommerce community to see what all of you thought about Re-Designing the Administrative section of NopCommerce to utilize Silverlight as its development platform. Please read through this message and pick out what you think is relevant to NopCommerce development and what you think may or may not be good ideas of switching the Administrative section to Silverlight. I appreciate your opinion in this matter and I believe that turning the Administrative section into a Silverlight based application will benefit both developers and end-users.
Sorry for the delay in a response from my behalf. I appreciate your consideration that I may be a benefit to the NopCommerce project. I have looked at the current projects that are in development at this moment and the one that interests me the most is the proposal for the administrative section of NopCommerce to move to Silverlight. I would like to head this particular project and be the lead technical developer for this. I have a lot of experience in Silverlight, Data Binding, Entity Framework, and LINQ, and I think that I am perfect to bring this project forward and make it a reality.
I currently work in Olympia, Washington, USA for a company called CodeSmart Inc. and we specialize in .NET, Entity Framework, Silverlight, LINQ, and RIA Services for State Agencies like the Department of Licensing, Department of Social Health and Services, Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Administrative Office of the Courts.
I personally have developed independently outside of my employer. I am currently working independently for a public college in Centralia called Centralia Community College. I went to school there a couple years ago and developed an Internet application that facilitated dynamic data storage and functionality for not only administrative needs but also for student and public needs as well. Centralia Community College is currently consulting with me independently to setup a production environment for their data and they have given me complete freedom over architecture and design choices so that I may offer them the best solution available to them.
Since Centralia College has given me complete freedom to advise them in the best direction for their IT resolutions, I recommended that their front-end application that will be used by students and the public be developed in ASP.NET MVC. I chose this direction because I think it will provide for the best use of resources and future maintenance costs.
Since their administrative section of the application will be used explicitly by staff and faculty and will not be accessible to the public, I strongly recommended that they use Silverlight as their front-end to their administrative section. I recommended this because Silverlight offers powerful user interface architecture while allowing developers to bind data to user input fields with fast and efficient strategies during development. Silverlight is definitely the wisest decision when considering which platform to develop an internet application that will interact with a database on a small-to-large scale CRUD environment.
Please consider using Silverlight as your administrative back-end. Anyone using the Administrative section will be easily kept up-to-date on browser and Silverlight updates. You would not have to worry about users of NopCommerce having the tools necessary to run Silverlight since the Administrative section would only require those using it to have Silverlight compatible browsers to view it.
Again, the public users of NopCommerce, (the shoppers), would not see the Silverlight side of the application because they would be viewing a totally different section of NopCommerce. The Web project that uses MVC would be the only thing that the end-users would see. Only the store owners would have to worry about the Silverlight-Administrative section.
Please think through what I have tried to explain. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I would develop the Silverlight-Administrative section free of charge to you and NopSolutions. All I would ask in return is that if you like my work ethic and commitment to a good product that you refer me to user of NopCommerce who are looking for custom development.
Again, thank you for your time and attention to this email. Have a great day.
"
End of Quoted Text From Me.
Although Silverlight is pretty, cross browser and html sucks - I really would like to be able to access admin via my iPad. I too wanted to run all my admin for clients in Silverlight, but need iPad access...
- 57
- 651
- 5/25/2011
- United States
the best post i have ever seen......
all I can add is :
1-I love NopCommerce, I just came to this wonderful community one month ago
2-we develop Silverlight MVVM Business Applications
I have one of which i share the full source
http://medlink.codeplex.com/
3-when I saw the MVC code, I said no way... looks like my Kung Fu Silverlight MvvM ..mmmm
but after reviewing the new Telerik MVM admin module, i think that the NopCommerce team decided right by staying away from Silverlight..
all I can add is :
1-I love NopCommerce, I just came to this wonderful community one month ago
2-we develop Silverlight MVVM Business Applications
I have one of which i share the full source
http://medlink.codeplex.com/
3-when I saw the MVC code, I said no way... looks like my Kung Fu Silverlight MvvM ..mmmm
but after reviewing the new Telerik MVM admin module, i think that the NopCommerce team decided right by staying away from Silverlight..
- 35
- 3366
- 12/9/2010
- Australia
deccks wrote:
I tend to agree that Silverlight has a lot to offer, especially for an old WinForms dev like me, I've been following its emergance for a while & have recently started playing with it, I really like its potential and intend heading down a SL/WCF RIA/EF path pretty much from here forward.
With that in mind I recently asked Andrei if there were any plans for NOP to support it, as I understand not at the moment.
That said and because as I understand it it can easily be done it does not mean we cannot develop addons in SL & host them inside the ASP framework of NOP.
Cheers
Garry
Silverlight would improve
I tend to agree that Silverlight has a lot to offer, especially for an old WinForms dev like me, I've been following its emergance for a while & have recently started playing with it, I really like its potential and intend heading down a SL/WCF RIA/EF path pretty much from here forward.
With that in mind I recently asked Andrei if there were any plans for NOP to support it, as I understand not at the moment.
That said and because as I understand it it can easily be done it does not mean we cannot develop addons in SL & host them inside the ASP framework of NOP.
Cheers
Garry
- 35
- 3366
- 12/9/2010
- Australia
EvilRabbit wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong (& please do) but as I understand it one of the benifits of SL is that it is pretty much cross platform compatible & addresses a lot of the browser compatibility issue out of the box. Have you thought of looking at running in trusted out of browser mode on your Ipad?
Cheers
Garry
Although Silverlight is pretty, cross browser and html sucks - I really would like to be able to access admin via my iPad. I too wanted to run all my admin for clients in Silverlight, but need iPad access...
Correct me if I'm wrong (& please do) but as I understand it one of the benifits of SL is that it is pretty much cross platform compatible & addresses a lot of the browser compatibility issue out of the box. Have you thought of looking at running in trusted out of browser mode on your Ipad?
Cheers
Garry
- 45
- 341
- 4/2/2010
- United Kingdom
gaz wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong (& please do) but as I understand it one of the benifits of SL is that it is pretty much cross platform compatible & addresses a lot of the browser compatibility issue out of the box. Have you thought of looking at running in trusted out of browser mode on your Ipad?
Cheers
Garry
As far as I know (please let me know if I am wrong), but Silverlight is not supported at all on Apple iOS or Android devices (http://forums.silverlight.net/p/226697/548500.aspx).
Chris
Correct me if I'm wrong (& please do) but as I understand it one of the benifits of SL is that it is pretty much cross platform compatible & addresses a lot of the browser compatibility issue out of the box. Have you thought of looking at running in trusted out of browser mode on your Ipad?
Cheers
Garry
As far as I know (please let me know if I am wrong), but Silverlight is not supported at all on Apple iOS or Android devices (http://forums.silverlight.net/p/226697/548500.aspx).
Chris
- 35
- 3366
- 12/9/2010
- Australia
chris_rowtcliff wrote:
As far as I know (please let me know if I am wrong), but Silverlight is not supported at all on Apple iOS or Android devices (http://forums.silverlight.net/p/226697/548500.aspx).
Chris
Thanks Chris, bit sad actually.
From the quick look I've just had there is a bit of an anti Apple sentiment building because of the decision to stop SL from working on IPads etc.
Cheers
Garry
As far as I know (please let me know if I am wrong), but Silverlight is not supported at all on Apple iOS or Android devices (http://forums.silverlight.net/p/226697/548500.aspx).
Chris
Thanks Chris, bit sad actually.
From the quick look I've just had there is a bit of an anti Apple sentiment building because of the decision to stop SL from working on IPads etc.
Cheers
Garry
- 45
- 341
- 4/2/2010
- United Kingdom
gaz wrote:
From the quick look I've just had there is a bit of an anti Apple sentiment building because of the decision to stop SL from working on IPads etc.
It's not just Silverlight, Flash is also not supported on any iOS products. HTML5 is being pushed as the technology to use by both Microsoft and Apple for this sort of thing.
I don't want to come across as negative on the Silverlight option, I think it could be a very good option. I disagree that it would be the best option, and would strongly disagree with SilverLight being the only admin control panel.
In my opinion, for cross platform compatability and ease of customisation and styling an HTML based solution wins hands down.
Thanks,
Chris
From the quick look I've just had there is a bit of an anti Apple sentiment building because of the decision to stop SL from working on IPads etc.
It's not just Silverlight, Flash is also not supported on any iOS products. HTML5 is being pushed as the technology to use by both Microsoft and Apple for this sort of thing.
I don't want to come across as negative on the Silverlight option, I think it could be a very good option. I disagree that it would be the best option, and would strongly disagree with SilverLight being the only admin control panel.
In my opinion, for cross platform compatability and ease of customisation and styling an HTML based solution wins hands down.
Thanks,
Chris
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