LightSwitch Screen Template – Browse Data Tabs

Xpert360Lightning.WebExtensions

The HTML Browse Tabs screen template is part of a collection of advanced screen templates for Visual Studio LightSwitch HTML Client and Cloud Business Apps (see below).

New Screens in Office Azure Dark Theme

The Xpert360Lightning,WebExtensions extension is bundled with AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio for now and is not available separately though this may change (see below for more information).

See the new Screen Templates in action >

Browse Data Tabs Screen Template

The purpose of this template is to provide a means of generating a browse screen showing multiple collections of data in separate tabs. This style of screen is useful as a hub screen for navigation. During development, especially when prototyping, this screen allows you to build hubs with automatically configured tap-through navigation links. Whether used in prototyping or the final app using screens generated from this template will save you substantial time over using the standard templates.

Design-Time

The template is accessible from the ‘Add New Screen’ dialog.

Design-Time Screen generated from BrowseDataTabs
Template

The default screen name is ‘BrowseDataTabs’. There is no need to select screen data in the main dialog as the template has its own template wizard dialog to choose data collections and configure the screen options.

Select data in Browse Data Tabs template wizard

Generate screens as navigation hubs with automatically configured item-tap handlers to default screens or auto-discovered view or maintenance screens.

Add New Screen – BrowseDataTabs

The screen is generated with one tab for each selected entity-set collection. If you choose a parameter-driven custom query then the tab will be a simple filterable collection. With appropriately designed custom queries this makes for easy generation of searchable list, tile and grid views that are working straight after generation. Screens generated using the standard Browse Data template require manual customization before working.

If you choose any option for item-tap navigation then the navigation through to other screens will be pre-configured for you. This works best if the ‘View’ and ‘AddAndEdit’ style screens are created beforehand. You can pre-select a default screen for any entity-type to pre-determine the navigation links when there is more than one possible screen to display an entity-type.

Your choice of collection views is generated so if you prefer to generally use a tile-view or grid-view then choose that. The standard template is only a list-view. As with all LightSwitch screens you are free to customize it once generated.

The supporting JavaScript code is generated for you where appropriate.

Run-Time

The screen displays the browsable data tabs with query filters where appropriate. A typical screen will look like this:

Sample Browse Data Tabs Screen with grid-view

The drill-through navigation to details screens is automatically wired-up and works be they modal-dialogs or SPA window-based screens.

Browse Data Tabs with Navigation

The collection views can be easily adjusted to list, tile or grid after the screen is generated.

Browse Data Tabs grid-view sporting Office Blue theme

Any tabs for filterable custom queries will be generated with enterable filter parameters to start you off with a simple working search/filterable collection.

Browse Data Tab with Filterable Query

There you have it, a Browse Data Tabs screen template that generates useful hub-style navigation screens, saving you oodles of time.

Plans

There are plans to improve this template. We explored the idea of using an advanced configuration mode to choose the view type per data tab/collection. We are considering introducing more views to the existing three.

We will review this template taking into account any feedback.

Screen Templates

We are open to the idea of providing advanced screen templates for all LightSwitch client types though the initial focus is on the MobileWeb client. We are currently working on new screen templates to expand this collection.

HTML Screen Templates

The LightSwitch client only has 3 basic default screen templates. This collection of templates is intended to provide screens with more functionality that require less manual changes to turn them into end product. The collection consists of:

Auto-Tile Menu Template

The screen generated from this template dynamically discovers all screens and creates a navigable menu. Functionality indicated by color-coding and icons. Ideal time-saver when used as your start screen during development or prototyping.

Browse Tabs Template

Similar to the in-built simple browse screen template but generating tabs based on multiple independent collections. Supports parameter-based queries to generate search pages. Choice of default collection views from tile view, list view and grid view. Implements tap-through navigation to entity type default screens or discovered view or maintenance screens.

Tablet List and Details Template

An essential a list-based master and details screen template to boost productivity. A cross between the in-built simple browse screen template and the Rich-Client based List and Details screen template. Generates an independently scrolling list view side-by-side with selected dual-column entity details data. Extended touch and keyboard support. Child collections in detail grids.  Automatic tap-through navigation to entity type default screens. Limits the number of master details and child details properties displayed for easier customization.

Mobile List and Details Template

Useful list-based master and details screen template for mobile devices. A cross between the in-built simple browse screen template and the Rich-Client based List and Details screen template. Generates an independently scrolling list view side-by-side with selected single-column entity details data. Extended touch and keyboard support. Generates child collections in tabs. Automatically configures tap-through navigation to entity type default screens. Limits the number of master details and child details properties displayed for easier customization.

Cloud Business Apps in VS2013

Visual Studio 2013 introduces a new application type called a Cloud Business App. This brings together LightSwitch RAD platform and Office 365.

LightSwitch, launched in 2010, simplifies the creation of line of business forms over data apps using a visual designer to manage app metadata. The original version created Silverlight clients, but it now supports responsive HTML clients. You can extend with code, using JavaScript/C#/VB on the client or C#/VB in the service layer. For more advanced extension and integration, LightSwitch projects easily integrate with other technologies and frameworks (ASP.NET Web API, MVC 5, Angular.js ...).

The Cloud Business App template adds SharePoint and Office 365 into the mix. The ease of use is improving as better integration arrives as other components such as the Windows Azure SDK catch up.

Will 2014 be a big year for Cloud Business Apps? Building LOB applications on Microsoft’s platform is in some respects harder and more complex today than it was a decade ago, and looking ahead, Office 365 and Azure are a strategic platform for Microsoft. Simplifying LOB app development and deployment to support diverse devices is surely a winner.

AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio

AIDE 2013 is the market leading set of productivity power tools for Cloud Business and LightSwitch applications. The only supported way to clone, import/export, local backup/restore screens and code. Visualize hard-to-access metadata to complement working with the standard LightSwitch designers.

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Failed upgrades, unloadable projects, old extensions, AIDE for LightSwitch will be there to help you through! Xpert360 consultants have real-world experience of reconstruction and resurrection of corrupt projects. Contact us if your need help troubleshooting your LightSwitch projects.

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Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, based upon three decades of IT experience, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning“, “AIDE for LightSwitch“, “AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2012 – 2014.

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LightSwitch Screen Template – Auto-Tile Menu

Xpert360Lightning.WebExtensions

The Auto-Tile Menu screen template is part of a collection of advanced screen templates for Visual Studio LightSwitch HTML Client and Cloud Business Apps (see below).

Auto-Tile Menu Screen in Orange Pastel theme

The Xpert360Lightning,WebExtensions extension is bundled with AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio for now and is not available separately though this may change (see below for more information).

See the new Screen Templates in action >

Auto-Tile Menu Screen Template

The purpose of this template is to provide a dynamic start menu for project development time. During development, especially when prototyping, this screen allows you to navigate to all screens in the app without continually having to manually configure navigation for browse-type screens. It may surprise you how much time you can save using this temporary starting page.

Design-Time

The template is accessible from the ‘Add New Screen’ dialog.

Add New Screen: Auto-Tile Menu

The default screen name is ‘AutoTileMenu’. There is no need to select screen data as this screen is generic. Add one instance per HTML client project and set your new menu screen as the start-up screen whenever you need it.

Design-Time Auto-Tile Menu Screen in LightSwitch

The screen is very simple and really only contains a custom control as the heavy-lifting is performed in the control’s render event. The supporting JavaScript code is generated for you. You are welcome to view the code and derive other screens from it if you wish. If you have any suggestions for more general improvement then please contact us.

Run-Time

The screen discovers all the screens available in the client app and creates a data collection based on what it finds. A tile is created for each screen and displayed in a familiar tile view that looks like this:

Office Brown Themed Auto-Tile Menu

The tiles are color-coded, have different icons and display the screen display name and the name of the first entity screen property.

Auto-Tile Menu Color-Coded Entity Types – Contractor

The JavaScript code dynamically allocates a color to each entity type so tiles with the same color are related by the first entity type property discovered in the screens. The color allocated to an entity type will change as you change the app’s screens. The above example shows all screens based on ‘Contractor’ entity colored purple.

Each tile has one of three icons allocated to it based upon whether the primary screen property is an entity-set, entity-type or no/scalar property.

Icons for Auto-Tile Menu – Collections

The above example highlights all the screens whose primary screen property is a collection (entity-set). These screens typically can be launched and function well without any parameters (but not always).

The tiles have a click event handler for tap-to-navigate and navigate to the appropriate screen.

Plans

There are no imminent plans to improve this template. We explored the idea of using more of the screen metadata and local storage to add more features. We looked at supporting screen parameters too but opted to keep the screen simpler for now. We will review this template later based on any feedback.

Screen Templates

We are open to the idea of providing advanced screen templates for all LightSwitch client types though the initial focus is on the MobileWeb client. We are currently working on new screen templates to expand this collection.

HTML Screen Templates

The LightSwitch client only has 3 basic default screen templates. This collection of templates is intended to provide screens with more functionality that require less manual changes to turn them into end product. The collection consists of:

Auto-Tile Menu Template

The screen generated from this template dynamically discovers all screens and creates a navigable menu. Functionality indicated by color-coding and icons. Ideal time-saver when used as your start screen during development or prototyping.

Browse Data Tabs Template

Similar to the in-built simple browse screen template but generating tabs based on multiple independent collections. Supports parameter-based queries to generate search pages. Choice of default collection views from tile view, list view and grid view. Implements tap-through navigation to entity type default screens or discovered view or maintenance screens.

Tablet List and Details Template

An essentially list-based master and details screen template. A cross between the in-built simple browse screen template and the Rich-Client based List and Details screen template. Generates an independently scrolling list view side-by-side with selected dual-column entity details data. Extended keyboard support. Generates child collections in detail grids.  Implements tap-through navigation to entity type default screens. Limits the number of master details and child details properties displayed for easier customization.

Mobile List and Details Template

Must have list-based master and details screen template for mobile devices. A cross between the in-built simple browse screen template and the Rich-Client based List and Details screen template. Generates an independently scrolling list view side-by-side with selected single-column entity details data. Extended touch and keyboard support. Generates child collections in tabs. Implements tap-through navigation to entity type default screens. Limits the number of master details and child details properties displayed for easier customization.

Cloud Business Apps in VS2013

Visual Studio 2013 introduces a new application type called a Cloud Business App. This brings together LightSwitch RAD platform and Office 365.

LightSwitch, launched in 2010, simplifies the creation of line of business forms over data apps using a visual designer to manage app metadata. The original version created Silverlight clients, but it now supports responsive HTML clients. You can extend with code, using JavaScript/C#/VB on the client or C#/VB in the service layer. For more advanced extension and integration, LightSwitch projects easily integrate with other technologies and frameworks (ASP.NET Web API, MVC 5, Angular.js ...).

The Cloud Business App template adds SharePoint and Office 365 into the mix. The ease of use is improving as better integration arrives as other components such as the Windows Azure SDK catch up.

Will 2014 be a big year for Cloud Business Apps? Building LOB applications on Microsoft’s platform is in some respects harder and more complex today than it was a decade ago, and looking ahead, Office 365 and Azure are a strategic platform for Microsoft. Simplifying LOB app development and deployment to support diverse devices is surely a winner.

AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio

AIDE 2013 is the market leading set of productivity power tools for Cloud Business and LightSwitch applications. The only supported way to clone, import/export, local backup/restore screens and code. Visualize hard-to-access metadata to complement working with the standard LightSwitch designers.

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Failed upgrades, unloadable projects, old extensions, AIDE for LightSwitch will be there to help you through! Xpert360 consultants have real-world experience of reconstruction and resurrection of corrupt projects. Contact us if your need help troubleshooting your LightSwitch projects.

ooo

Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, based upon three decades of IT experience, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning“, “AIDE for LightSwitch“, “AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2012 – 2014.

UK TechDays Online – November 6-8

TechDays Online – November 6-8: The final programme update! Featuring Steve Ballmer, Will Greenwood and the Lotus F1 team!

Complimentary session calendar here: TechDaysOnlineAutumn2013.ics

TechDays Session Calendar

Follow official twitter feed: @TechNetUK

Register for TechDays Online

Here is the Final programme update for each day of UK Tech.Days Online (Autumn 2013) from Wednesday November 6-8.

Don’t miss out!

Free LightSwitch Holiday Theme – Pumpkin

  Lightning Series – Pumpkin Theme

To celebrate the re-release of the  Xpert360 theme packs with VS2013 support, Xpert360 have released this free theme based around Halloween with spooky shades of pumpkin with witchy greens and blacks. This theme can be downloaded from here.

Pumpkin Theme

Pumpkin Theme Calendar

Nobody wants a Pumpkin Validation Error

The theme targets the LightSwitch Silverlight Client v2+ that comes with Visual Studio 2012 and 2013. It has been tested against the LightSwitch Cosmopolitan Shell and the LightSwitch Standard Shell.

Install Pumpkin Theme vsix to VS2012 and VS2013

We have an internal application to import, edit and generate LightSwitch themes to make the work a lot easier and faster. The Cosmopolitan theme contains references to more than 500 colors! The Theme Generator application is itself written in LightSwitch. The theme is free and can be obtained from the Visual Studio Extensions gallery. This is the gallery posting – Xpert360Lightning -Pumpkin Theme We hope you like it!

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Failed upgrades, unloadable projects, old extensions, AIDE for LightSwitch will be there to help you through! Xpert360 consultants have real-world experience of reconstruction and resurrection of corrupt projects. Contact us if your need help troubleshooting your LightSwitch projects.

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Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, based upon three decades of IT experience, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2012 – 2013.

Guide to VS2013 LightSwitch HTML Themes

Guide to VS2013 LightSwitch HTML Client Themes

LightSwitch HTML Themes, tweaks and Tools

Visual Studio 2013 was published on Friday 18th October 2013. This blog post is the anchor to a series of articles covering the A-Z of themes that we are editing and evolving over time.

This article is part of a series of posts from Xpert360 Development Team to address real world scenarios and problems faced when designing, creating and implementing Visual Studio LightSwitch applications. Brought to you by the original and genuine Power Tools for Visual Studio LightSwitch!

The LightSwitch HTML Client in VS2013 targets the jQuery Mobile framework and the themes are implemented as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Headers, Footers and Toolbars

Here is a HTML client application with a theme called ‘Orchard’. Notice the correct rendering of the header after adjusting msls-light-2.0.0.css and msls-2.0.0.js for swatch support. The LightSwitch implementation does not use the JQuery Mobile header classes by default. See this post:

VS2013 LightSwitch HTML Themes – Headers

LightSwitch HTML Client Orchard theme drag and drop list items

Selection List and Options

The HTML SELECT element is not easy to style and control through just CSS markup. For full control it is usual to use a custom control that mimics the SELECT element by using DIV’s and SPAN’s.

Styled LightSwitch HTML Choice List

The SELECT element popup is implemented outside of the browser. The blue selection rectangle is not controllable in CSS and by default your themes will always be black, white and blue. We will extend the theme mark-up to do better styling in LightSwitch as in the above screen shot.

Rounded Corners

The use of rounded corners in themes can be aesthetically pleasing. The LightSwitch themes need extending to properly support them.

Clipped text and rounded corners

The screen shots above show the adjusted rounded corner support.

Previewing LightSwitch Themes

We have an easy implementation of theme swapping and view port selection for different form factors.

Swatches

What are they and how can they be used in LightSwitch HTML applications.

Cloud Business Apps and Site Chrome

Creating dynamic themes and features to integrate with SharePoint and site chrome.

Mega-Theme Pack

It would not be complete without a theme starter pack. The preview containing 19 themes was released soon after the VS2013 in December 2013 and is currently available in a bumper bundle offer of AIDE 2013 for Visual Studio which also include a preview of 4 new Advanced Screen Templates.

The themes target jQuery Mobile and are not specific to LightSwitch. They are integrated into the Visual Studio IDE as new JavaScript Item Templates with supporting short descriptions and preview images. This extension supports VS2012 and VS2013. The themes are widely used in our other blog articles.

See this blog article: LightSwitch HTML Screen Template – Auto-Tile Menu

See this blog article: jQuery Mobile Themes suitable for LightSwitch Apps

Conclusions

The Visual Studio 2013 RTM was released in late 2013 and Xpert360 joined the party upgrading samples, themes, extensions and tools to support VS2013. We will take you through all the shortcuts and tweaks to give style to your LightSwitch HTML applications and Cloud Business Apps!

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Failed upgrades, unloadable projects, old extensions, AIDE for LightSwitch will be there to help you through! Xpert360 consultants have real-world experience of reconstruction and resurrection of corrupt projects. Contact us if your need help troubleshooting your LightSwitch projects.

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Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, based upon three decades of IT experience, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2012 – 2013.

News on Software Previews for Visual Studio 2013 LightSwitch

Preparations for the Launch of VS2013

When Visual Studio 2013 RTW is published (scheduled for Friday 18th October 2013), it will trigger a round of regression testing and final adjustments for third-party Visual Studio tool vendors.

Somasegar’s blog article announcing Visual Studio 2013 RC contains a good overview of key features if you are playing catch-up. At the end he mentions the official VS2013 Launch Party is scheduled for Wednesday 13th November 2013. You can see the countdown to launch ticking down there.

This article is part of a series of posts from Xpert360 Development Team to address real world scenarios and problems faced when designing, creating and implementing Visual Studio LightSwitch applications. Brought to you by the original and genuine Power Tools for Visual Studio LightSwitch!

Our product team is making steady progress towards releasing all our LightSwitch tools and extensions in the same timeframe as VS2013.

We needed to try some new VS2013 features and work through implementing some new features in AIDE for LightSwitch and the Xpert360 Lightning Dynamics CRM and Salesforce data adapters. We also needed to upgrade samples, themes and other extensions.

Working with multiple versions of Visual Studio side-by-side has gotten a lot easier over the years. We have machines with VS2012, VS2012 and VS2013 RC.

In this instance we needed to debug VS2012 VSIX extensions in the VS2013 RC experimental instance while testing LightSwitch VS2013  applications. Fortunately this works after a few adjustments to debug and VSIX settings.

VS2012 VS2013 LightSwitch family photo!

So here we have AIDE for LightSwitch running in debug in VS2012 Update 3 launching the VS2013 RC experimental instance then running a LightSwitch desktop application. We thought it was quite cool anyway.

Our LightSwitch Silverlight themes worked nicely with VS2013 Preview but not so with VS2013 RC. Our HTML CSS themes needed some work as the leap from VS2012 to VS2013 RC involved big changes in the LightSwitch HTML Client.

LightSwitch HTML Mobile Salesforce app in Office 365

We can see that not surprising some of the styling changed but here is a VS22013 RC LightSwitch HTML Client application deployed in Office 365 SharePoint on-line. The JQuery Mobile CSS theme was inspired by VS2012 IDE and sports rounded corners (no big deal really). The other interesting item here is the preview version of the soon to be released LightSwitch salesforce data adapter running in the Cloud.

Here is another HTML client application with a theme called ‘Orchard’. Notice the correct rendering of the header after adjusting msls-light-2.0.0.css and msls-2.0.0.js for swatch support.

LightSwitch HTML Client Orchard theme drag and drop list items

We are adding final touches to the first release of AIDE for LightSwitch for VS2013.

AIDE for LightSwitch Exchange Hub in VS2013 RC

There was more work to do for the Exchange Hub and Clone Screen due to the LightSwitch LSML structural changes. The LightSwitch Explorer is working well here:

AIDE for LightSwitch Explorer in VS2013 RC

The LightSwitch Screen Workbench and Entity Workbench windows are complete too.

AIDE for LightSwitch Entity Workbench – Related items/screens

Xpert360 are providing a free upgrade to the new version of AIDE for LightSwitch for all existing customers.

The facility to exchange screens between LightSwitch projects (V1, V2, V3 and V4 projects with a few restrictions) is predicted to be a great help for those users upgrading LightSwitch 2010 and LightSwitch 2012 projects to VS2013.

When upgrades fail, projects become unloadable, extensions are outdated, AIDE for LightSwitch will be there to help you through! Our consultants and support staff have real-world experience of tricky LightSwitch project upgrades, including reconstruction and resurrection of corrupt projects. Contact us if your need help troubleshooting.

The next Vs2013 update on the blog will be for the VS2013 RTW release next week. We will have final news of all the upgrades and confirmation of release dates shortly afterwards.

Conclusions

The Visual Studio 2013 RTW date and official virtual launch day are fast approaching. Xpert360 have been busy upgrading samples, themes, extensions and tools ready for VS2013. It is going really well and we eagerly await the launch!

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Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, based upon three decades of IT experience, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2012 – 2013.

Specify Ports after Upgrading LightSwitch HTML Clients to VS2013

Specify Ports after Upgrading LightSwitch Clients to VS2013!

When upgrading LightSwitch applications to Visual Studio 2013 you will have a smoother experience if you heed the advice in this article…

This article is part of a series of posts from Xpert360 Development Team to address real world scenarios and problems faced when designing, creating and implementing Visual Studio LightSwitch applications. Brought to you by the original and genuine Power Tools for Visual Studio LightSwitch!

I planned to upgrade a LightSwitch HTML client application from VS2012 to VS2013 RC. After the upgrade I would be running the two versions of the project side by side to test and compare.

I also wanted to try some new VS2013 features and work through implementing some “Drag and Drop with LightSwitch HTML Client” as described by Rohit Agrawal on the Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog. Go read the post if you have not yet done so.

LightSwitch HTML Client drag and drop

So here I create a standard View Details Screen for the Locations entity. I wired-up some views of the Tables entity and added the drag and drop code. Some more work to do, but as this is VS2012 and the new ‘.refresh‘ method is in VS2013 I upgraded a copy of the project.

The upgrade process took a minute and the project rebuild worked. The application runs fine, still a bit of work to do.

VS2013 LightSwitch HTML Client drag and drop

We can see that not surprising some of the styling changed and some customizations need attention. Now the Refresh button on the command bar works.

Then it started to go horribly wrong as the two Visual Studio projects conflicted and I found myself running the project in VS2013 debugger and debugging the VS2012 JavaScript!

Web Project Properties in the project file (.csproj)

I resolved the conflict by changing the Development Server Port and the port for the Web site in IIS Express. Then I continued testing side by side with no problems.

IIS Express Running Apps -VS2012/13

All is well here in IIS Express with the two projects running and being concurrently debugged.

Conclusions

This particular feature affects the Rich Client Silverlight clients and the HTML Mobile Client varieties. As we are often copying projects and switching between versions of Visual Studio this is the next step after upgrading and rebuilding a project.

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Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2012 – 2013.

Something you should know about LightSwitch Screens – Part 2

Hidden secrets of LightSwitch Screens continued!

Is this something you should be concerned with? Let us re-phrase that, do you have a rich-client LightSwitch application? Then in all likelihood the answer is yes (unless you have not progressed past some one screen wonder bit of demoware). Thought so, you had better read on…

This article is part of a series of posts from Xpert360 Development Team to address real world scenarios and problems faced when designing, creating and implementing Visual Studio LightSwitch applications. Brought to you by the original and genuine Power Tools for Visual Studio LightSwitch!

You may be asking yourself “Can this happen to me?”. Continuing with the previous blog article’s Contoso application (Part #1), let us create a new screen.

LightSwitch Contoso Add List and Details Screen

So here I create a standard List and Details Screen for the Appointments entity. That is it, we now have some optimisation work to do. Was that too easy to reproduce?

Appointments List Detail screen hidden items

Using the LightSwitch Screen Workbench we can see the hidden screen content items. These screen content items can be viewed using the standard LightSwitch Screen Designer, it is just that the metadata is not so obvious and accessible as in the AIDE for LightSwitch views.

Appointments List Detail hidden items

This is where your powers of observation come into play. It is obvious is it not? The hidden items are listed in the properties window there on the right. Surely you noticed this before. You select a hidden item and the designer… selects and displays its parent node.

Anyone for editing the Client.lsml or the AppointmentsListDetails.lsml in VS2013? In this case you don’t need to.

Using the Contoso Home screen example from earlier here is how to delete the items. First switch the parent screen item from Summary to Columns Layout.

Contoso Home List Summary

Then select the exposed items and delete them (click then shift-click to select multiple items). Press delete and they are gone.

Contoso Home List Columns

Then switch the view back from Columns Layout to Summary. Done!

These are just simple examples, extra screen items can be littered across your screens. If you switch an item’s view from Summary to a grouping then back again, the mere act of doing this will create the extra items but will not remove them.

When we move to more complex, larger real-world application this can get to be a serious problem. This next example shows an entity with wide rows from the Dynamics CRM data adapter. Take Contacts or Accounts, they have many properties and screens can suffer from severe performance degradation both at design-time and run-time.

Dynamics CRM Contact List Detail in LightSwitch

Here you can see that the Contacts entity has 153 properties. The simple Contacts List Detail screen has more than 300 screen content items due to the hidden items doubling-up. If you deleted most of the visible Contact properties, perhaps leaving 10 visible, you would quite likely expect the screen metadata to be small. Unfortunately with the hidden 150 items it will not be. That is, unless you take action.

When optimising existing screens you will have to ensure that you did not access the extra items in custom code-behind. It is unlikely.

If you can use the standard LightSwitch Screen Designer to make these optimisations then the process must be legitimate, is it not?

Conclusions

This particular feature only affects the Rich Client Silverlight screens, not the HTML Mobile Client variety. It affects LightSwitch in VS2010, VS2012 and VS2013 varieties. This mostly affects List Detail screens and the default Summary property of the main entity. However it can afflict any screen with Summary items, it depends on what you did in the screen designer!

You need to use AIDE for LightSwitch views to more easily see the extra hidden screen items. You can struggle through with the property window list of screen items, but with complex screens this is difficult [in the standard LightSwitch Screen Designer].

If you use AIDE for LightSwitch Explorer or Screen Workbench you can obtain a list of the screen contents and export them to Excel. Then you can use Excel’s data table auto-filtering feature for further analysis.

Stay safe and may your LightSwitch applications perform better, until next time…

Oh, and the answer was No, I did edit the Client.lsml metadata, perish the thought.

Experiencing screen designer freezes and hangs? look HERE and HERE cast your votes and register your interest. It looks like more pressure is needed before this will be taken seriously. Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 onwards and VS2013 RC when your project supports globalization/localization.

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Try them and support your LightSwitch tooling ISVs.

Also, do participate in forums and vote on your desired AIDE features. Help us to help you by prioritising the features in the product roadmap. VS2013, check! Export/Import entities and settings, check! Do you want to shape data to exclude columns? How about a localization workbench? Optimization workbench? Update metadata in bulk? That is a flavour of a few forthcoming features and ideas, we always keep a few things secret to surprise you!

ooo

Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2013.

Something you should know about LightSwitch Screens – Part 1

Hidden secrets of LightSwitch Screen Contents!

So you think you know your screens, what is the point of this post? No, seriously, look again real close. Notice anything… odd, out of place, you should. Test your powers of observation and be more inquisitive. Do you have a LightSwitch Rich Client application? If so you had better read on…

This article is part of a series of posts from Xpert360 Development Team to address real world scenarios and problems faced when designing, creating and implementing Visual Studio LightSwitch applications. Brought to you by the original and genuine Power Tools for Visual Studio LightSwitch!

Let us start by looking at a Contoso based LightSwitch application. Here it is looking rather fetching in its Jetpack-style theme.

Contoso Home Screen – Jetpack Theme

Could this simple screen be hiding any secrets? You would think not. Hats off to you if you do know the hidden secret behind this home screen. Here it is again in screen designer.

Design view of Contoso Home Screen

Look closer. No, the secret is not the globalised labels. In fact we cannot see the hidden secret in the above screen shot. We need to take a different view.

LightSwitch Screen Workbench -Contoso Home Screen Content

If you use AIDE for LightSwitch Explorer or Screen Workbench you can obtain a list of the screen contents. In the above example I have exported the list to Excel and marked up the content for easier viewing.

Look closely at the screen content items and match them up with the designer view. Hidden underneath the RowTemplate item we have 15 other items that correspond to the properties of the Appointment entity.

These screen items are expected, they seem kind of plausible, they are necessary to the functioning of the screen. Is any of this statement correct? Err… No! Take a look at this modified set of screen contents taken from AIDE Screen Workbench.

Contoso Home Screen Content Optimised

With these screen contents the resulting Home screen appearance is the same as before. Really it is, it works fine. It did not need the hidden items. I use the LightSwitch Exchange Hub for quick backup and restore and in this case it shows the real size difference in the Home screen metadata.

Exchange Hub Home Screen change detectedand backed-up

Then looking at the before and after Home screen metadata backup-ups.

Backup Home Screen metadata size

So this simple Home screen’s metadata has shrunk from 19KB to 11KB. You may be asking yourself, did I edit the Client.lsml file, well did I?

Until next time…

[continue to Part #2]

ooo

Try them and support your LightSwitch tooling ISVs.

Also, do participate in forums and vote on your desired AIDE features. Help us to help you by prioritising the features in the product roadmap. VS2013, check! Export/Import entities and settings, check! Do you want to shape data to exclude columns? How about a localization workbench? Optimization workbench? Update metadata in bulk? That is a flavour of a few forthcoming features and ideas, we always keep a few things secret to surprise you!

ooo

Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider based in the United Kingdom.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2013.

Backup – AIDE for LightSwitch Exchange Hub

This article is part of a series of posts from Xpert360 Development Team to address real world scenarios and problems faced when designing, creating and implementing Visual Studio LightSwitch applications.

Exchange Hub in Xpert360 Lightning AIDE V1.1 Release

The original and genuine Power Tools for Visual Studio LightSwitch!

The Exchange Hub is a feature new to AIDE for LightSwitch V1.1. This release of the power tools is being packaged as I write. The upgrade is free to existing users who will be contacted in the coming days. The next version targets VS2013 and we are pleased to announce that our loyal customers will also receive this at no additional cost (subject to license purchased by end of September 2013). In this post we will demonstrate the features and usage of backup.

AIDE for LightSwitch is supplied as a signed Visual Studio Extension. The AIDE software is integrated into the Visual Studio IDE as standard and familiar dockable windows. It now supports VS2012 themes: light, dark and blue.

New AIDE for LightSwitch Menu

All the AIDE windows including the Exchange Hub can be accessed from the ‘Tools’ menu (also from ‘View’ menu ‘Other Windows’ by default).

Upon first launch you will need to dock the Exchange Hub window in a suitable location in the Visual Studio IDE.

Using AIDE to detect screen changes

The Backup tab manages screen backups and detects modifications made since the last backup. To take a backup you simply need to select all items using the top checkbox and click on Backup. The Exchange Hub looks after all the behind the scenes work and only backs up screens that have been modified. It skips past screens not changed since the last backup.

Exchange Hub backup run – dark theme

The backup runs are very fast and take less than a second for this Contoso application. In this screen shot, the Exchange Hub detected changes to the screens highlighted in green and backed them up. I popped-up the VS2012 output pane so that you can see the logged details of the backup. Information is  logged here from all corners of AIDE for LightSwitch.

Screen backups are stored one per file, very similar to the new metadata storage structure coming in Visual Studio 2013.

The in-built Restore feature allows for screens to be modified and rolled-back if you want to discard changes made since the last backup. The Exchange Hub does keep multiple backups.

Under the covers here is the additional folder structure automatically created and managed by the Exchange Hub.

Backup folder structure

You don’t need to look here in normal day-to-day usage. The ‘_AIDE‘ folder stores all the files necessary. There are further sub-folders, ‘_Client‘ and ‘_HTMLClient‘, one for each LightSwitch client, that hold backup files.

The source code control folders can be added to TFS or similar to track changes to individual screens, not the larger full ‘Client.lsml‘ metadata file. This is unique to VS2012. The ‘Export‘ folder is the default location for the Export and Import features that will be demonstrated in later blog articles.

Try them and support your LightSwitch tooling ISVs.

Also, do participate in forums and vote on your desired AIDE features. Help us to help you by prioritising the features in the product roadmap. VS2013, check! Export/Import entities and settings, check! Do you want to shape data to exclude columns? How about a localization workbench? Optimization workbench? Update metadata in bulk? That is a flavour of a few forthcoming features and ideas, we always keep a few things secret to surprise you!

ooo

Company information: Xpert360 Ltd, founded in 2009, is an Independent Software Vendor and Custom Solution Provider base in the UK.

“Xpert360 Lightning” and “AIDE for LightSwitch” are trademarks of Xpert360 Ltd, copyright 2013.