[UPDATE: 28-MAY-2012] Released VS2012 RC version http://xpert360.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/xpert360-lightning-fusion-ce-for-vs2012-rc-released/ in Visual Studio Gallery: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c3774d50-a695-4a89-a8d0-6f0b55711ad9?SRC=Home.
[UPDATE: 22-MAY-2012] VS2012 RC version passed tests today and will be packaged and uploaded for preview to VS Gallery as soon as possible. LightSwitch 2011 version needs final tests running. Just back from a great UKWAUG Microsoft Cloud Day London so taking some refreshment.
Here in our Xpert360 development labs we have been busy prototyping, designing, building and testing companion products for Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 and 2012 RC.
When you try these products you will know why we consider them to be the essential LightSwitch companions. We are very excited by these tools and just don’t know how we ever managed without them.
We would like to dedicate the LightSwitch Screen Clone feature to the Microsoft LightSwitch Team who are continuing to enhance and deliver arguably the most awesome RAD platform.
Lightning Series FUSION – Contact entity in the prototype companion designer.
Take the following default LightSwitch List Detail screen for the Contacts entity served-up by the Lightning Series for Dynamics CRM Online data adapter. This entity has more than 150 properties and is unwieldly to manage in the standard IDE.
Default ListDetail screen for Dynamics CRM Online Contacts
After investing some 15 minutes frantically deleting, clicking and dragging items around in the LightSwitch screen design we are now approaching a half-usable screen design.
LightSwitch screen in design undergoes many iterations and there is no undo function!
We just invested considerable effort (in LightSwitch timescales!) modifying this read-only screen and we need a similar screen that allows the end-users to edit some of the Contact’s properties. Start again? No, just clone it!
Lightning Series Fusion – Clone Screen Menu Item
Click to reload the LightSwitch LSML files and a few quick edits…
FUSION – Cloned Screen generated and modified in a couple of minutes
- Add LightSwitch screen – 10 seconds
- Re-design screen – 15 minutes
- Clone screen – 10 seconds
- Time saved – priceless!
Community edition coming to your LightSwitch IDE desktop very soon!
So you got this far, still reading. I think I’ve got that friday feeling #FF so lets tease you some more. What if… I could transfer screens between projects. Why not include queries, entites and all my settings. What if… I could generate documentation, compare projects, mass generate screens, mass change property attributes, apply templates, localise my application in a few clicks. Yes, these are the things LightSwitch dreams are made of. What else would you want to do? What a wonderful LightSwitch world it would be! Coming soon too…
Awesome! Can’t wait to try these out. And thanks for the dedication
-Beth, LightSwitch Team
Thanks Beth. We would like to send you a preview next week. We did want to include support for HTML client screens but unfortunately we don’t have our hands on the new LSML/XML yet!
I want this, yesteday!
Like the enthusiasm! We decided to wait for the VS2012 RC as you can’t keep waiting for ever
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Please, what is available to explain the new LSML/XML?
Nothing! We spent considerable time to understand and manipulate it all. Until VS2012 hits RTM and the HTML Client LSML changes become clearer than we are not planning to spend time documenting much.