OpenSilver extends to iOS and Android

Userware has updated its OpenSilver open source UI framework for.NET, expanding the reach of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to mobile apps.

OpenSilver is best known as a replacement for Microsoft Silverlight, a rich internet application framework that, like Adobe Flash, required a browser plugin. OpenSilver apps run in browsers without a plugin.

OpenSilver 3.2, introduced March 18 and downloadable from the project website, expands the reach of the framework beyond browsers to mobile platforms by integrating.NET MAUI Hybrid. This approach combines consistency of web-based UI rendering with the power of the.NET runtime, Userware said, and allows developers to deploy WPF-compatible applications to iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and the web from a single code base. OpenSilver 3.2 uses.NET MAUI Hybrid to deliver a WPF-compatible UI through WebView while compiling C# business logic to native code. A single XAML/C# code base is maintained across platforms.

Also with OpenSilver 3.2, two sample applications are featured, demonstrating implementation across platforms and native platform API calls. Userware in its blog post called out OpenSilver integration with the Visual Studio IDE and Visual Studio Code editor, with extensions for these tools available in the Visual Studio Marketplace and the VS Code Marketplace. OpenSilver 3.2 follows the December 2024 release of OpenSilver 3.1, which introduced an XAML designer for VS Code.

OpenSilver 3.2 also improves scrolling on touch devices, with implementations of panning support and scroll inertia. The release also implements an event manager, layout mirroring, and support for mixed LeftToRight and RightToLeft flow direction, adds support for multiple targets to Storyboards, and adds support for animations without Storyboard on UIElements. And ItemsControl now can adjust the scrolling speed, which can make scrolling smoother when displayed items are very large, Userware said.