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As you can see in the diagram below, each platform has its own set of functionality (orange). When using PCL, the functionality will be downgraded to the "least" platform (thus lots of features will be lost). Catel works the other way around by adding features of other platforms. For example, checking for dependency property changed is available on all platforms and works exactly the same for all platforms.
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A great example of the advantages are the services that are provided by Catel. All the platforms that support some sort of GPS functionality have the ILocationService (which is an interface that is platform independent). Each platform (Windows Phone, WinRT, Xamarin, etc) have their own implementation but the developer can use them in exactly the same manner without losing functionality. This means that instead of losing functionality, Catel adds functionality by not using PCL but platform dependent assemblies instead.
Supported platforms
Xaml
- WPF
- Silverlight 5
- Windows Phone 8.0
- Windows Phone 8.1
- Windows RT 8.0
- Windows RT 8.1
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