Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Unleashed (Unleashed)

Microsoft® Visual Studio® LightSwitch® Unleashed

Alessandro Del Sole

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch represents a breakthrough in business application development for Windows clients, the Web, and the cloud. Using this new tool, you can build powerful data-centric applications with far less code than ever before. Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Unleashed is the first comprehensive, start-to-finish guide to this powerful new tool. Written by longtime Visual Basic expert and Microsoft MVP Alessandro Del Sole, this book covers everything Microsoft developers need to know to make the most of LightSwitch–from the absolute basics to the most advanced enterprise techniques.

You learn how to use LightSwitch to build modern, scalable, customized line-of-business applications that automatically leverage technologies such as Silverlight, WCF, and SQL Server Express with no effort or expertise on your part. Through hands-on examples, Del Sole guides you through building solutions that can integrate and analyze business information from virtually any source, crafting custom logic that solves your company’s unique problems, and delivering state-of-the-art usability through professional-quality user interfaces.

• Implement features such as screen navigation, data interaction, paging, and Excel export, with absolutely no coding
• Build simple data-centric applications and add power to them with relationships and details
• Rapidly create customized queries, filters, sorts, and reports
• Aggregate data from many locations, including SharePoint, SQL Server, and the cloud
• Simplify the implementation of application-level data validation
• Protect your applications with authentication and authorization
• Fine tune your code for scalability and performance
• Streamline deployment to local computers, web servers, and the Windows Azure cloud
• Use .NET code to define custom behaviors related to data and the user interface
• Understand how LightSwitch applications are architected and how they are handled by Visual Studio
• Use LightSwitch with other Visual Studio tools to manage the entire application life cycle
• Efficiently debug LightSwitch code–and create code that’s easier to debug

Category: Microsoft Programming

Covers: LightSwitch

User Level: Intermediate—Advanced

ON THE WEB:

Download all examples and source code presented in this book as they are available from informit.com/title/9780672335532

• The first book on Microsoft's Visual Studio LightSwitch - a breakthrough in data-centric application development for everyone from experts to novices
• From the absolute basics to advanced deployment, security, and customization techniques
• By Microsoft MVP Alessandro Del Sole, one of the world's most respected and well-known Visual Basic experts

Microsoft's new Visual Studio LightSwitch represents a breakthrough in data-centric application development for Windows clients, the web, and the cloud. Using it, developers of all levels of experience can build powerful data-centric applications with little or no new code. Visual Studio LightSwitch Unleashed is the first comprehensive, start-to-finish guide to this powerful new development tool. Written by Visual Basic expert and Microsoft MVP Alessandro Del Sole, this book covers everything developers need to know to make the most of LightSwitch - from the absolute basics to the most advanced enterprise techniques. Packed with examples and tips, it shows how to: " Build simple data-centric applications, and add power with Relationships and Details screens " Implement customized queries, filters, sorts, user controls, and reporting " Aggregate data from multiple sources " Handle events in code " Efficiently debug LightSwitch applications " Use authentication to secure LightSwitch applications " Write custom .NET code in Visual Studio .NET to enhance your applications " Customize and extend LightSwitch to do even more

Alessandro Del Sole has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Visual Basic since 2008. He is well known throughout the global Visual Basic community worldwide. He is a community leader on the Italian Visual Basic Tips & Tricks website (more than 44,100 developers) and on the LightSwitch Tips & Tricks website. He is a frequent contributor to the Visual Basic Developer Center on MSDN and the author of many articles about .NET development. The author of five technical books, Alessandro was awarded MVP of the Year for Visual Basic in 2009 and 2010.

Part I. Building Applications with LightSwitch

1. Introducing Visual Studio LightSwitch

2. Exploring the IDE

3. Building Data-centric Applications with LightSwitch

4. Building More Complex Applications with Relationships and Details Screens

Part II. Manipulating Data

5. Customizing Data Validation

6. Querying, Filtering and Sorting data

7. Customizing Applications with User Controls

8. Implementing Reporting and Printing Features

9. Aggregating Data from Different Data Sources

Part III. Advanced LightSwitch

10. Handling Events in Code

11. Dissecting a LightSwitch Application

12. Advanced LightSwitch with Visual Studio 2010

13. Debugging LightSwitch Applications

Part IV. Securing and Deploying Applications

14. Implementing Authentication

15. Deploying LightSwitch Applications

Part V. Extending the Development Environment

16. Customizing the IDE

17. Downloading and installing Extensions

18. Creating and Sharing LightSwitch Shell Extensions

Appendix A. Installing and Configuring Visual Studio LightSwitch