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Product Description

Silverlight 4 has the potential to revolutionize the way we build business applications. With its flexibility, web deployment, cross-platform capabilities, rich .NET language support on the client, rich user interface control set, small runtime, and more, it comes close to the perfect platform in which to build business applications. It’s a very powerful technology, and despite its youth, it’s moving forward at a rapid pace and is gaining widespread adoption.

This book will guide you through the process of designing and developing enterprise-strength business applications in Silverlight 4 and C#. You will learn how to take advantage of the power of Silverlight to develop rich and robust business applications, from getting started to deployment, and everything in between.

In particular, this book will serve developers who want to learn how to design business applications, and introduce the patterns to use, the issues that you’ll face, and how to resolve them. Chris Anderson, who has been building line-of-business applications for years, demonstrates his experience through a candid presentation of how to tackle real-life issues, rather than just avoid them. Developers will benefit from his hard-won expertise through business application design patterns that he shares throughout the book.

With this book in hand, you will

• Create a fully functional business application in Silverlight
• Discover how to satisfy all of the general requirements that most business applications need
• Develop a business application framework

What you’ll learn

• How to structure your project to ensure a robust and maintainable application
• How to create user interfaces with XAML and bind controls to data
• How to communicate securely between the server and the client
• How to view and maintain data within a Silverlight user interface
• How to design unique user experiences and use advanced styling techniques
• How to implement standard business application paradigms in Silverlight

Who is this book for?

This book is for developers experienced in other .NET technologies, such as WinForms or ASP.NET, looking to translate their existing skills to developing business applications with Silverlight. Patterns and methodologies associated with building robust applications will be introduced and are not prerequisite knowledge.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with Sliverlight
2. Designing User Interfaces with XAML
3. The Navigation Framework
4. Server/Client Communication using RIA Data Services
5. Summary Lists
6. Building Data Entry Forms
7. Securing Your Application
8. Styling Your Application
9. Advanced XAML and Data Binding
10. Creating Custom Controls
11. Complex User Interface Elements
12. Model View View-Model (MVVM) Architecture
13. Reporting and Printing
14. Test Driven Development, Dependency Injection, and Unit Testing
15. Data Caching, Local File Access, and COM
16. Application Deployment

About the Author

Chris Anderson has been a professional developer for over 10 years now, specializing in building desktop, web, and mobile business applications using Microsoft technologies for industries as wide ranging as accounting, property valuation, mining, the fresh produce industry, pet cremations, logistics, field services, sales, and construction. Now running his own business he has turned to Silverlight as the ideal new technology for developing and deploying business applications. Chris currently resides in Sydney, Australia.

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In this post, Jose Luis Latorre Millas discusses how to set the SelectedItem on the corresponding DataGrid property.

I have been developing a Silverlight business application and one of the problems I have found is the “inconsistency” of the DataGrid… at least of some of its behaviors, when I click on a row, I expect that the SelectedItem (the clicked one) is set on the corresponding DataGrid property.

But it does not. at least not “always”, lets be clear maybe I’m doing something wrong but this randomness on this behavior is driving me crazy, if I click on a Grid row, it should select it and mark the SelectedItem on the corresponding property, right? 

Tau Sick has created a multitasking stopwatch for Windows Phone 7.

In .NET Rocks! Show number 578 about the Silverlight Pivot Viewer, a listener writes in about the lack of multitasking in Windows Phone 7.

He points out that he often uses a stopwatch on Android and let it “run in the background” while doing other tasks.

This is a perfect example of something that is entirely possible on WP7 if you try to change your mindset and look at what’s possible instead of focusing on limitations.

In this article, Mahesh Sabnis demonstrates how to use the ‘IDataErrorInfo’ interface which is newly provided in Silverlight 4 under System.ComponentModel namepsace.

Silverlight 4.0 has several new features and it has been listed down well over here. One of the most exciting features of Silverlight 4.0, is its capability for building Line-of-Business (LOB) applications. Last week I was conducting a training program for one of my client on VS 2010, where I was asked lots of queries regarding Silverlight 4.0 and its capabilities as compare of its earlier versions. In this article, I will discuss one of the questions on Data Validation in Silverlight 4.0.

On TemplateMonster.com you can find some very cool Silverlight templates. Unfortunately they are not free, but you can check them anyway.

Silverlight templates are basically pre-made animated design products made with the Silverlight technology - a new solution from Microsoft. The templates made with this technology allow premium animation as well as a fair extent of interactivity available within the animation. Our Silverlight templates - as every other design product from TemplateMonster - are based upon our premium designs and are simply perfect for whatever the needs you may have.

Shawn Wildermuth has recorded a little video demonstrating how to use Visual Studio 2010 and to debug directly on the device.

I am really happy with the experience. Debugging with the emulator is fast too, but there are times when you want to make sure it works on the device and that the performance is what you expect on the device.

In the previous part from the series, Shawn talked about the phone itself.

Vincent Leung suggests you to check some courses which will teach you in the fundamentals of Silverlight and Expression Studio.

Start with basic techniques and build your skills to create more advanced applications. Design Scenarios is comprised of four levels that increase in difficulty with three training modules per level. Each module deconstructs a Silverlight application to teach you must-know features and techniques.

All great applications start with a foundation in design. The Design Principles track gets back to basics with key design concepts that will help you create slick and functional web applications. Each of the four level groupings contains three modules, each focused on design fundamentals.

In this snippet we are going learn how to create a new sketchflow project and build a sitemap.

In this snippet we are going learn how to create a new sketchflow project and build a sitemap. Resolution 1024.

In this snippet we are going learn how to add a custom navigation bar to our prototype, we will learn how to use the hand drawn buttons and how to create the same bar using sketchflow styles controls. 640 resolution.

In this snippet we are going learn how to add a custom navigation bar to our prototype, we will learn how to use the hand drawn buttons and how to create the same bar using sketchflow styles controls. 1024 resolution.

In this snippet we are going to learn how to add hand drawn pages to our current prototype. 640 resolution.

In this snippet we are going to learn how to add hand drawn pages to our current prototype. 1024 resolution.

In this snippet we are going to learn which tools have final users / clients available to let them provide feedback directly using the Sketchflow navigator. 640 resolution.

In this snippet we are going to learn which tools have final users / clients available to let them provide feedback directly using the Sketchflow navigator. 1024 resolution.

In this snippet we are going to learn how to replace our hand drawn page content with a layout built using Sketchflow style controls. 640 resolution.

In this snippet we are going to learn how to replace our hand drawn page content with a layout built using Sketchflow style controls. 1024 resolution.

Leblanc Meneses has published a great, very detailed post explaining configuration in Silverlight and a standalone file uploader.

ConfigurationManager, the commonly used .NET configuration API, is unavailable in Silverlight applications. The minimum code option is to deserialize an XML configuration file, or to read from initParams.

While most Silverlight applications only need Service endpoints updated in ServiceReferences.ClientConfig, there are occasions where a PRISM module may be needed to support reconfiguration. When this happens, I use an MSBuild task to create and/or merge the correct settings into a module.xml within the PRISM module, using a strongly typed object representing the XML file. I also deserialize the XML file to retrieve its values.

Sir Spray-Z is a simple drawing application for creating graffiti images using up to five spray paint cans, lines, rectangles, or ellipses. Watch the spray cans shake as you select a color for each can. Click the gray bar to hide the toolbox and draw on the entire browser window. Go to http://sirsprayz.com/ to use this fun application.

I wrote an article on my Blog in which I describe a technique as a workaround on how to "add" additional events to a Silverlight 4 Storyboard. The Silverlight 4 Storyboard class only has one single event, which is the Completed event. There a numerous needs to add additional events to a storyboard but because the Storyboard class is sealed this isn't possible. So we need a workaround which is provided by the StoryboardEventHelper class. The StoryboardEventHeler class that is build step by step in the article implements two addititional events (OnStoryboardStarted and OnStoryboardPositionChanged) that provide for example the opportunity to easily change the VisualState of any Object at a certain timeline position of a running storyboard. In addition to the article you can view a small sample app and download the full sourcecode at the Expression Gallery.

Have fun!