Slides and sample code from my .NET RIA Services webcast
A few weeks back we had an MSDN Live Meeting around .NET RIA Services. During the webcast I was using a sample database with some restaurant (dummy) data and accessing that data.
Update:
Sample code
The sample is using a Silverlight Navigation Application, which itself can be used without the .NET RIA Services. There is a demo database, sample code for retrieving data into a datagrid, editing data through a DataForm, validation, using a new theme, etc.
You can download the sample code and slides from the links below.
Pre-requisites
If you want to play around with this sample and get going with .NET RIA Services you will need the following on your machine:
- Get the pre-requisite Silverlight 3 software through the Microsoft Web Platform – or check out the Get Started page on silverlight.net site
- Download Microsoft .NET RIA Services July 2009 Preview
Session Q&A
Here’s also some answers to questions that came after the session.
French version of Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008
The French version that allows to install on a French Visual Studio version is available since the end of July 2009. Download link here.
At this stage there is not yet a French version of the .NET RIA services, and I don’t currently have a date for when this will be available.
Accessing styles
During the webcast I used one of the new skins available for Silverlight Navigation applications. You can find these in the Expression Gallery, see a sample of each in Tim Heuer’s blog post. After downloading the theme of your preference, copy the Styles.xaml file and save it to the /Assets folder of your Silverlight project. In my case I left the default Styles.xaml file and renamed the downloaded theme to Pink.xaml. Reference this resource file in the App.xaml file and you’ve got your theme change.
Silverlight 3 features
There were also some general questions around Silverlight 3 and out-of-browser applications. I recommend checking out the Silverlight 3 Overview page for a listing of features matrix on Silverlight 1, 2 and 3.
Recommended resources
- .NET RIA Services documentation, a must-read (available in PDF or Word format).
- Brad Abrams’ blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/brada/ (extremely good series of posts with lots of demos, a must-read)
- Brad Abrams’ session at MIX09: Building Amazing Business Centric Applications with Microsoft Silverlight 3
- Nikhil Kothari’s session at MIX09: .NET RIA Services - Building Data-Driven Applications with Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft ASP.NET
- .NET RIA Samples on MSDN Code Gallery
And don’t miss REMIX Belgium 2009 where the one and only Brad Abrams himself will be giving a session on .NET RIA Services. Other speakers joining are Adam Kinney, August de los Reyes and Arturo Toledo. Register in time!