To save space on the screen, you may find that it is sometimes easier to scroll through the records rather than select them using a standard LightSwitch List control. This is actually a trivial exercise, but hopefully it shows that you have granular control of how records are displayed on the screen.

In addition, remember that everything described here still applies if you are using Silverlight Custom Controls.

WCF RIA Services are the “fix any data issue” solution. If the problem is getting data to your LightSwitch application, and the normal create or add table will not work, the answer is to use a WCF RIA Service.

One of the greatest benefits to using LightSwitch, is that it automatically manages data integrity when multiple users are updating data. It also provides a method to resolve any errors that it detects.

The first issue is very important, and with most web applications, it is not handled. Simply, the last person to save a record overwrites any other changes, even if those other changes were made after the user initially pulled up the record. The second issue, a method to resolve this situation, is priceless, because the code to create the “conflict resolution process” is considerable.

This blog post does not contain any code examples, because there is no code for you to write to get all these features!



...

In many LightSwitch applications, you will desire the ability to display aggregated data and percentages. While the article at this link explains a method that will work 100% of the time, with the best performance, it requires the creation of an additional project. The method described here, is easier to use, yet, it has limitations (for example it will not allow you to use GroupBy)....

An End-To-End LightSwitch Example In this article we will create an end-to-end application in LightSwitch. The purpose is to demonstrate how LightSwitch allows you to create professional business applications that would take a single developer weeks to create. With LightSwitch you can create such applications in under an hour.

You can download LightSwitch at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch.

The Scenario In this example, we will be tasked with producing...

To demonstrate LightSwitch functionality in a real world example, I have decided to create a Student information System. Eventually this will handle attendance and grades, but, for this first installment it will simply allow you to enroll students.



First, let us examine how a Student Information System usually works. A Course, and a Teacher make up a Section. A Student and a Section make up an Enrollment.

An Enrollment is the “heart” of a Student Information System. A Section, and an Enrollment are for a “period of time”. Grades, Attendance, and all other elements of the Student Information System, are tied to (associated with), Enrollments.

In this article we will build the...

With a little code you can get LightSwitch to do almost whatever you want. For an application I am working on, I wanted a screen that would display information about the current user.

What is unique about this particular requirement, was that I wanted to display a page that was not associated with a Table of data. I just wanted a screen to show, and display code that I wrote.

The code will show the current user, if they are authenticated, and what the authentication type that the application is using.

 

Set Up Authentication in LightSwitch  

...

With Visual Studio LightSwitch, you have a “get out of jail free card” in the use of Custom Silverlight Controls. With a Custom Silverlight Control, you can implement functionality that is outside the normal abilities of LightSwitch.

I’m sure your greatest fear is having to stand in front of the Chief Technology Officer, and explain why the LightSwitch application, that the company invested so much time and energy into, has to now be re-written as a regular Silverlight application because it “can’t perform the new requirements”.

Let’s put aside the fact that in normal business environments, you have several applications running...

8:40 pm – I downloaded LightSwitch and it’s installing. I downloaded the .iso image and mounted it with PowerISO. This is a Beta and the first one at that. All I hope to see is “idiot Proof”...