Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Unleashed

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

Table of Contents

Part I: Building Applications with LightSwitch
Chapter 1. Introducing Visual Studio LightSwitch 1
Chapter 2. Exploring the IDE
Chapter 3. Building Data-Centric Applications
Chapter 4. Building More-Complex Applications with Relationships and Details Screens

Part II: Manipulating Data
Chapter 5. Customizing Data Validation
Chapter 6. Querying, Filtering, and Sorting Data
Chapter 7. Customizing Applications with Buttons, COM Automation, and Extensions
Chapter 8. Aggregating Data from Different Data Sources

Part III: Securing and Deploying Applications
Chapter 9. Implementing Authentication and Authorization
Chapter 10. Deploying LightSwitch Applications

Part IV: Advanced LightSwitch
Chapter 11. Handling Events in Code
Chapter 12. Dissecting a LightSwitch Application
Chapter 13. Advanced LightSwitch with Visual Studio 2010
Chapter 14. Debugging LightSwitch Applications

Part V: Extensibility
Chapter 15. Customizing the IDE
Chapter 16. Customizing Applications with Custom Controls
Chapter 17. Implementing Printing and Reporting
Chapter 18. LightSwitch Extensibility: Themes, Shells, Controls, and Screens
Chapter 19. LightSwitch Extensibility: Data and Extension Deployment

Appendixes
Appendix A. Installing and Configuring Visual Studio LightSwitch
Appendix B. Useful Resources