Forms Development in Silverlight

Silverlight is a development platform that allows you to write and run applications for web, desktop, and mobile use. The Silverlight Designer provides the ability to integrate Silverlight forms in the Workflow Task List, Web Task List, and the Global Viewer in Workflow client.

Important: Support for Silverlight and Silverlight forms will be discontinued with the next major release of the software.

Form Creation

A form cannot be converted from WPF to Silverlight or vice versa after the form creation process starts. During form authoring, be sure to select the correct type of form to create in the Display Editor.

Technical Limitations

As a technical limitation, .NET content can run only in thick clients (that is, the Proficy Client) where the .NET Framework is installed. It cannot run directly in a web browser or directly on a mobile device. Similarly, Silverlight content can run only in a web browser with a Silverlight plug-in installed. Silverlight content can also run on a mobile device that supports Silverlight (such as Windows 7 mobile devices or Symbian Series 60 phones); however, we do not support these devices.

Clients That Can Host the Form

The table below illustrates the form types each client can host:

FormProficy ClientWeb Task ListMobile-sized Task List
.NET form Yes NoYes **
Silverlight form Yes Yes Yes

** In general, .NET content cannot run on mobile devices. However, the Mobile-Sized Task List is designed to run on a server and display content on a mobile device using either GraphOn or Terminal Services.

A form that will be run on a mobile device should be designed with the small form factor in mind. However, that same form will work in both a thick client and a web environment.

Note: Although a Silverlight form can run in all three environments, it is not recommended.

The following topics describe the tasks necessary to build Silverlight forms.