The document is a presentation about Microsoft LightSwitch, a tool for building line of business applications designed to enhance productivity while offering customization. It outlines core concepts, advanced techniques, and the tool's capabilities, such as model-driven designs, data validation, access control, and cloud integration. Andrew Brust, the presenter, discusses the IDE, how to work with data sources, screens, and provides links to additional resources on LightSwitch.

1. Grasping The LightSwitch Paradigm (The Taming of the Tool) Level: Intermediate October 20, 2011 Andrew Brust CEO and Founder Blue Badge Insights

2. CEO and Founder, Blue Badge Insights Member, Microsoft BI Partner Advisory Council Microsoft Regional Director, MVP Co-chair VSLive! and over 16 years as a speaker Founder, Microsoft BI User Group of NYC http:// www.msbinyc.com Co-moderator, NYC .NET Developers Group http://www.nycdotnetdev.com “ Redmond Review” columnist for Visual Studio Magazine and Redmond Developer News brustblog.com, Twitter: @andrewbrust Meet Andrew

3. The LightSwitch White Papers Go to microsoft.com/lightswitch and click on white paper links Or use these direct, shortened URLs: http://bit.ly/vslsoverview http://bit.ly/vslsfirstapp http://bit.ly/vslsdata http://bit.ly/vslsui http://bit.ly/vslsextensions Get these slides on SlideShare

4. Agenda Intro Basic Skills Advanced Techniques

5. INTRO

6. What is LightSwitch? A streamlined, optimized system for building line of business applications A SKU of Visual Studio – introduces new C#/VB project types Built on the existing MS stack Uses Silverlight on the front-end, leverages IIS Uses Entity Framework, RIA Services and other core .NET components too Uses SQL Server if maintaining its own database Can also connect to existing SQL Server and other databases Can Read/Write SharePoint 2010 Lists

7. Core Concepts Data Sources Entities/Tables and Properties/Columns Screens Template-based, but full control over design Groups and controls; lots of nesting Access Control Built-in role-based security Code Computed data properties Full event model Extensions Controls and more

8. What’s Different? Model-driven No forms package. Instead, you design screens schematically. Generic structures with specific implementations Business Types, not just data types Built-in export to Excel No requirement to code…and yet plenty of opportunity to do so

9. What Else is Different? Many things are inferred: Screen scenarios Screen region layout Control types, and read-only equivalents Invoking your default detail screen when Summary Property clicked Impact of access control on UI The context-sensitive role of buttons (Command Bars) Very cloud-capable Works with Windows Azure and/or SQL Azure Might have the best deployment story in the stack

10. BASIC SKILLS

11. The IDE: Data Toolbar Can have multiple data sources Our entity, in the singular Our entity set, pluralized Entity type becomes field type Properties window

12. Business Types Imply UI, formatting, data validation Built-In: Phone Email Money Others can be added through extensions Business Types can be very useful when connecting to an existing database Just change underlying data type to business type in the data designer

13. The IDE: Screens Members area Query and its properties. Can drag properties onto visual tree Methods (editable) Toolbar Layout Group Controls. Icons represent control types. Click drop-down arrow to change. Add more elements Screen Name (editable) Command bars

14. Screen Templates Details Editable Grid List and Details New Data Search Data

15. Adding an Entity And Building a Screen

16. What You Get For Free Ribbon Menu Tabbed layout Toolbar Search box Data Navigation Design while executing! Data Validation UI

17. Design Mode Commit or roll back the changes and you’re done! This is an actual live copy of your app. You can even do data entry and click controls Visual tree and Properties window for you to make live changes interactively

18. Navigation The side bar menu is generated and updated automatically, as you add screens You can customize it though: Change order of items Add, remove or rename screens and groups Show/hide screens programmatically Using the CanRun event

19. Pop-ups Screens for creating and editing individual records are generated on-the-fly by LightSwitch See them by clicking the Edit or Add New buttons on the toolbar You can replace these generated screens with your own…

20. Parameterization and Loading Screens Through Code You can design your own screens for creating or editing single records & use them in place of the generated pop-up screens Use New Data and Details screen templates For New Data screen: You must put code in Add button’s Execute event handler: this.Application.Show ScreenName (); For Details screen: Set the “Use as Default Details Screen” option in the Add New Screen dialog box.

21. Navigation, Popups Buttons, Loading Screens

22. Data Validation You can easily add your own Validation in code. Click Custom Validation in the Properties window, Put in conditional logic and pass a string to the results.AddPropertyError method. Use AddEntityError method for server-side validation when saving changes Or AddPropertyResult and AddEntityResult for info and warning messages Validation goes in data model, and flows into all screens. Even generated ones.

23. The Event Model Types: General, Access Control Objects: Queries Data Sources Tables Properties (Fields), for validation Computed fields, for computation Screens Buttons ( Execute and CanExecute ) Menu items ( CanRun event hook)

24. Data Validation

25. Buttons and Command Bars Have Execute and CanExecute events Buttons are children of Command Bars and Command Bars are everywhere Ribbon, toolbar, collection controls, rows within collection controls Simple controls too…just right click and then select Add Button… So buttons can go just about anywhere Lots of predefined buttons: AddNew, AddAndEditNew, EditSelected, DeleteSelected, RemoveSelected, Refresh

26. Ribbon Buttons

27. ADVANCED TECHNIQUES

28. Queries All screens’ data are fetched through queries You can edit these and add: Filter Sort Parameter Group Also Support paging, sorting, search Set page size

29. Layout Screen layout is based on layout groups: Rows, Columns, Table, Tabs, Modal Window These are nest-able Scroll bars, splitter bars and relative sizing of screen region controllable through: Scroll Enabled, Alignment, Min/Max Height/Width, Is Row/Column Resizable properties provide

30. Queries and Layout

31. Search Built in to List and Data Grid controls Implemented automatically on all string fields Can be disabled at the property or entity level using Is Searchable property Support search property on screen query Search-ability defined in the data model; respected by all screens Even the generated ones Search is rather brute force So don’t allow too many fields to be searchable

32. Access Control Optional Windows- or forms-based authentication You define: Groups, and their membership Named permissions, which you check programmatically in code Access control event hooks available for: Whether visible: Screens in the navigation menu Buttons Whether editable: Properties/fields,

33. Access Control

34. Extensions Controls Screen Templates Custom Data Sources Business Types Themes Shells

35. Themes and Shells

36. Extensions

37. Deployment Client is in-browser or desktop Middle tier on PC, server or Azure Deploy your database, or use existing db Work in SQL Server user instance mode + Express during dev, but deploy to SQL Server or SQL Azure. Or stay in Express!

38. Platform Shifts and Market Analysis Most LOB app tools give high productivity but low customization. LS is different. Most are either frameworks or code generators. LS is different. LS is model-driven. It renders Silverlight code/XAML today. What about tomorrow?

39. Thank you [email_address] @andrewbrust on twitter Want to get the free “Redmond Roundup Plus?” Text “bluebadge” to 22828