Untitled

Microsoft Visual Studio
LightSwitch Business
Application Development
A jump-start guide to application development with
Microsoft's Visual Studio LightSwitch
Jayaram Krishnaswamy
professional expertise distilled
P U B L I S H I N G
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Business
Application Development
Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book
is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: September 2011
Production Reference: 1050911
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849682-86-2
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by David Gimenez (bilbaorocker@yahoo.co.uk)
Credits
Author
Jayaram Krishnaswamy
Reviewers
Mohit Chakraborty
Project Coordinator
Zainab Bagasrawala
Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Mihail Alexandrov Mateev
Proofreader
Acquisition Editor
Jacqui McGhee
Dhwani Devater
Graphics
Development Editor
Nilesh Mohite
Dhwani Devater
Production Coordinator
Technical Editors
Melwyn D'sa
Mohd. Sahil
Prashant Macha
Sakina Kaydawala
Copy Editor
Kriti Sharma
Cover Work
Melwyn D'sa
About the Author
Jayaram Krishnaswamy studied at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore
India and Madras University in India and taught at the Indian Institute of
Technology in Madras. He went to Japan on the basis of Japanese Ministry of
Education Research scholarship to complete his PhD in Electrical Engineering
from Nagoya University. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Sydney University in
Australia; a Government of India Senior Scientific Officer at the Indian Institute
of Science in Bangalore and Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur; a Visiting
Scientist at the Eindhoven Institute of Technology in the Netherlands; a Visiting
Professor of Physics at the Federal University in Brazil; an Associate Research
Scientist at a government laboratory in Sao Jose dos Campos in Sao Paulo, Brazil;
a visiting scientist at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada before
coming to the USA in 1985. He has also taught and worked at the Colorado State
University in Fort Collins and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North
Carolina. He worked with the Northrop Grumman Corporation on a number of
projects related to high energy electron accelerators / Free Electron Lasers. These
projects were undertaken at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island,
NY and in the Physics Department at Princeton University, NJ. He has over 80
publications in refereed and non-refereed publications and eight issued patents.
He is fluent in Japanese and Portuguese and lives in Plainsboro, New Jersey, USA.
He is also an affiliate of the IEEE Computer Society and a Member of the American
Physical Society.
He has been working in IT-related fields since 1997. He was once a Microsoft
Certified Trainer in Networking and a Siebel Certified developer. He has worked
with several IT related companies, such as the Butler International in their Siebel
practice; with several IBM sub-contractors and smaller companies. Presently he
is active in writing technical articles in the IT field to many online sites such as
CodeProject.com, APSFree.com, DevShed.com, DevArticles.com, OfficeUsers.org,
ASPAlliance.com, Egghead Café, SSWUG.org, Packt Article Network, databasedev.
co.uk, cimaware.com, and many others. Between 2006 and 2010 he wrote more
than 400 articles mostly related to database and web related technologies covering
Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, ColdFusion, Sun and other vendor products. He has
also written two Microsoft Business Intelligence related books for Packt and a
book on Microsoft SQL Azure. He regularly writes to his four blogs on Blogger;
http://hodentek.blogspot.com; http://hodentekHelp.blogspot.com; http://
hodentekMSSS.blogspot.com; and http://hodentekMobile.blogspot.com. He
recently received Microsoft's Microsoft Community Contributor award for 2011.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Packt Publishing for giving me this opportunity to write a book
for the fourth time and for their continuing encouragement. Dhwani Devater, the
Senior Acquisition Editor for enterprise books, and my early contact for this book
was most helpful and without her guidance and meticulous editing, this book would
not have been possible. I am most grateful for her advice which she gave generously
every step of the way.
I would like to thank Zainab Bagasrawala, the Project Coordinator, for having
monitored the flow of correspondence successfully and for her timely reminders.
I also would like to thank Dhwani Devater the Development Editor for this book
for her valuable input and pointers which have added great value to the book. I
would also like to thank the technical editors, Mohd. Sahil, Prashant Macha, and
Sakina Kaydawala, in addition to many others at Packt. I also would like to thank
Priya Mukherjee, the Project Manager at Packt for guiding me through the contract
process, the very first step in writing this book. I thank my son for reading through
the initial chapters and making suggestions and picking out errors.
I sincerely thank the reviewers, Mihail Mateev (http://blogs.infragistics.com/
blogs/mihail_mateev/default.aspx) of Infragistics a major third-party developer
for LightSwitch, and Mohit Chakraborty (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/
Profile/mohit%20chakraborty?type=forum) of Microsoft. Their close association
with LightSwitch and their deep knowledge of this product has enormously
added value to my book that I can only humbly and sincerely acknowledge. Their
pointed questions; their thorough reading of the manuscript; their corrections and
well directed advice has made portions of this book more readable and clear. I'm
appreciative of the efforts they have put in for this book.
I would like to thank my parents who would have shared my joy. I thank my
brothers (Gopal and Vijay) and sisters, and the whole-hearted support of our
Subbagiri family. I cannot sufficiently thank my wife Michiko Fukumoto, my son
Krishna Jayaram and his wife Jannet Jayaram for their continuous encouragement.
Last but not the least I would like to thank Microsoft Corporation for making
available evaluation software and allowing me to participate in their various
events live as well as on the Web. I am most indebted to the MSDN forums,
especially Visual Studio LightSwitch and Extensibility forums and their
moderators ,both Microsoft and otherwise, and the various forum participants
from whom I have received unstinted support.
About the Reviewers
Mihail Mateev is a senior software development engineer in Infragistics Inc. He
worked as a Software developer and team leader on WPF and Silverlight Line of
Business production lines of the company. Now he works like a Technical evangelist
in the Infragistics. Mihail is also a consultant for the products of Infragistics, related
to Visual Studio LightSwitch .
Mihail worked in various areas related to technology with Microsoft: Silverlight,
WPF, Windows Phone 7, Visual Studio LightSwitch, WCF RIA Services, MS SQL
Server and Windows Azure.
Mihail did presentations for .Net and Silverlight user groups in Bulgaria. He has
experience with GIS system over .Net framework. He worked for more than five
years in ESRI Bulgaria as a Software developer and a trainer. For several years
Mihail lectures about Geographic Information Systems in the Sofia University "St.
Kliment Ohridski", Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics. Mihail is also a lecturer
of Computer Systems in the University of the Architecture, Civil Engineering and
Geodesy in Sofia at Computer Aided Engineering Department. Mihail holds Master's
degrees in Structural Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Informatics.
Over the past ten years, Mihail has written articles for Bulgarian Computer World
magazine and blogs about .Net technologies. He is a contributor to "Professional
Silverlight 4 (Willey)" and a reviewer of "Developing Business Applications
with Visual Studio LightSwitch" (PACKT Publishing).
Thanks to Jason Beres—VP of Product Management, Community,
and Evangelism at Infragistics, who proposed the possibility to
starting of deal with LightSwitch.
Thanks to Matt Van Horn (former Sr. Consultant at Infragistics, now
a Sr. Consultant with Capax Global), who helped me to get into
detail in LightSwitch shells.
Thanks to Dean Guida—CEO and President of Infragistics, who gave
me the opportunity to work for Infragistics and become consultant
for LightSwitch-related products.
Mohit Chakraborty is a developer in the Visual Studio LightSwitch team. His
work primarily focuses on the project system, build, and debugging experience and
the extensibility system.
Before joining the current team he worked on developing Microsoft's Backup and
recovery solution called Data Protection Manager. Before that he worked for Trilogy
India where he worked on a Business Intelligence solution for the auto industry.
Mohit has done his M.Tech. in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras in 2004.
Dedicated to my late father to whom I owe everything. His life is an
inspiration to all.