Visual Studio LightSwitch: Part 1

Building Modern, HTML5 Based Business Apps on Windows Azure with Visual Studio LightSwitch.

Basics Of LightSwitch

LightSwitch | Introduction

• LightSwitch is nothing but a development environment in Visual Studio for building data-based business oriented applications and data services quickly and more comfortably.
• It is easy to get handled because what you need to write is only the code for the business logic.
• LightSwitch provides a roadmap for the application as its needs and user base logic.

LightSwitch | Features

• It provides a flexible deployment model
• You can publish it on Windows Azure or Office-365
• Supportive environment

LightSwitch | Functionalities

It provides generally these 3 major functionalities:

1. Mobile Web Business Applications
   
   
   • Optimized for touch
   • Runs on platforms like iOS, Android, WP8, WinRT
   • Default screen templates
   • Multiple form factors
   • No code experience with default temps
   
   
   
   
2. Desktop Business Applications
   
   • Optimized environment
   • Suitable for heavy data entry
   • Mouse & Keyboard scenarios
   • Legacy app integration
   • Default screen temps
   • No-code experience with default temps
     
     
     
3. Hosting
   
   • Office-365 / SharePoint 2013
   • Infrastructure for app access
   • Organizational identity
   • Lifecycle Management
   • Provider hosting (Azure/ IIS)
   • Flexible operational infrastructure options
   • Leverage experiences
     
     
     

Visual Studio 2012 | LightSwitch Key Features

HTML Client

• Responsive design supports, framework design, architectural based design supports multiple from factors produces single page application, it is also known as SPAs.
• Streamlined screen creation and navigation
• Responsive command bars
• Popup and screens as dialogs for user interaction
• Semantic types

SharePoint 2013 Applications

• Connect to SharePoint 2013 lists as entities
• Access SharePoint assets through CSOM
• Auto hosted deployment
• SharePoint office-365

LightSwitch | Performance

The main performance issues of LightSwitch are:



App Load

• Minification
• Static compression

OData

• Reduce payload size
• Managing JSON files

LightSwitch | Extended Features

• Localize app on multiple languages
• Globalization
• LINQ Queries
• Data Workspaces
• Server application context

Next Article: Visual Studio LightSwitch: Part 2