LightSwitch Desktop Application

Introduction:

In this article, we shall see how to create a LightSwitch Desktop application. The LightSwitch applications are introduced for creating a line of business applications, which are more data-centric. 

Creating LightSwitch Project:

 Start the VS 2010, Select the LightSwitch from Installed Templates and select the LightSwitch Application as shown below.

Give the name for project as SampleLSWindowsApplication.

Setting the Desktop Application:

            After successful creation of LS project go to the Solution Explorer. Right Click the Solution and select the Properties option.

 

 

In the properties window you have to select the Application Type Menu Tab. In the Application Type Menu Tab, there will be three types of LightSwitch Application types. To create the Desktop Application [Windows Application] we have to select the first option i.e. Desktop client, 2-tier deployment.

Adding DataSource to the LS Application:

After creating project, the first screen that appears is the DataSource selection screen.

In that screen, we have to select the Create New Table option to create the new table.

              

The second option is for creating the application that will be using the data source from previously designed.

Adding Fields to Table:

After creating table, we have to add the fields to the table. The LightSwitch gives the nice GUI to create the fields required. We can set the field type and can set the required field option by selecting the checkbox.

Adding Screens to the Application:

Adding screens to the application is pretty cool. Just go to the solution explorer and there you can see the Screen folder like icon. Right click the icon and choose the Add Screen option.

We can add the screens from tab tabbed window also. The below image shows the option to add screens from tabbed windows.

Selecting Screen Template and Assigning Screen Data:

For designing the screen, there are some screen templates available in the VS 2010. So that we can select the screen template for our application. In this sample application, we have selected List and Details Screen.

The table for the screen has been listed in the Screen data combo box. If we have created more than one table then we have to select the appropriate table.

After setting, the Table for the Screen our Light Switch application is ready for execution.

As our LightSwitch is data-centric business applications, the same basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) operations will be available as menus.

 

In this screen, we are having ADD, EDIT, DELETE and REFRESH buttons. Designing the screen will take some more time. We will see the Screen design for LightSwitch in the next article.

Summary:

In this article, simply we have been leant something basic steps to create a LightSwitch Desktop Application.

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