In windows phone 8.1 what is the differance between Windows phone project and silverlight project?

Question

I begin to use windows phone 8.1 SDK but there are some strange things i don't understand, one of this complicated things why there are different frameworks Silverlight and the default xaml, also what is the difference between them and when i use this or this ?

Answer 1

One huge difference is of course that the Store Apps supports Universal Apps, where you can easily share almost all all of the code across WP8.1 and Windows 8.1 (including XAML).

But it is Worth noting that there are several features which some apps might require which is only available for WP8.1 Silverlight apps, such as:

• VoIP support
• Act as Lock screen background provider
• Act as a Lens app
• Let app extend search results using search extras
• Provide ringtones

And a few other listed here along with a feature mapping from WP8 to WP8.1 Silverlight and Store Apps: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/dn642486(v=vs.105).aspx

If you are starting a new app and will not need any of these features a Store app is probably the better choice though.

Answer 2

If I understand your question correctly, let me put some sentences from MSDN...

    why there are different frameworks Silverlight and the default xaml, 
also what is the difference between them and when i use this or this ?

In Visual Studio 2013 Microsoft has come up with an approach where you can build Apps for Phone as well as for Desktop and tabs simultaneously. A unique concept of Universal Apps.

    Build an app for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 at the same time, 
and share code, user controls, styles, strings and other assets between them

So if you are going to develop an Apps targeting both the platform, then Universal apps concept is good.

But if you are targeting only the new features of Windows Phone 8.1 then you should start with Silverlight "Blank App (Windows Phone Silverlight)"

As in MSDN its clearly mentioned.

    The names of some templates have (Windows Phone Silverlight) appended 
to the end. Consider using these templates if you've previously developed 
for Windows Phone 8 and just want to access some of the new features available 
to Windows Phone apps without having to significantly modify your existing 
code. You can use these templates to create apps only for Windows Phone 8.1

More details MSDN Link

Answer 3

Windows Phone Silverlight is Windows Phone 8 deployments where obviously the WP 8.1 is deployment for WP 8.1

The main difference is that the WP 8.1 can use the cross platform DLLs where as WP 8 can not. There are many other framework differences but this is a huge one.