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...

The Data Grid that is built-into LightSwitch is quite advanced. You will not really appreciate it until you attempt to duplicate its functionality manually. However, you may be faced with situations that require you to implement a Data Grid from scratch. This will allow you maximum flexibility in your application…

A strong point about ComponentOne is their ability to make great Silverlight controls that aggregate data. The LightSwitch Help Website previously covered their LightSwitch extension: Using OLAP for LightSwitch. That control is designed to be mostly configured by end-users. The article: The LightSwitch Control Extension Makers Dilemma...

It is important to know that you should only use the methods described here as a last resort. The methods described here should not be your first choice for implementing a custom Silverlight Control in LightSwitch. 99% of the time these other methods will work:

Creating A LightSwitch Custom Silverlight Control This Is How LightSwitch Does MVVM...

In this Blog post, we will create a LightSwitch Control Extension that consists of a Button. The LightSwitch Control Extension will allow us to specify the color of each instance of the Button.

At this time, there is no other documentation anywhere describing how to create a LightSwitch Control Extension that is of type Command (used for Buttons)…

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.

When you write code in the LightSwitch client layer, you have programmatic access to most of the application. This also applies when you use Silverlight Custom Controls. This is important because it saves you from writing a lot of code. A professional developer can be far more productive when creating a LightSwitch application than when they are coding a Silverlight application without using LightSwitch.

You have the option of Running a LightSwitch Application With A Blank Shell....

The LightSwitchHelpWebsite.com now has multiple bloggers. I realized that the Tags menu is really the only way for people to find past Blogs.



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Hierarchical data is usually used to display data in a tree. The data typically is in a single table that is self-referencing, meaning it has one property that points to other records in the same table. This is how it is able to track the parent-child relationship between records. A Tree Control is usually used to visualize hierarchical data.

Karol Zadora-Przylecki (Microsoft) created an example, and included important code required by LightSwitch when using a Silverlight Tree Control. You can see the original post here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/lsextensibility/thread/bcdaa86f-459a-47d3-853a-3c5e56eb088a. In this article, we will follow the concepts outlined by that post.

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

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,...

If you are not a Silverlight programmer, LightSwitch is still easy to use. You just need to use LightSwitch Control Extensions. It is important to note the difference between a Silverlight Custom Control, and a LightSwitch Control Extension.

Karol Zadora-Przylecki covers the difference in the article “Using Custom Controls to Enhance Your LightSwitch Application UI” (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lightswitch/archive/2011/01/13/using-custom-controls-to-enhance-lightswitch-application-ui-part-1.aspx).

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

Telerik has a differentiating LightSwitch control in their Rich Text Editor Control. It allows you to create compelling LightSwitch applications. It allows your end-users to create, import and export Microsoft Word documents. It also contains many other features.

In this example, we will build a small application that allows rich notes to be entered for people.

First, Install the Telerik controls...

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...

ComponentsOne’s OLAP For LightSwitch, is a “pivoting data analyzer” control that plugs into LightSwitch. It has been called the ‘Killer App’ for LightSwitch.



You can download the demo at this link:

http://www.componentone.com/SuperProducts/OLAPLightSwitch/



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So you have deployed your LightSwitch application and everything is running fine. Then you get an email that a user is unable to perform a function. The problem you now have is that this is a problem that you can only see in production. When you need to preform debugging of a LightSwitch application in production, you want to use Tracing.



Getting the Most Out of the Save Pipeline in Visual Studio LightSwitch by Dan Seefeldt (http://www.code-magazine.com/articleprint.aspx?quickid=1103071), is...

It is easy to create a LightSwitch application using your own custom user interface (UI), composed entirely of Silverlight Custom Controls. The article This Is How LightSwitch Does MVVM, covers the basics of how you bind Silverlight Custom Controls to LightSwitch Properties and Collections. The article at this link,...

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.