Say Hello to Visual Studio LightSwitch

by Evan Hutnick | Comments 16

Today Microsoft is releasing Visual Studio LightSwitch, a brand new platform for developing business applications based on Silverlight.  With LightSwitch you can quickly and easily develop applications without needing to know the nuts and bolts of what is happening under the hood, all with the ability to dive further into code and customizations to add the functionality that your end users require.

Both Telerik and I are pleased to announce that we are releasing a series of Hands on Labs that help professional Silverlight developers get up to speed with this new platform and how you can utilize the Telerik RadControls for Silverlight to further enhance your LightSwitch applications.  From RadGridView with an included RadBulletGraph to RadChart to the RadMaskedInput Suite, these labs will walk you through adding our controls step-by-step including examples of how to integrate with the data model exposed by LightSwitch via the Silverlight binding system.  Whether you're an experienced Silverlight developer or looking to get involved with this new platform and add enhanced functionality, we've got you covered with this series.

The following labs are available for download today on our LightSwitch page:

  • Adding RadGridView to your LightSwitch Application
  • Extending RadGridView with RadBulletGraph
  • Enable Editing in RadBulletGraph
  • Adding RadChart to your LightSwitch Application (20+ chart types available)
  • Adding RadRichTextBox to your LightSwitch Application
  • Adding RadMaskedInput Controls to your LightSwitch Application (4 input options)
  • Adding RadCoverFlow to your LightSwitch Application
  • Adding RadGauge to your LightSwitch Application

And I've got a few more in the works as well!  If you have any requests for other controls you'd like to see guidance for, hit me up in the comments, on Twitter, or drop me a line at hutnick at Telerik.com and I'll get working on them!

If you just so happen to be new to the Telerik RadControls for Silverlight, check out the demos to see the full potential of these controls in action.  If you see something that you like on the demos, try extending one of the samples above to include that feature, and if you run into any issues feel free to contact me or visit our community forums to brainstorm some solutions.

About the author

Evan Hutnick

Evan Hutnick

works as a Developer Evangelist for Telerik specializing in Silverlight and WPF in addition to being a Microsoft MVP for Silverlight. After years as a development enthusiast in .Net technologies, he has been able to excel in XAML development helping to provide samples and expertise in these cutting edge technologies. You can find him on Twitter @EvanHutnick.

Posted in: silverlight hands-on-lab lightswitch

16 Comments

Supreet
Would love to see if you can create one with scheduler :)
dpj
I second the request for a demo using Scheduleview.
Evan
Hey folks,
Sounds like a plan.  Already have basic functionality (create, edit, delete) working, just need to extend it to include all properties, like resources, categories, importance, etc.
Will post an update once it is available. 
-Evan
bullet
How about one with Rad Rich Textbox with data binding to a LightSwitch Table
falkao
For ScheduleView you do need a ViewModel so that LS data and user control (XAML) do integrate. It's rather straight forward to implement it as data used by ScheduleView are observable collections. You have however to wrap ScheduleView events to ViewModel commands so that data from DB can be retrieved and updated.
Evan
Bullet- That RRTB request is already in the research phase, had a similar suggestion from one of the testers on these labs.
Keep the requests coming folks! :)
Steve Rouse
How about a shell extension, using the outlook bar, with maybe the ribbonview to replace the current one! Just a thought.
AUd
Do let us know when the Scheduleview will be ready. Thanks
falkao
Any ideas to turn some of the SL controls into LightSwitch Extensions?
Evan
Hey Falkao, right now the focus is on providing professional guidance to developers looking to leverage the full power of our RadControls for Silverlight suite (and a few other things in the works ^_^).  Down the road we're going to evaluate further support for extensions, shells, and themes, but right now it's all about guidance to help developers utilize our controls in any way they see fit (i.e., extensions will always be somewhat stripped down because you don't have the full ability to customize and modify the controls however you choose). 
Truong Pham
Evan. Have you got any idea on use Docking with LightSwitch?
Evan
In theory Docking would be better suited for a shell extension, since it would allow for dragging/dropping/positioning of screens as the user sees fit all while following the LightSwitch application model.  Placing Docking into a LightSwitch screen itself would be crossing the boundaries between LS and the full-blown Silverlight, and if you require that type of complexity in a single screen you may want to lean more towards a Silverlight application as you'll be doing more hacking against the LS model than working with it.
Truong Pham
But LS have advantage on create windows and dialog which save us a lot of time. As my strategy ,I will use LS to create all window afterthat I will change to Visual Studio to adjust as my expect. But is there possible to convert between Silverlight window and Silverlight user control. because Telerik DockWindow accept user control only?
Bilal Haidar
Any updates on integrating ScheduleView in LightSwitch?
Thanks
Samuel
Have a look at the following product provides Docking and Navigation capabilities within LightSwitch for Telerik. 
www.softlandingcanada.com

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