OpenSilver 2.2 has been released with the addition of a LightSwitch Compatibility Pack designed to provide a way to run legacy Visual Studio LightSwitch applications on modern browsers. The open-source alternative to Silverlight is capable of running large, complex legacy applications, as well as newly written C# and XAML applications.

OpenSilver was first released in 2021 at the same time as Microsoft ceased support for Silverlight. It uses Mono for WebAssembly and Microsoft Blazor so developers can use C#, XAML, and .NET for client-side Web development.

Visual Studio LightSwitch was a Microsoft development tool designed to be simple to use for rapid, 'no-code' development through a drag-and-drop interface, though developers could add custom C# and XAML code. LightSwitch apps were powered by the Silverlight plugin, and when that was dropped organization that had LightSwitch apps were left unsupported. LightSwitch apps can still operate in IE Mode on some versions of Windows, but the situation isn't ideal and runs the risk that future Windows updates might suddenly end Silverlight support.

The new LightSwitch Compatibility Pack is a tool that can be used to migrate apps written in LightSwitch. OpenSilver 2.2 lets developers compile existing LightSwitch applications to modern technologies, such as HTML5 and WebAssembly. The OpenSilver team says resulting applications run flawlessly on all modern browsers, including Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera—without any plugins. OpenSilver says:

"We offer a guaranteed fixed price for end-to-end migrations, ensuring that there are no financial surprises."

While the compatibility pack is the only new feature of note in this release, the developers say there are a number of forthcoming improvements including a drag-and-drop XAML UI Designer; .NET MAUI integration; and XAML Hot Reload, CLI, VS Code, macOS, and Rider Support.

OpenSilver 2.2 is available now. 

More Information

OpenSilver website

Source code on GitHub

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