Which Technology Stack should I use: WPF, Silverlight 5, or Web Application

Question

I've got a project coming down the line, and I've been tasked to do a little R&D to figure out which technology is the best fit. Here's a little background on the app in its current state:

• Web application; accessible only to our internal users
• The web app prints to local printers (Zebra), print jobs are sent to the printers via the server on a postback

The new incarnation of this is functionally similar to the old, but introduces some new functionality:

• Addition of a new desktop printer. We're going to be printing out some additional paperwork, in addition to the labels generated from the Zebra printers, we're also generating two new documents.
• The application must support tray printing. For example, one document has to be printed from Tray 1, and the other must print from Tray 2.

Does anyone have suggestions on which path I should go down:

• Keep as a web application
• Convert to WPF
• Convert to Silverlight 5

Presently, I'm leaning towards WPF since it seems to have better printing support. Silverlight doesn't seem to be the right fit since we can control the platform, and it needs to integrate with some hardware (printers). Keeping it as a web app is still on the table, but I'm not entirely sure that it is the best fit for the tray printing requirements. (this all needs to happen in the background, we don't want the user to have to select print configurations. Think along the lines of Scan Barcode -> Labels print on Zebra printers, Product documentation prints from tray 1, packing slip from tray 2)

Almost all my experience so far has been on the web application side of things, so I'm relatively new to the whole WPF/Silverlight stuff.

Can anybody either confirm my assumptions above, or possibly point out where I've made some mistakes?

Answer 1

I will suggest to keep your application as web, so that in future integrating with tablets and non windows devices could be easier.

You can create a container WPF application, and host a web browser control within WPF App, so you can write custom JavaScript bridge using window.external interface and access native components easily. WPF will be better than silverlight as you will have full control of native APIs.