Visual Studio LightSwitch How Do I Videos

I’ve done my fair share of How Do I videos over the years, particularly on Visual Basic and related technologies. And even though I really don’t like hearing the sound of my own voice (who is that? ;)) I do love teaching. I also love doing How Do I videos for LightSwitch because the tool really lends itself well to short 5-10 minute videos. I’ll be working on more of them this week and will release them weekly. For now, enjoy the first 5 that we released yesterday on the LightSwitch Developer Center.

These videos are meant to be watched in order because each one builds on the last one. If you are familiar with the old Windows Forms Over Data series I did a few years ago, the application will be familiar to you because we build out the same tables and fields for a simple order management system in this series. It’s amazing how much farther along we get in this series building the application with LightSwitch instead.

• #1 - How Do I: Define My Data in a LightSwitch Application?
• #2 - How Do I: Create a Search Screen in a LightSwitch Application?
• #3 - How Do I: Create an Edit Details Screen in a LightSwitch Application?
• #4 - How Do I: Format Data on a Screen in a LightSwitch Application?
• #5 - How Do I: Sort and Filter Data on a Screen in a LightSwitch Application?

In the next few videos I’m going to tackle Custom Validation, Master-Detail forms, Lookup Tables, and some more advanced Queries.

Enjoy!

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2010
  Love your videos.  Thank you so much.  I would love to see getting role based permissions to work, and how to troubleshoot possible problems.  

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2010
  Well done! LS seems to be as sweet as Oreos :-)

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2010
  Thanks for the videos, most helpful. I also would like to see some examples using permissions. Perhaps demonstrate some logic to show alternative create/edit dialogs dependent on the current role? In fact just authentication in general as I can't figure out how to actually authenticate.

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2010
  Another one which will crop up a lot: de-normalizing entities. Developing typical LOB applications when working with highly normalized data sources is quite difficult. Take for instance an invoicing app. The user must be able to create invoices using a form which looks like a printed invoice. The top half shows the summary with typical address & reference fields. The bottom half shows the detail consisting of product, description, type, quantity etc. The data is stored in the following hierarchy: invoice -> invoice detail -> product -> product type. Additionally there would be an address, so invoice -> customer to consider. Most samples demonstrating LOB apps use fairly de-normalized data so they are easy to understand. But LS will be targeted at beginners - like myself - who will have to work with normalized sources. Creating sample application of this type will help people to understand not only LS but also the Entity Framework. Thank you.

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2010
  Sorry for multiple postings. I didn't see the banner at the top :(

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2010
  Hi Beth. Great videos. Very clearer and easier. Thanks a lot.

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2010
  i am waiting for the next video.. when the video release ?

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2010
  Thanks all, I'll add these suggestions to the list. I'm working on the next few this week and hope to have them published next week. BTW, Niel/JohnB check out this topic on how to set up and use security roles: msdn.microsoft.com/.../ff851957.aspx

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2010
  Very helpful, but at 1:31 on video #2 you say 'hit a five'(? I think) and the screen is generated. I couldn't understand what you said or where the mouse went. Can you help me with this? Sorry and thanks.

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2010
  I really want to improved my skills as system developer, thanks for the tutorial beth...

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2010
  Sorry, I figured out that you said F5, it wasn't a mouse action.

• Anonymous
  August 26, 2010
  Hi Les, yes I said "F5" that's the build and debug action in Visual Studio. You can also press the "play" button the the on the toolbar to start debugging. I will try to make it clearer in the rest of the videos. I'm working on a couple more today and wi'll get them published next week.

• Anonymous
  August 26, 2010
  Thank you Beth, I really appreciate what you are doing! It's been about 20 years since I did much programming, in Foxpro. With your series it's beginning to come back. I'm glad I didn't go much beyond 'dabbling' since, procrastination paid once again!

• Anonymous
  August 27, 2010
  I would like to point LightSwitch to Azure Dallas...<HELP>

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 07, 2010
  You are really creative I heard a very interesting lessons Thank you to MS.Beth Massi Please, will you be new lessons?

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2010
  hi, i have a question, why lightswitch dosen't allow one to use keywords like "class" in their tables as a field in database. is there a way around ???

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2011
  Hi, Thanks for these interessant topics. I got a new laptop (Windows 7 , 64 bits, Visual Studio 2010 Premium) and when I try to install LightSwitch, I get the following error: [03/04/11,11:24:30] setup.exe: [2] ISetupComponent::Pre/Post/Install() failed in ISetupManager::InternalInstallManager() with HRESULT -2147023293. [03/04/11,11:24:34] SimpleUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta Edition - ENU is not installed. [03/04/11,14:35:48] setup.exe: [2] ISetupComponent::Pre/Post/Install() failed in ISetupManager::InternalInstallManager() with HRESULT -2147023293. [03/04/11,14:35:51] SimpleUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta Edition - ENU is not installed. [03/04/11,14:48:44] setup.exe: [2] ISetupComponent::Pre/Post/Install() failed in ISetupManager::InternalInstallManager() with HRESULT -2147023293. [03/04/11,14:48:47] SimpleUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta Edition - ENU is not installed. [03/04/11,14:50:51] setup.exe: [2] ISetupComponent::Pre/Post/Install() failed in ISetupManager::InternalInstallManager() with HRESULT -2147023293. [03/04/11,14:50:53] SimpleUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta Edition - ENU is not installed. I have already desinstalled SilverLight and tried again to install LightSwith, but it didn't work, I got the same error. Any help will appreciated Thanks

• Anonymous
  September 04, 2011
  I am really like your lessons , thanks for your efforts.

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2014
  Lightswitch 2012 project failed to publish when using SQL Server EXPRESS 2012 when I Publish the Database Schema Hi again. As long as I stay with sql servwe 2008 r2 , there is no problem publishing. But try to use the same vs 2012 with sql server 2012 express and I get the following error when I when I Publish the Database Schema. Of course, without publishing the schema, it fails on the login scrren. THIS WORKS WELL WITH sql server 2008. An exception occurred when deploying the d. atabase for the application. Errors occurred while modeling the target database.  Deployment can not continue. error is in: C:Program Files (x86)MSBuildMicrosoftVisualStudioLightSwitchv3.0Publishv1.8Microsoft.LightSwitch.Publish.targets My guess is there is incompatible versions of code running together, so here is the platform a) vs 2012 regular b) sql server 2012 express (sp2) c) WPI inststalled d) LightSwitch for Visual Studio 2012 - Server Configuration with local SQL. (note: there is the run time for 2012 on machine too)