light-up-your-out-of-the-box lightswitch application

Boulos Dib

October 1, 2011

Boulos Dib - @boulosdib Independent Consultant – Napeague Inc. Software Development since 1983 First Personal Computer 1980 – TRS-80 III First Z80 based product (EPROM based Protocol Adpator – 1984) First Commercial PC-DOS product (Telex on IBM PC, 50 Baud – 1985) Started 16-bit Windows Development using Win 3.1 Developed on: 8080/Z80, 68xxx, PDP/RSX,VAX-VMS and x86/x64

(C/C++/C#) Develop in: ASP.Net, SilverLight, SharePoint I also have a life

Favorite sport – Windsurfing Favorite hobby – Playing my sunburst Fender Stratocaster+ guitar. Favorite guitar players

Wes Montgomery, Larry Carlton and Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple, Rainbow)

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Thank You

Greg Shackles For creating the Code Camp Mobile

App

For Providing me with the raw data for my sample

Agenda LightSwitch Overview

Demo Simple OOTB LightSwitch Application

Survey Extensibility Model and Options

Demos

Consume Silverlight Extension

Consume Silverlight Custom Control

Create a LightSwitch Theme Extension

Wrap-up

Assumptions Familiarity with .Net Development.

You can develop a simple application in C# (or VB.Net) using Visual Studio.

Have some understanding of Silverlight.

What is Visual Studio LightSwitch Simplest Development Environment for creating Line

Of Business Applications (LOB)

Able to consume data from Databases, SharePoint, and WCF RIA Services.

Can run as a web application or as a desktop application

LightSwitch Web Applications can be deployed locally or in Windows Azure WebRole.

Why LightSwitch? Simple(r) development tool.

Silverlight based infrastructure

Advanced development skills not required to build applications.

Based on Entity Framework

Easy deployment to IIS and Azure

Connectivity to SharePoint

Consumer of SQL Server and Other Databases

Consumer of almost any data source via custom WCF RIA Services.

LightSwitch Development

Start

Describe your data

Create screens for common tasks

Refine

Author business logic

Customize screen layouts

Define custom queries

Extend

Explore ecosystem

Create Custom Silverlight Controls

Integrate With Custom Data Sources

LightSwitch Architecture

Methods Controls Screens

Data Workspace

Submit Pipeline Queries

Data Workspace

Data Access Middle Tier Client Tier

LightSwitch Building Blocks LightSwitch VS Pro Ecosystem

Demo – Simple LightSwitch Application

Data and Screens

Screens are automatically generated based on entities.

Queries for both Entities and Screens

Business Logic

Demo

Simple LightSwitch Application

Beyond Simple LightSwitch Development

Even with LightSwitch, developers can access LightSwitch APIs, Silverlight and the .Net Framework

Including

Custom Screen Layouts

Save Pipeline, Validation & Access Control Hooks

Customize Complex and Composite LINQ Queries (i.e. EntityName_All EntityName_Single)

Client and Server Project Code

COM Interop

Publish to IIS or Windows Azure

Extending LightSwitch Utilize .Net Assemblies

Incoporate Silverlight Controls

Add LightSwitch Extensions

Amazing Third Party Extensions

Great Open Source and Community Driven Extensions

Roll Your Sleeves and Build your own

Requirements for Building Extensions

Visual Studio Pro or Ultimate + SP1

Visual Studio LightSwitch

Visual Studio SDK

Needed to build VSIX packages

LightSwitch Extension Toolkit

Extensions - Ecosystem You do not need to build extensions, there are many

available and the list is growing. Vendors

ComponentOne - OLAP for LightSwitch DevExpress – DXEditors & XtraReports for LightSwitch FirstFloor – Document Toolkit for LightSwitch Infragistics – NetAdvantage for Visual Studio LightSwitch Telerik – Rad Controls for Silverlight RSSBus – Data Providers for: Google, PowerShell, Facebook,

Quickbooks, Salesforce, Sharepoint, Twitter

Community Driven Look in the Gallery….

LightSwitch Extension Types Silverlight Controls

Screen Templates

Business Types

Themes

Shell

Custom Data Sources

Extension Projects Project Purpose

Client Contains client implementations that should be deployed with a LightSwitch application but are not found in the Common project. For example, controls, shells, and themes.

Client.Design Contains implementations necessary during the debugging of a LightSwitch application. For example, control images or custom property editors for the runtime screen designer.

Common Contains implementations that are common to both the client and the server. For example, metadata loaders and validators.

Design Contains implementations for design time integrated development environment (IDE) operations. For example, a screen template.

Server Contains server implementations that should be deployed with a LightSwitch application but are not found in the Common project. For example, data sources.

Project Purpose

.Lspkg .Lspkg packages the above five projects so that LightSwitch can unpack and reference them when the package is installed

.Vsix .Vsix project packages the generated .Lspkg file into a .Vsix package so that it can be added to LightSwitch through the Extension Manager

Using Extensions Installing Extensions

Manually double-clicking a VSIX package.

Extension Manager Within Visual Studio Pro ++

Visual Studio RESTART almost always required.

For Shell and Theme Extensions:

Activate Extension by Opening Project Properties and check the Extensions tab.

To Apply a theme or a shell, Open the same Project Properties and theme or shell in the General properties.

Creating a Theme Extension We will create a theme

Modify few resources

Test it against a simple application

Using Silverlight Custom Controls Easier to use than writing

Do not know anything about LightSwitch

There 2 possibilites Build a control for a specific entity (VM) and bind it to a

specific entity - less code but not re-usable. Can not be used for any other entity or data.

Build a control and bind the code in the LightSwitch code – More lightswitch code but Silverlight Control can be re-used across screens and applications.

Demo – based on Code Magazine article by LightSwitch team member Karol Zadora-Przylecki

References Andrew Brust – LightSwitch White Papers

http://bit.ly/pjD6Ke

Michael Washington

http://lightswitchhelpwebsite.com/

Code Magazine July/August 2011

Using Custom Controls to Enhance LightSwitch Application UI by Karol Zadora-Przylecki

Visual Studio Gallery http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/site/search

Thank You and Follow-up Contact:

http://blog.boulosdib.com

@boulosdib