Many of you have discovered the power of using WCF RIA Services that are simply pointing to the internal LightSwitch database. The LightSwitchHelpWebsite.com has covered this in the articles:

WCF RIA Service: Combining Two Tables

Using WCF RIA Services In LightSwitch To Simplify Your Application UI

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In this article we will create a simple chat application. If different users are using the same LightSwitch application, they will be able to chat with each other.



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Sometimes we are faced with the need to read data from a .csv (comma separated value) or Excel file. One option is to import the data, but this can turn out to be more trouble than any benefit if the file changes frequently.

Using WCF RIA Services allows the option to place the .csv or Excel file on the server hard drive and have LightSwitch access the data directly. When the file changes, simply...

LightSwitch is a powerful application builder when you use WCF RIA Services and Silverlight Custom Controls (or Silverlight Control Extensions). Otherwise, it is merely just a fast and easy application builder. In order to be fast and easy, LightSwitch has it’s limitations. However,...

Note: If you are new to LightSwitch, it is suggested that you start here: Online Ordering System (An End-To-End LightSwitch Example)

Note: You must have Visual Studio Professional (or higher) to complete this tutorial

LightSwitch is a powerful application builder, but you have to get your data INTO it first. Usually this is easy, but in some cases, you need to use WCF RIA Services to get data into LightSwitch that is ALREADY IN LightSwitch.

LightSwitch operates on one Entity (table) at a time. A Custom Control will allow you to visualize data from two entities at the same time, but inside LightSwitch, each Entity is always separate. This can be a problem if you want to, for example, combine two Entities into one.

LightSwitch wont do...

This article describes how you can upload files using LightSwitch, and store them on the server hard drive. This is different from uploading files and storing them in the server database.

If you want to upload files and store them in the database, see How Do I: Import and Store a Data File by Matt Sampson.



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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.